Will we ever have a modern Green Bay in sports?

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

How is Tampa St Pete so high? Retirees watch a shitload of tv?

The Tampa Media Market is huge. 5,048,418 people.

I should do a thread on media markets by population/politics at some point. Some of them are very interesting.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Never realized that Akron and Canton don't have their own TV stations.

Found this map awhile ago... not really sure of its accuracy:

Interesting.

I'm almost certain that both the far NE county of Maryland (Cecil County) and the most southern county in Delaware are in the Philadelphia Media Market. And if not, they definitely get the broadcasts.

In NJ, there a bunch of counties that are in "both" media markets. Namely, the counties along the 195 corridor: Hunterdon, Mercer, Ocean and Monmouth. Each one might be assigned to one or the other, but they all get the local newscast from both Philadelphia and New York.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Interesting.

I'm almost certain that both the far NE county of Maryland (Cecil County) and the most southern county in Delaware are in the Philadelphia Media Market. And if not, they definitely get the broadcasts.

In NJ, there a bunch of counties that are in "both" media markets. Namely, the counties along the 195 corridor: Hunterdon, Mercer, Ocean and Monmouth. Each one might be assigned to one or the other, but they all get the local newscast from both Philadelphia and New York.

Here's the official DMA from Nielsen: https://thevab.com/storage/app/media/Toolkit/DMA_Map_2019.pdf

Cecil County is in Baltimore and Sussex County is in Salisbury.

Of course, there is some overlap, as TV signals in Washington, for example, reach Anne Arundel and Howard Counties. But officially those are both under Baltimore.

[xzmattzx]

Sussex County is definitely the Salisbury media market. There is also a small mini-media market for Dover/Seaford.

Cecil County is definitely part of the Baltimore media market.

There is overlap, though. You can get Phillies local broadcasts in Sussex County, but you can also get Orioles and Nationals local broadcasts, too. Southern Delaware slightly favors Baltimore teams over Philadelphia teams.

There is even bigger overlap in radio signals. I can get FM radio stations with no trouble in Wilmington, Dover, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Baltimore, York, and Harrisburg. Sometimes, if the weather is clear, I can get FM radio stations from farther away, like New York City, Washington, and Fredericksburg. AM is another story. I can pick up the AM sports radio station in Buffalo pretty easily, and got AM local broadcasts of Boston Bruins games years ago too. I picked up another team's broadcast once, but forgot which team it was.

[xzmattzx]

To answer my own question, and use thoughts from others, I think there is potential.

As established already, a new team in a smaller city would need wide media coverage. So an entire state is pretty much it. Green Bay is the best example.

Next, being the first team of any sport in a state would establish a sports identity, instead of adding to it. That would get people on board. An example of this was how the Vegas Golden Knights got such a good following in the middle of the desert, because Las Vegas finally had a team to call their own.

Grassroots following of the sport in general helps with interest in a professional team. Most of Canada with hockey is an example.

Finally, the place should be pretty big, and maybe a primacy city (such as how Boston or Atlanta are for their states).



My suggestions:

~ An NBA team in Lexington, KY: No team in Kentucky; grassroots following of basketball.
~ Some type of team in Richmond, VA: No team in Virginia (with a large population)

You could also make a case for a team in Albuquerque and Birmingham, but New Mexico and Alabama are a little poorer in general than Virginia and Kentucky. Omaha could maybe work, too, and they shared an NBA team before.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

~ An NBA team in Lexington, KY: No team in Kentucky; grassroots following of basketball.
~ Some type of team in Richmond, VA: No team in Virginia (with a large population)

If the NBA was determined to get into Kentucky, they'd undoubtedly go to Louisville, which has an MSA of 1.3M people. That's like 2.5x the size of lexington. And in a different universe from small town like green bay.

With an MSA of 1.3M people, Richmond is the 44th largest metro area in the nation and is in an entirely different league of city compared to small town like green bay.


