Rank your city's sports teams by popularity

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ the NFL age gap is very interesting, but equally interesting to me is that all 5 leagues are lower among the 16 -25's. Is that normal?

Speaking incredibly broadly: zoomers don't watch sports. Not nearly as much as previous gens. And if they do they're far more likely to watch eSports.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

But I guess it's becoming a big deal?

Definitely. Streaming in general is massive and people really underestimate the size of the video gaming industry.

[jmecklenborg]

I have talked to a few Bengals fans who made the trip to the Super Bowl. By all accounts, there were more Bengals fans than Rams fans in the building. What's more, Rams fans don't even have established songs/cheers.

The Bengals have 10+ recorded songs dating back to the 1968 polka-ish touchdown song that was written by Paul Brown's next-door neighbor and leader of the "Bird Band" that played under a tent in the end zone until the late 1980s. They still play this polka thing over the PA at Paul Brown Stadium.

I watched the game outdoors in snow flurries in Cincinnati in a crowd of about 5,000 people. It was absolutely hilarious when the crowd booed the aerial shot of the Pacific coastline (Torrance, maybe?) they broadcast right before (or maybe during) the National Anthem. It was somehow the absolutely core LA stereotype that they didn't show the stadium or downtown LA to represent the city but rather a rocky coastline and beach.

[Porky]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

This is the ranking for a white Philadelphia sports fan. If you were black Sixers would be #2 and Flyers wouldn’t even be on the list.

Temple and Villanova basketball would rank higher.

What is your point

[Steely Dan]

^ his point seemed fairly self-evident to me:

the phillies might be #2 among white philly sports fans, but the sixers are #2 among black philly sports fans.


that hardly seems like some unfathomable revelation to me. i mean, is there a market anywhere in the US with both MLB and NBA teams where the MLB team would place ahead of the NBA team among black sports fans in that market?

i can't think of any.

maybe my chicago lens is clouding my perception, but baseball fandom in the US seems to be heavily biased towards whites & latinos.

when i've attended sox games, the crowd is noticeably heavy on those two groups. not that there are no black people in the crowd, but with comiskey being on the southside, which has one of the largest concentrations of black people in the nation, the demo bias of the crowd is quite noticeable. 10x that for wrigley up on the northside.

[BrandonJXN]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I have talked to a few Bengals fans who made the trip to the Super Bowl. By all accounts, there were more Bengals fans than Rams fans in the building. What's more, Rams fans don't even have established songs/cheers.

The Bengals have 10+ recorded songs dating back to the 1968 polka-ish touchdown song that was written by Paul Brown's next-door neighbor and leader of the "Bird Band" that played under a tent in the end zone until the late 1980s. They still play this polka thing over the PA at Paul Brown Stadium.

I watched the game outdoors in snow flurries in Cincinnati in a crowd of about 5,000 people. It was absolutely hilarious when the crowd booed the aerial shot of the Pacific coastline (Torrance, maybe?) they broadcast right before (or maybe during) the National Anthem. It was somehow the absolutely core LA stereotype that they didn't show the stadium or downtown LA to represent the city but rather a rocky coastline and beach.

But the important thing is that the Rams won and the Bengals lost. So let the Bengals have their polka.

[RowanGrad]

Originally Posted by Porky

What is your point

That we should step outside of our bubbles and in Philly's case, take 20% of its metro population into account.

[edale]

Originally Posted by BrandonJXN

But the important thing is that the Rams won and the Bengals lost. So let the Bengals have their polka.

...and the dozens of Rams fans got to feel happy about that. Happy for them

[mrnyc]

and two old cleveland formented teams beat each other, so once again woeful cleveland sports lost.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ his point seemed fairly self-evident to me:

the phillies might be #2 among white philly sports fans, but the sixers are #2 among black philly sports fans.


that hardly seems like some unfathomable revelation to me. i mean, is there a market anywhere in the US with both MLB and NBA teams where the MLB team would place ahead of the NBA team among black sports fans in that market?

i can't think of any.

maybe my chicago lens is clouding my perception, but baseball fandom in the US seems to be heavily biased towards whites & latinos.

when i've attended sox games, the crowd is noticeably heavy on those two groups. not that there are no black people in the crowd, but with comiskey being on the southside, which has one of the largest concentrations of black people in the nation, the demo bias of the crowd is quite noticeable. 10x that for wrigley up on the northside.

I would not be surprised the major demographic groups would rank popularity of teams in their hometown differently, since they may participate in the sports differently. It would be interesting, for example, to see if Hispanics rank baseball and soccer the highest, since many Hispanics play those sports, and they are well represented. I would be curious how the large Asian communities rank the sports in places like LA and SF, as they are very diverse. Also, since sports games are so expensive, who attends is not always representative of all who follows...

[jmecklenborg]

^The NFL owners held the threat of moving to LA over every other city (and especially St. Louis) for over 20 years. But it came at the expense of LA's fanbase.

