'Sorry, NFL: Baseball Is Still America's Pastime'

For the record, I love both sports. I played baseball, and the sport was pretty much the single biggest presence in my childhood besides my parents. But I covered football for quite a while as an adult. Besides that, I probably haven't missed watching more than a handful of games played by the local NFL team from age 6 or 7 onward.

Ultimately, I just think that they're popular in different ways. Football is event viewing. Baseball is kind of a constant presence during the summer.

Really, I'm surprised that the NBA has never really entered this discussion at all. A lot of people, in fact, aggressively dislike the NBA, despite the fact that there isn't nearly as much stopping and start as there are in baseball and football, and that there are a lot fewer players to keep track of.

 

Dick, I'd say the NBA entered the discussion with Jordan and promptly exited it afterward. Baseball and the NFL had their struggles in the marketplace in the '80s and early '90s.

 

I've heard it posited that the NBA would be more popular if it had a one-and-done tournament like the NCAA has. People don't seem to have the patience for series. Baseball is different, because starting pitching is such a central component of the game. Hockey is a niche sport that the general public doesn't understand anyway. But I think people don't have the patience to see the NBA playoffs through. They are just repeating the same game seven times in a row. Of course, that also happens to give us more of a true champion than any other sport.

 

I'm not claiming this is the reason but more interested in what people have to say. How much of this is because of how black the NBA is? Sure, the NFL has lots of black players, but there are a ton of white players too that white guys feel great cheering on. Romo, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, etc. These are all white guys we can live vicariously through. Are there white males turned off to the NBA because of how black it is, either consciously or subconsciously? I'm not a HUGE NBA fan, but I do like basketball quite a bit. I couldn't tell you exactly why I don't like it. I just never make it a point to watch the games like I do with the other sports. When I was a kid, I lived for watching Jordan, but once I got older I all but lost total interest in the NBA.

I do enjoy baseball and football is my favorite. Doesn't mesh with what's been posted here, but I do go to several NFL games a year. I'm a Packer fan, but I make sure to see them play in two visiting stadiums a year. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but live NFL is my favorite thing in sports.

 

Mizzou, towns where the baseball team is more popular than the football team are usually places where the baseball team's winning and the football team isn't. Most of the best baseball cities, New York, Philly, Detroit, Boston, etc. are places where both sports are very, very popular.

 

The only city I can think of off the top of my head where the baseball team remains more popular than the football team constantly is St. Louis.

 

That's the easy argument, and I'm sure it has something to do with it, but I bet it's more minimal that you think. I honestly think it's because there's a seen-one-NBA-game, seen-'em-all mentality about the league.

 

Again: How are we measuring this?

 

I don't know, but I'm guessing the Cards would outperform the Rams in just about any metric you used. I don't know if there's another city where that is true. I think the Cards could win 70 games and still be everyone's favorite team there.

 

In baseball, football or hockey, a game often turns on 2-3 key plays. In basketball, you only get that if a game is close in the final minute. Otherwise, there usually aren't single plays that swing the outcome. I found this a difficult aspect in writing basketball game stories. It tended to be more about individual game-long performance (John Doe scored 36 points) or trends (the Heat went on a 14-3 run with Duncan on the bench in foul trouble).

 

Mark, I think this is right. There's simply not as much to talk about for the layman after an NBA game. Well, there's more, really. But it's just too much to sort through for the water cooler.

 

Well, since the games don't actually start until the last two minutes...