Rank your city's sports teams by popularity

[bnk]

Some of those seats at Wrigley were really good viewing for football.

But I think only like 30% were good seats close to the sideline or on the second deck in between the 30 yard lines on the side closer to the action. Very good for old people with poor eyesight even with corrective glasses.
I could imagine hearing the game well, like the when the Cubs play there.

Reminds me of the old mad house on Madison.

Really close and above. Like being on top of the action.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Tiger Stadium and the old Yankee Stadium (and later Shea) had similar setups for Detroit and NYC's NFL teams. Not sure if Cleveland Stadium falls in the same realm since the Indians didn't play there full time until the late 1940s?

I think the Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals played at Comiskey Park?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

I think the Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals played at Comiskey Park?

yes, the chicago cardinals played most of their seasons down on the southside at comiskey park, though they did do an 8 year stint at wrigely field in the '30s (not sure about the history of how/why that happened).

here's a cardinals/packers game at comiskey back in '46.


source: https://twitter.com/comiskeycrew/status/1042016601325928448




and when the football cardinals moved down to STL in 1960, they first played at sportsmans park, the home of the baseball cardinals, until the multi-purpose busch memorial stadium was built for both teams in 1966.


source: https://twitter.com/comiskeycrew/status/1042016601325928448

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

So cool, I love seeing sports pics from back in the day for some reason

[Steely Dan]

up until '94, the packers still played 2 "home" games a year down at milwaukee county stadium (home of the brewers).

i think they were the last NFL team to regularly play games in a baseball-specific stadium (and the last one to regularly split "home" games between cities).


source: https://shepherdexpress.com/culture/milw...o-the-packers-said-goodbye-to-milwaukee/

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah, the bears played at wrigely field for their first 50 seasons up until 1970 (when they moved downtown to the MUCH bigger soldier field), which had a capacity of only 46,000 for football games, thanks to a large temporary grand stand built on the east side of the stadium for football season.

this shoehorned arrangement was viewed as a perfectly acceptable venue for NFL football for the first half of the league's existence.


source: https://www.stadiumsofprofootball.com/stadiums/wrigley-field/

That field looks better than what the Raiders played on in Oakland.

We'll likely never see anything like this again in the NFL:


https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/16/photos-last-nfl-game-played-on-dirt/

[Buckeye Native 001]

The Raiders severely fucked up the aesthetics of the coliseum (specifically, the view of the Oakland Hills) with the construction of Mt. Davis

On a more positive note, hopefully tailgating a Packers game at County Stadium was as fantastic as tailgating a Brewers game at County Stadium and Miller Park (or whatever it's called now). Wisconsonites tailgate better than anyone else in the country.

[BrandonJXN]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yes, the chicago cardinals played most of their seasons down on the southside at comiskey park, though they did do an 8 year stint at wrigely field in the '30s (not sure about the history of how/why that happened).

here's a cardinals/packers game at comiskey back in '46.


source: https://twitter.com/comiskeycrew/status/1042016601325928448




and when the football cardinals moved down to STL in 1960, they first played at sportsmans park, the home of the baseball cardinals, until the multi-purpose busch memorial stadium was built for both teams in 1966.


source: https://twitter.com/comiskeycrew/status/1042016601325928448

Imagine being a wide receiver for the Bears. Catching a game winning touchdown...only to run full speed into a brick wall covered in ivy.

Speaking of unique teams in unique stadiums, here is 115,000 watching the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2008 (celebrating the Dodgers 50th anniversary of their first game in LA). Look at those dimensions.


https://www.trbimg.com/img-59f90099/turbine/la-1509490836-6ec5zw6cq0-snap-image

Love the Coliseum. Here is a pretty cool video that the NFL and the Rams put together during their final season there.

• Video Link

[SAN Man]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

up until '94, the packers still played 2 "home" games a year down at milwaukee county stadium (home of the brewers).

i think they were the last NFL team to regularly play games in a baseball-specific stadium (and the last one to regularly split "home" games between cities).

