While I don't really identify with the coast-to-coast majority Canadian identity that encompasses Tragically Hip/Red Green/Juno Awards/Trailer Park Boys/Peter Mansbridge/Ron and Don on Coach's Corner/Pierre Berton/the Brier/Kids in the Hall/Group of Seven/Second City/Degrassi/Rush/Strombo/Ghomeshi, etc., I know it well enough (as you can see) to find your post borderline insulting.

As if there isn't anything Canadian (except for maybe Drake and The Weeknd) that can be modern.

I've said it before on here that if the Americans and their celebrities or some rich British media mogul decided that curling was a cool sport, all the same people who diss it today would all of sudden think it's the hottest shit ever.

We're all being manipulated. The only real difference is that some of us are aware of this and some of us aren't.

This thread just shows the collective average age of the Canada forum is 45-50+.

For young people locked into social media and reddit soccer and basketball rule. They are the most accessible content wise and playing wise most young people will have exposure to basketball or soccer at school in Canada versus any other sport.

Baseball isn't as easy to set up these days, hockey has prohibitive costs, football requires too many resources and many schools don't want to go through the liability steps. Every school has a gym with a hoop and every school has a patch of grass or something close to it which are all you need to play basketball and soccer (soccer and basketball are also gender balanced in the sense girls grow up playing he same style and rules of both unlike the variety of softball or ring hockey that girls play. When they reach HS the same hoop is there and the same box with its goal box is there on the pitch. Every school that has a male basketball or soccer team likely has a girls team as well which just adds to the exposure while young).

Again NBA isn't the top dog and still trails NFL and MLB in pure terms but the NBA has a larger upside with a YOUNGER fans base that is more global and more engaged via digital means.

NBA fans these days remind me of baseball and hockey fans when I was kid. Every young person was a fan of either. These days Steph Curry has replaced Ken Griffey as the coolest guy in sports. Hell, even Stephen Curry''s (Canadian) wife has made a name for herself with a widely popular cooking show and book.*

More examples. First, if you pop open Snapcaht the bulk of sports content is always soccer and NBA. Snapchat has the youngest core user base out of all the social media platforms. Second, NBA also recently did a collaboration with streetwise brand SUPREME which is currently the most hyped and hard to get clothing wear among the youth (where are the other leagues ? I could see MLB getting wise to do a collaborative project as the did do one with the Yankees a few years ago). Third, the NBA reddit has over a million subcribers and is the most popular reddit for all the major sports (reddit is another platform with a VERY young user base).

What will happen when these kids get older, turn into adults and start to get money? What sporting products will they support and consume?

Nothing against old people but the ignorance to not see this is astounding. Of course it must be some "conspiracy" that baketball is getting popular and not the fact that younger generations are just more into it along with soccer. Many on here sound old and out of touch with what is going on with the youth.

*Odd enough that many youth, their first exposure to NBA was Steve Nash and the Suns.

Nice try to make it generational.

Rousseau is about the same age as me (mid to late 40s?) and I have no idea of elly's age. GlassCity is quite young - probably in his early 20s.

And we all have varied opinions on both sides of the debate.

Don't forget that my generation was the first one to truly embrace MLB as a "domestic" thing with the Expos and the Blue Jays. We also (well, not me personally but my generation certainly did) almost relegated the CFL to the graveyard when we became totally enamoured with the NFL. Again... this was also a generational first in Canada.

And BTW I love soccer... just in case you were wondering. Basketball, not so much.

wrong thread....

Wrong thread maybe? :)

More than any national group I have ever met, there is a high prevalence among Canadians of this obsession of having the best or the coolest tastes. To the exclusion of everything else.

It reminds me of someone I know who only drinks Coke, and for whom the thought of Pepsi touching her lips is about the same as drinking liquid shit.

Try putting together a group of friends to go out and see a *Canadian* movie just for fun and see what happens. Note the number of people who will immediately react and say they NEVER watch Canadian movies. NEVER EVER. No openness whatsoever to giving one a shot - not even once.

Just to make some of you guys happy, people in Quebec do this too. For certain things anyway.

Last fall when the Grey Cup was in Ottawa, there was a decent amount of media coverage on both sides of the river. Our local Radio-Canada show host was starting to talk about it, and instead of turning to the sports guy on one side, she mistakenly turned to the entertainment guy and started to talk to him about the Grey Cup. To which he immediately responded: "Oh, you picked the wrong guy to talk about the CFL. I don't know anything about the CFL or the Grey Cup. Nada. The NFL, sure, no problem. But the CFL? NOPE. NOTHING AT ALL."

Malaise.

It was almost like "eeeewww, don't let that CFL thing touch me!"

I just can't for the life of me imagine an NFL nut saying that about MLB on a Boston station, or an NBA fan saying that about March Madness...