There is not going to ever be "a modern green bay in sports". The Packers still playing in green bay is nothing more than a quirky and anachronistic hold-over from a bygone era.

[thoughtcriminal]

It's not always the size of the market that is the determinant. remember LA went almost 20 years without an NFL team, and not many people there complained. then, all of a sudden, they had 2 teams and a $5 billion stadium.
that was a situation where the league loved having no team in LA, so that teams in other markets could hold their cities hostage by threatening to move there unless they got public subsidies for new stadiums. then I guess that strategy served its purpose, as multiple new stadiums were built in that time, so then it became time to get LA their teams and stadium (the Rams and Chargers both relocating back to LA.)
Green Bay is an interesting data point. Lambeau field is old, although I believe it has undergone some renovations. Still, at some point, there will be discussions on replacing it I'm sure, and you'd have to ask whether the Packers would be able to do that or if they would have to relocate.

Another side discussion would be whether major markets could be home to additional teams in the same sport. My home of Philadelphia used to have 2 MLB teams, the Phillies and A's, then the A's of course relocated to KC in the 1950s, then to Oakland in the 1960s, and possibly relocating again now. If the A's do decide to relocate, I think they should consider coming back to their ancestral homeland (although Vegas seems to be the odds-on favorite, so to speak.) But that is another discussion.

I would also add that MLS should be considered in this discussion.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

How is Tampa St Pete so high? Retirees watch a shitload of tv?

Big city with a big coverage area. It's not necessarily viewership volume... Tampa-St. Pete is obviously a large metro area, and its broadcast coverage area encompasses a large territory.

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

As established already, a new team in a smaller city would need wide media coverage. So an entire state is pretty much it. Green Bay is the best example.

You could also make a case for a team in Albuquerque and Birmingham, but New Mexico and Alabama are a little poorer in general than Virginia and Kentucky. Omaha could maybe work, too, and they shared an NBA team before.

Being the "only game in town" for the state, as in the case of Green Bay is certainly vital, but as noted previously, it also has much to do with its location / proximity to multiple other major media markets.

Green Bay has Chicago, Milwaukee, Twin Cities all within 250 miles or so... and all of the media markets contained within that 300 mile radius. Population density.

This is the exact reason why the Packers can continue to exist in Green Bay and why an NFL team in a larger city than Green Bay, like Albuquerque, does not work. Albuquerque's team could garner the whole state of New Mexico's support... but what's that, maybe 2M people in a massive, sparsely populated area? There's simply not enough people (currently) in relatively close proximity getting the broadcast and watching games to make the numbers work, much less filling a large stadium.

We would see Texas or Florida or California or New York (New Jersey) or even Ohio get another NFL team before we'd see a team in a place like Albuquerque.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

With an MSA of 1.3M people, Richmond is the 44th largest metro area in the nation and is in an entirely different league of city compared to small town like green bay.


There is not going to ever be "a modern green bay in sports". The Packers still playing in green bay is nothing more than a quirky and anachronistic hold-over from a bygone era.

Right... and Richmond has another metro of 1.7M in Hampton Roads about 50 miles away.


My question is, how the hell is St. Louis unable to keep an NFL team?

[thoughtcriminal]

Originally Posted by pj3000

My question is, how the hell is St. Louis unable to keep an NFL team?