With the NFL now 100 years old, it's amazing how much energy still exists in the early cities as compared to the Southern cities, West Coast, and transplant cities. In that third category I'd firmly place the Indianapolis Colts, who have a not-rabid fanbase as compared to every other city and team in the region.

It's comical how there exists absolutely no rivalry between the Colts and their nearby teams, despite Indy's very close proximity to Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland.

Also, the Indiana Pacers might be the single most invisible franchise in the NBA. I have lived 100 miles away for about half of my life and I don't even know what their logo looks like.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

It's comical how there exists absolutely no rivalry between the Colts and the nearby teams, despite its close proximity to Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland.

the colts play in the wrong division/conference to have good regional rivalries.

they play in the AFC south (along with houston, nashville, and jacksonville).

the browns, bengals, and steelers are AFC north.

the bears, lions, and packers are NFC north.

cross-division and cross-conference rivalries are hard to maintain in the NFL because the teams typically don't play each other a ton (unless they're both really good and meeting in the playoffs a lot), unlike division rivalries where you're guaranteed 2 regular season games against each other every year, and any playoff match-ups are just pure gravy.

i mean, since moving to Indy in 1984, the colts have only played the bears a total of 10 times (one of those was a Superbowl) over those 38 seasons.

for comparison, the bears have played the packers 10 times since 2017.

how do you have a meaningful rivalry with such infrequent meetings?

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Also, the Indiana Pacers might be the single most invisible franchise in the NBA. I have lived 100 miles away for about half of my life and I don't even know what their logo looks like.

not that it's very intense these days, but bulls/pacers games were a lot of fun back in the 90s when Jordan and Reggie Miller were both in their primes.

[Steely Dan]

expanding on the colts being in the AFC south, if we disregarded historical rivalries altogether and were to realign the divisions based purely on geography, the following 3 AFC teams would do a 3-way switch.

colts - from AFC south to AFC north

ravens - from AFC North to AFC east

dophins - from AFC east to AFC south.

that would make those three divisions make a ton more regional sense.

the AFC west is already as geographically cohesive as it can get.



over in the NFC, the cowboys being in the NFC east is the only real geographical fish out of water story, but with the other 3 NFC divisions all being quite good in terms of regional cohesiveness, there's not a better place to put the cowboys, and all of those historic rivalries with the other NFC east teams do mean a lot in the real world, despite the vast geographic disparity.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I think the Oilers/Titans were in the old AFC Central with the Browns/Ravens, Steelers and Bengals before the divisional realignments in 2002. The Colts were in the east because they were originally in Baltimore, IIRC?

The real outlier was the Arizona Cardinals being in the NFC East (a holdover from their Chicago/St. Louis days?). Cowboys games at Sun Devil Stadium were essentially Dallas home games, especially during the Cowboys 1990s dynasty. The NFC West had pretty significant geographic distances when the Rams were still in St. Louis.

[Chisouthside]

the 1998 NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Bulls and Pacers is legendary.

[jmecklenborg]

The Ravens are the old Browns, which is why they're still in Cleveland's division. There is no historic sports rivalry between Cincinnati and Baltimore, since the Orioles are the in the AL. Oddly, the Bengals tailgate lot is next to the B&O warehouse (now Longworth Hall) that is a virtually identical structure to the one made famous by Camden Yards, at the complete opposite end of the railroad.

[Crawford]

Dolphins-Jets is a pretty big rivalry. Admittedly between two teams that have been terrible of late, but it's a thing. Not sure if it would make sense to remove the Dolphins from traditional rivalries.

You can be geographically distant, even culturally distant, and still rivals. Cowboys-Redskins.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Dolphins-Jets is a pretty big rivalry. Admittedly between two teams that have been terrible of late, but it's a thing. Not sure if it would make sense to remove the Dolphins from traditional rivalries.

You can be geographically distant, even culturally distant, and still rivals. Cowboys-Redskins.

of course, that's why i said:

"if we disregarded historical rivalries altogether and were to realign the divisions based purely on geography"

i wasn't arguing that is necessarily what should happen, just pointing out that the geography of the AFC's divisions is not ideal, particularly for the colts.

[dave8721]

Its not just the Dolphins. Miami in general has no cultural connection or any connection really to any of the other cities that would be in the AFC South. Jacksonville? Tennessee? Indianapolis? Houston? I would argue Indy fits in better with that region than Miami, but I guess you have to stick Miami somewhere.

[Boisebro]

the NFL popularity is so gigantic, the second-most popular sports team in Chicago might be... the Packers.






(this should be fun... )

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Boisebro

the NFL popularity is so gigantic, the second-most popular sports team in Chicago might be... the Packers.

while chicago certainly suffers from a serious case of cheesehead infiltration (really a big10 infiltration from all over the midwest), their numbers wouldn't come anywhere close to overcoming the massive hometown fanbases for the other major league teams.

do you remember any of those monster victory parades/rallies for the bulls, sox, blackhawks, and cubs?



source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lessons-on-building-compa_b_7633580