We are likely at an age gap where when you were just ending high school I was just a small kid and just getting into sports. I can't dismiss that exposures and experiences as a child shaped my sports tastes.

This isn't to slam older folks, I just get annoyed when older folks dismiss half of the population who is younger like they don't exist. The demographics and trends go contrary and to the exact opposite of how many in this thread view the sports landscape. We keep bringing dated TV numbers as that is the 'old way' of measuring things but metrics such as social media and other points are key and critical to measure how popular a sport is. We keep using dated 'TV number' metrics when most young people don't even have a cord connected to their TV and don't get cable.

NFL is most watched sport in North America but it may not even exist in 25 years the way trends are going. This is probably the starkest example of the reality of trend shifts versus old dated metrics solely using TV numbers. You look are purely TV, NFL is king, but look at youth participation and engagement and it is cratering big time and the NFL is sweating about it internally (NFL is also the most limited in upside, where will it expand to? London, UK? It's TV numbers have peaked, it can't get any bigger than it already is. Future legalized sports betting may be the only other revenue surge/boost it can explore domestically in the USA. Every other league - CFL included - has some room to grow; NFL not so much).

Also, back to the age thing... it goes both ways... IMO young people are too dismissive of older people's work experiences, the Startup and Tech community is notorious for having a bias and hatefest on for older folks for example. End of the day both groups can learn from each other and should be able to look at their experiences with respect and learn from each other.

^ FWIW lack of growth potential is not really a major issue when it comes to the NFL. If you own an ice cream stand that clears a million dollars a year, what do you really care if business is pretty well maxed out and growing less than 1% annually? It's still an amazing business. Besides, if the NFL wanted to add 6 teams tomorrow there would be at least 25 cities prepared to fight over them.

But that said the immense legal liability from concussions, as well as the potential threat that poses to the continued existence of amateur football as we know it today, are major looming threats to the NFL's vitality as a league.

I am not sure there are 6 markets that could afford the NFL's price of entry with the expansion fee of nearly $1 billion. It is more limited then we imagine, hence my line about the limits to growth.

These sports are a growth business. Revenues must grow. They are not happy with just maintaining what they have. My premise is that the NFL, even though it makes buckets of cash, is the most limited in how it can grow that bucket. Every other league has lots of room for upside as they can scale beyond the USA market to source different revenue streams.

This is probably the most important point for the future of the NFL and football as a whole. Here's an article from the Chicago Tribune highlighting the issue:

The NFL today is totally fine with growing franchise valuations and revenue streams still doing pretty well, but it's the long-term viability that's a bit of a concern. Youth participation takes a generation cycle (~15-20 years) to take hold and have its affect.

Osmo is correct when he says that the NFL has the lowest ceiling of any of the major professional sports. There's really no growth potential for expansion, they've priced out most markets domestically, and there's fewer and fewer youth playing (and fewer people going to games). Combine this with limited TV rights contracts and sponsors who may be wary of concussions (or disrespecting the anthem) and it's not looking overly positive on the horizon. Something will have to give if the league looks for growth in the near-term future.

Message boards are definitely geared towards an older crowd...they sprung up 15-20 years ago and haven't changed much since. Young people are going to be drawn to other avenues of discussion (social media) as the older folks, us, stay here. Proof of this is in the registration dates for members who post here: Very rarely is there someone posting regularly who registered in the past five years, and most frequent posters joined the site 10+ years ago. The opinions on this board are always going to be an incredibly small sample-size of how society at large is feeling.

I think the entertainment business (which includes pro sports broadcasting) is still struggling to properly assess, measure and cash in on live streaming and other formats that are alternatives to TV. Figuring out just how many eyeballs are paying attention to your offerings is a bit of a mess these days.

I strongly doubt that the NFL is truly dropping in popularity in the U.S. at this point. Any visit to any NFL city on a gameday will dispel any notion that that league is in any way lacking a devoted fanbase that is diverse (in terms of age, race, sex, etc.) and that shows every sign of renewing itself.

I know the seasons are structured differently, but the NBA doesn't haven't anywhere near that comprehensive civic energy except for the later rounds of its playoffs.

Yeah I'm 22, and regardless I don't see how this affects the conversation. We're all in agreement that hockey is losing ground to other sports for both those born in Canada and immigrants alike. The question is more about whether this is a bad thing or not.

First, I'd challenge your premise of soccer and basketball being the most popular sports among the youth. Obviously this is regional and anecdotal, but stretching into the widest and loosest regions of my social network, I'd say that "don't watch sports" is on top, with the NFL, NHL, MLB all coming ahead of NBA and soccer in Vancouver. In Winnipeg, it seems to be NHL and CFL first, not sure what comes after that. I'll admit that I have little contact with the core immigrant groups that would be more into soccer and basketball so my perception is skewed, but I still can't imagine that if you did a survey of the entire population aged 12-18 or whatever you want to use that football or hockey wouldn't come out on top.