excellent question. they've tried twice now. they're just not a football market. as I said, it's not always the size of the market, but its makeup and culture. Same reason why Atlanta can't keep a hockey team - they tried twice, with the Flames in the 1970s then again in the 90s with the Threshers. it's just not in their culture there to support hockey. It's not even a southern thing - Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, California all have NHL teams. It's just a quirk of the Atlanta market.
St Louis is known primarily as a baseball town. they used to have 2 teams also, then the Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. They're just large enough to have massive support of one team, but not large enough for a second team.
but for whatever reason, they are not enough of a football town to be able to keep even one team there.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal

excellent question. they've tried twice now. they're just not a football market. as I said, it's not always the size of the market, but its makeup and culture. Same reason why Atlanta can't keep a hockey team - they tried twice, with the Flames in the 1970s then again in the 90s with the Threshers. it's just not in their culture there to support hockey. It's not even a southern thing - Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, California all have NHL teams. It's just a quirk of the Atlanta market.
St Louis is known primarily as a baseball town. they used to have 2 teams also, then the Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. They're just large enough to have massive support of one team, but not large enough for a second team.
but for whatever reason, they are not enough of a football town to be able to keep even one team there.

But the significantly smaller Kansas City market can support both football and baseball?

[thoughtcriminal]

Originally Posted by pj3000

But the significantly smaller Kansas City market can support both football and baseball?

exactly. quirk of the market. St Louis has the Blues in the NHL, but I doubt KC could support a hockey team. in fact I think they tried in the 1970s, but it didn't take.

[SAN Man]

Originally Posted by pj3000

But the significantly smaller Kansas City market can support both football and baseball?

Cincinnati too, plus college football is a big deal over there.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal

exactly. quirk of the market. St Louis has the Blues in the NHL, but I doubt KC could support a hockey team. in fact I think they tried in the 1970s, but it didn't take.

I gotta believe that it's as simple as the owners just wanted to move back to LA and make more $

[SAN Man]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I gotta believe that it's as simple as the owners just wanted to move back to LA and make more $

That's what I'm betting on. That's why the Chargers left SD for LA. Even though the Chargers rent from the Rams and don't have a stadium of their own, their value doubled being in the LA media market. The fanbase in San Diego can and did support an NFL team for 50 years.

[McBane]

Just saying that lots of smaller cities with sports teams....those cities were not once so small. Pittsburgh has three pro teams and Vegas just got their first sports teams in recent years. But over the last 60+ years, Pittsburgh lost half its population while Vegas had the opposite trajectory and today, both metro areas are roughly the same size. When cities like Philly and St. Louis had two baseball teams, places like Charlotte, Miami, Austin, Portland, Phoenix, etc. were tiny and insignificant in comparison.

Also, sports leagues are notoriously greedy (esp the NFL) and in the end, it all comes down to money.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal

Another side discussion would be whether major markets could be home to additional teams in the same sport. My home of Philadelphia used to have 2 MLB teams, the Phillies and A's, then the A's of course relocated to KC in the 1950s, then to Oakland in the 1960s, and possibly relocating again now. If the A's do decide to relocate, I think they should consider coming back to their ancestral homeland (although Vegas seems to be the odds-on favorite, so to speak.)

the A's are not going to be returning to philly. i know some philly old-schoolers would like to see that happen, but it isn't.

i hear this same sentiment from some chicago fanboys about wanting a second NFL team in town to replace the cardinals who left back in the '60s. but that's not going to happen either.

the only markets that will truly support multiple teams in the same major league these days are NYC and LA.

yeah, chicago has two MLB teams, but like the packers, that's just a holdover from the olden days when MLB shoehorned most of its teams into just a handful of cities. back in the golden era, NYC had 3 MLB teams, and chicago, st. louis, boston, and philly all had two (that's 11 of the 16 MLB teams at the time). all of those cities lost their secondary teams in the expansion era except chicago (and NYC eventually got the replaceMETS). the cubs and sox both staying put is now just a quirk of history. but the lackluster stadium support the white sox continue to get, even when they were in 1st place last year, makes me nervous for their long term tenure of staying in chicago. if MLB were being planned from scratch today, in 2022, there's no way they would place two teams in chicago.

and the bay area also still has two MLB teams for now, but after recently losing the NFL raiders to vegas, it looks like they might lose the MLB A's to vegas as well. there's too much potential money to be made out in the desert.

and that's it for multiple team markets outside of NYC and LA.