The Padres shared their home in Jack Murphy Stadium with the Chargers in Mission Valley up until 2004 when PetCo Park opened in downtown.


photobucket

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by BrandonJXN

Speaking of unique teams in unique stadiums, here is 115,000 watching the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2008 (celebrating the Dodgers 50th anniversary of their first game in LA). Look at those dimensions.

What a great venue. Looks like Polo Park-esque dimensions.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

The Padres shared their home in Jack Murphy Stadium with the Chargers in Mission Valley up until 2004 when PetCo Park opened in downtown.

right, but jack murphy (1967) was built as a dedicated multi-purpose stadium for both baseball and football (as were most other major league stadiums built from the mid-60s through the 80s). at the time, everyone thought that multi-purpose stadiums would be a great way for cities to save money, but it turned out that they had to make too many design compromises to accommodate the radically different field shapes/sizes of baseball & football to be great for either one of them, hence the move back to baseball-specific and football-specific stadiums starting in the 90s.

the old milwaukee county stadium (1953) was really much more of a classic baseball-specific stadium that had a couple of packers "home" games awkwardly shoehorned into it every season for roughly 4 decades.

i mean, just look at the aerial pic i posted of it with the end zone corners butting directly up against the stadium walls with zero margin of overrun.

unlike jack murphy and the other multi-purposes stadiums that came later, milwaukee county stadium was not a venue that was ever designed to comfortably accommodate an NFL field, but they "made it work" back in the day because they had to, just as they did at a lot of other old school MLB stadiums that hosted NFL games back in the day.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by BrandonJXN

Speaking of unique teams in unique stadiums, here is 115,000 watching the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2008 (celebrating the Dodgers 50th anniversary of their first game in LA). Look at those dimensions.

That was before the renovations which reduced capacity to around 78,000. They should bring the NFL back to the Coliseum. Maybe for an exhibition or preseason game.

[BrandonJXN]

Originally Posted by badrunner

That was before the renovations which reduced capacity to around 78,000. They should bring the NFL back to the Coliseum. Maybe for an exhibition or preseason game.

• Video Link

[westak]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I would tend to disagree. From the NYC area, plenty of blacks follow the Yankees and even the Mets. I would also think the same in the other big cities. They may not follow them as much as basketball or football, but baseball teams are followed. Though, the following may have decreased as less and less blacks play on the MLB teams. One website says that the number of black players has declined from 27% in the 1970s to around 8-9% today.
https://www.1204yx.com/what-percentage-of-baseball-players-are-black/

I can only speak for my personal experience as a black man, which i prefaced my post with. I do know black people who follow baseball( mostly boomers) but they are a minority within black sports famdon where I've lived. I would have to defer to your experience as a black person in the New York area as to what teams/sports the black community currently in New York follows passionately.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by westak

I can only speak for my personal experience as a black man, which i prefaced my post with. I do know black people who follow baseball( mostly boomers) but they are a minority within black sports famdon where I've lived.

and everything i've heard/read about baseball fandom among america's black population is that the popularity for MLB within that demographic has fallen right along with the decrease of the percentage of black players in MLB over the past several decades.

which is not to say that there are no black fans of MLB, just that the trend line has been going downward for quite some time.

also, MLB popularity within the american population at large is waning, so some of it is just a part of that larger macro-level trend.

[L41A]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I would tend to disagree. From the NYC area, plenty of blacks follow the Yankees and even the Mets. I would also think the same in the other big cities. They may not follow them as much as basketball or football, but baseball teams are followed. Though, the following may have decreased as less and less blacks play on the MLB teams. One website says that the number of black players has declined from 27% in the 1970s to around 8-9% today.
https://www.1204yx.com/what-percentage-of-baseball-players-are-black/

I agree. In Atlanta, there are plenty of Blacks who follow the Braves.

People seem to forget, but baseball's popularity amongst the general population has gone down since the 1990s. Baseball (MLB) was probably more popular than basketball (NBA) in the 1970s - certainly before. In the late 1970s with Magic and Bird, and then MJ, etc. - basketball (NBA) popularity has greatly increased. Baseball (MLB) was more popular than both football (NFL) and basketball (NBA) before the 1970s.