Now to address some of your points:

I don't see how the NBA or soccer is any more accessible content wise for the internet generation. I watch NHL, CFL and NBA and stream all occasionally, I have apps for all of them, etc.

And with regards to participation in these various sports, I've never played a game of ice hockey in my life yet I've been a fan most of my life. Also, we played a ton of street hockey in the school yard when I was little and that was very accessible - plastic stick from Canadian mufucka and a tennis ball. Football isn't the easiest sport to play either and yet i doubt it has as much trouble gaining popularity among immigrant communities in the US.

To your point about coolness and Snapchat and Supreme and what not, that's what we're talking about. Why is that allure so much more powerful than the natural cultural influence that can be produced at home? Why has that cultural influence fallen off in favour of these external influences?

All in all, I'm still confused about the actual point of your argument. We're lamenting the fact that basketball is more popular with young immigrants, you call us out of touch and proceed to state that basketball is more popular with young people? I honestly don't see where the rift is here. No one referenced a conspiracy - just if there's a culture war between Canada & hockey and external forces (US) & basketball, Canada's losing. I understand the reasons why, including those you mentioned, but also hip hop culture. But that doesn't mean we have to see that as a neutral development.

The fact that this seems natural and as no big deal to you is what we're talking about. If the NFL was suddenly dying with soccer taking its place, you can bet that Americans would not look at that so agnostically. Similarly, maybe Icelandic youth are largely consuming American media as well, but I'd be surprised if that was perceived as a positive thing there.

It's fine if globalization brings things like anime into North American culture because people tat watch it are still likely to watch local shows too. But if hockey and basketball (for example) fan bases become stratified along age or demographics, I don't think that's a good thing. Nations need common denominators, and we're losing one of our only ones.

Finally, your last paragraph about hosers and mullets is a lot of what I'm talking about. Canadian is perceived as provincial and embarrassing, the global is what's cool. This is an unhealthy dynamic to be so widespread.

Sometimes I wonder if the NFL of the future won't be similar to the Running Man (remember that?) or Hunger Games.

Maybe not in the sense that players will be forced to take part, but at least that they'll be limited those willing to take on a high level of physical risk for extreme financial gain. (None of them from "good" families of course.) But the general public's appetite for the game itself is unlikely to diminish.

One could say that that's already been the case for a while in pro football, but I suspect that it may move even closer to sports like boxing and UFC when it comes to those optics.

Would North Americans and other non-Japanese people around the world even know what anime is if the Japanese themselves had seen it as worthless and totally shunned it?

^ Knowing what people know now about the physical risk involved in playing football, I have to wonder why anyone would let their children participate. I think people here know that I'm a big football fan, but I don't think that I could, in good conscience, let my kids play tackle football. I can stomach hockey but football is a bridge too far.

The funny thing is many football players go on to 'brainy' careers... look no further than CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie himself. But the risk just seems so vast. I know this guy's family and he is really an embodiment of the nightmare scenario.

I think the player pool in the future will be drawn mainly from kids whose families don't know or don't care about the risks involved. Which is kind of scary considering that the game isn't getting any gentler even if awareness of concussion protocols has increased greatly.

I have to admit I’ve never heard of Steph Curry or his wife (at least he has one; that sounds vaguely retrograde in this age of triumphal modernity). Your argument is completely circular, though: basketball is becoming popular because ... basketball is becoming popular and ... well, things that “are going on with the youth” such as the growing popularity of basketball among them. It’s not really getting us to the bottom of the phenomenon, which obviously has to do with the youth’s having been submerged in globalized mass consumer culture as dominated by American corporate interests.

Never heard of Curry either until now.

If I were to ask the kids in my neighbourhood who the "coolest guy in sports" is, my guess on the name that would come up would be Sidney Crosby, PK Subban, and maybe some international soccer stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or maybe Neymar.

My kids aren't into sports at all and can't name any NBA players AFAIK. They do know some hockey player names and some soccer stars though.

It's the passive people who give you a good indicator of who the real big names are.

That's surprising to me. I think if I was to take a similar survey about athletes with the most clout, it would be mostly NBA stars with a couple NFL players mixed in. In Canada maybe Sidney Crosby but I think that'd be it. Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron for sure. When it comes to sport celebrity, I don't think any league does it better than the NBA.

I certainly knew of basketball and NFL stars when I was growing up. Joe Namath and Wilt Chamberlain were about the biggest celebrities in the young boy’s world at the time (along with Mohammed Ali and Evel Knievel). But they still seemed foreign and not really having that much to do with me, unlike Blue Bombers players, the Canadiens’, Leafs’ or Jets’ players, or even curling stars.