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal

I would also add that MLS should be considered in this discussion.

MLS is actually a great example of how we won't see "a modern Green Bay in sports".

has MLS been locating teams in small little backwater towns like Green Bay?

hell no, they have yet to place (or even consider placing) a team in any market less than 1M people.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

That's what I'm betting on. That's why the Chargers left SD for LA. Even though the Chargers rent from the Rams and don't have a stadium of their own, their value doubled being in the LA media market. The fanbase in San Diego can and did support an NFL team for 50 years.

Yeah, it's not like the Rams in St. Louis were some expansion team to a new market. St. Louis had pro football since the 1920s or something.

The Cardinals didn't have much success there for most of their existence in St. Louis, but one can say that for a lot of long-standing franchises. Shit, the Steelers sucked for their first 40 years.

I think the owner is just Mr. Moneybags and needs more and more, and just used the old "I need a new stadium and you have to pay for it or I'm leaving" way out. Even though their publicly-funded domed stadium was built in the 90s...

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

Cincinnati too, plus college football is a big deal over there.

Nielson is HQ'd in Cincinnati, BTW.

The Cincinnati/Dayton radio/TV signals have always overlapped, plus you could pick up Lexington UHF. If you lived in Cincinnati in the 80s, there was a signal of some type at pretty much every channel between 2 and 12 (except 8, I think), then tons of faint UHF channels, the greatest of which was Channel 25, which would air old NASCAR races from the 1960s shot on Super 8 back-to-back with Berkeley Student Protest propaganda. It was...amazing.

Channels 19 and 64 were completely independent stations with some crazy local programming (like Eddie Fingers' Basement Tapes, which was kind of like if Elvira was a dude) until the late 80s. 19 became a Fox channel and 64 eventually became a...WB affiliate.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, it's not like the Rams in St. Louis were some expansion team to a new market. St. Louis had pro football since the 1920s or something.

STL didn't really have a strong pro-football pedigree back in the olden days. they had a couple teams here and there (the All-stars and the Gunners) that quickly folded after a season or two, but it wasn't until the NFL Cardinals moved down there from chicago in 1960 that st. louis had a strong and stable NFL presence.

what's kinda interesting is that the NFL cardinal's stint in arizona is now longer than they were in STL, and almost as long as they were in chicago back in the olden days.

Racine Cardinals (1920–1921) - 2 seasons
Chicago Cardinals (1922–1959) - 37 seasons
St. Louis Cardinals (1960–1987) - 27 seasons
Arizona Cardinals (1988–present) - 33 seasons



but i bet there's still a few old-schoolers in SE wisconsin hoping that the team will finally come to its senses and move back to their ancestral home city of Racine.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by McBane

Just saying that lots of smaller cities with sports teams....those cities were not once so small. Pittsburgh has three pro teams and Vegas just got their first sports teams in recent years. But over the last 60+ years, Pittsburgh lost half its population while Vegas had the opposite trajectory and today, both metro areas are roughly the same size. When cities like Philly and St. Louis had two baseball teams, places like Charlotte, Miami, Austin, Portland, Phoenix, etc. were tiny and insignificant in comparison.

Also, sports leagues are notoriously greedy (esp the NFL) and in the end, it all comes down to money.

The City of Pittsburgh lost half its population... not the metro area. And as said before, it's not necessarily about just a city's or metro area's population. But rather media market and team affiliation reach, of which Pittsburgh's extends well beyond its Nielsen area and into all of western and Central PA, into eastern OH, nearly all of WV, and western MD.

When Philly and St. Louis had 2 baseball teams each, it was obviously a different era, when city population really was the main driver for the ability to support multiple pro sports teams.


As a side note... there are rumors being bandied about that Pittsburgh may get an NBA team... owing to the Penguins' new ownership by Fenway Sports Group (as well as development rights of the Lower Hill District) who are bullish on adding an NBA team to their roster.