I'm a big football fan but baseball in many aspects is better. I am beginning to appreciate it more and more. I do wish more Black youth athletes participated in baseball.

[Razor]

re: NFL

I have yet to go to a game, but fellow Canadian friends keep telling me that The Bills' tail gate parties are something else to experience. Out of curiosity, how does Buffalo stack up against others? Is the Buffalo tail gate experience the real deal, or is it over hyped a lot because of Canadians' limited access to real live games?

[Buckeye Native 001]

There's a reason they're called the Bills Mafia. Zubaz worn unironically, random fucking in the parking lots, and sub-amateur wrestling galore. It's not a tailgate until someone's pile driven into a card table.

[38 Geary]

Warriors run up the RSN ratings score

The Golden State Warriors are poised to post the NBA’s highest local TV ratings this season for the fifth time in six years.

At the NBA’s All-Star break, Warriors games on NBC Sports Bay Area have averaged a 7.63 rating in the San Francisco market, which is more than double the NBA’s next-highest local rating. That’s in Cleveland, where Cavaliers games on Bally Sports Cleveland have a 3.74 rating.

The Warriors have had a hot start to the season and sit in second place in the Western Conference. One star player is an MVP contender (Stephen Curry) and another star player, fan favorite Klay Thompson, returned to the court after missing most of last season due to injury.

The Cavs are the most surprising team on the court and that success has translated to television, where their games are up 65% compared to the same period last season.

More importantly, the team whose fortunes once had been tied to Akron’s LeBron James is on pace to post its highest non-LeBron James-fueled local TV rating in a decade.

Overall, regional sports networks are seeing a modest bounce-back nationally. According to the Nielsen Station Index, which measures local TV viewerships in Nielsen markets, combined NBA local viewership dropped from 1.411 million homes in 2015-16 to a low of 931,530 homes in 2020-21. That number has bounced back up over a million homes this season (1.028 million), and is up 5% from the same number of games last year.

Other good-news NBA stories are in Chicago, where Bulls games on NBC Sports Chicago are up 83%, thanks to an exciting young team that has two All-Stars this season in DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine.

Coming off a thrilling seven-game NBA Finals last season, Phoenix Suns games on Bally Sports Arizona are up 55% to a 1.72 rating. This marks the team’s fourth consecutive year-over-year increase — a time period that has seen its average rating nearly triple.

The New York Knicks’ fast start to the season helped that team’s ratings on MSG, which are up 21% to a 1.43 rating. Over the past two seasons, Knicks game ratings are up 74%.

The Knicks’ rating so far this season is nearly double that of the crosstown Brooklyn Nets, whose games on YES Network have averaged a 0.72 rating.

Some of the tougher NBA stories this season are in Texas. In Houston, Rockets games on AT&T Sportsnet have averaged a 1.01 rating. This marks the team’s third straight decline, dropping 56% over that time.

The San Antonio Spurs, which had been toward the top of the local ratings chart for years, are posting their fourth consecutive decline and have seen their ratings drop 74% since the 2015-16 season. This season, the Spurs’ rating on Bally Sports Southwest is a 2.29. Compare that to the 2010-11 Spurs team, which pulled a 10.19 rating that ranks among the best for any team on an RSN.

Times also are tough in Denver, where the Nuggets’ 0.19 rating is on pace to be the lowest NBA local rating for at least the past 15 years.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2022/02/28/Upfront/Ratings-and-Research.aspx

[bigcubfan]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Interesting.. As an outsider, I always thought it was Bears or Cubs 1/2, Bulls / Blackhawks 3/4 then the rest..

For the LA area, I would rank local teams as follows (Angels and Ducks would be higher in an oc centric poll)

1) Lakers
2) Dodgers



3) USC Football
4) Rams


5) UCLA Basketball
6) UCLA Footbal
7) Kings
8) Clippers
9) Galaxy
10) LAFC
11) Angels

12) Ducks
13) USC Basketball
14) Sparks

I was in LA for the 4 game series v my Cubs last year. Dodger Stadium blew me away. Saw the no-hitter too.