• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Report: Nation Already Sick of Baseball

the other comments here support my argument - baseball isn't very popular in america anymore. most people consider it too boring
 
MLB has new rules in place this year for "pace" of games--the commissioner's office has already sent out letters.
Yesterday, a batter stepped out, delay, and he and the catcher got into it--the ump immediately warned both benches.

Since I'm such a people watcher and grew up on AM transistor radio, I'm just more keen to listening.
As with football on radio, when the announcer says left-to-right on your dial--especially when TV and Radio are in sync .

Bethlehem Bill said:
in 94 i got to be on the jumbo tron at the Vet (i was 7) with my brother leading the "take me out to the ballgame" in the 7th inning stretch; and i've been to a ton of phillies games in the last ten years. i do love going to the games as i enjoy it much more there in person, especially tailgating beforehand in the parking lot. and the lehigh valley iron pigs are close and cheap so i check those out as well.

but with any sport, if you dont like it generally, you're probably not going to like watching it on tv. the games do seem to drag more these days, but for me, whether or not the phillies are actually in contention is what determines how often i watch. like now, when they will probably lose at least 100 games this year, i just dont care enough
Click to expand...
 
Bethlehem Bill said:
like i said, i go by television viewing audience not by revenue:

yes, of course attendance goes up for playoff games, but in both football and baseball playoffs, the stadium is always sold out. you need to look at how many additional people that couldn't attend in person still cared enough to watch; it's overwhelmingly in favor of football

yes, i think the mlb (and nba, and nhl) should consider reducing the number of regular season games that they play.

yes, college football is regional via the conference structure. what i meant was that even the phillies dont play the pirates very often in baseball and theyre in the same state. michigan plays ohio state every year and its a huge rivalry at a greater distance. also, they do play out of conference games each year, and the bowl games/playoffs/championship games are intentionally designed to have champions and teams from other conferences play each other. (like notre dame (indiana) vs alabama. not sure what you meant about 20 times per year)
Click to expand...

The baseball playoff is also best of 7, not single elimination. There is more desire to watch the latter. Imagine the "march madness" tournament was best of 7. Ratings for each game would plummet. I do believe football is more popular, but it's smaller gap than you think and also might not last, due to concussions and quickly shrinking youth participation. Every kid plays little league and that ensures future interest.

College football is an anomaly. There's rivalries going back over a century. We can't even remember how they started. I just know that, while michigan-ohio might be farther apart than pittsburgh-philly, ohio was the closest opponent worth a damn for decades. There's also plenty hatred between the fans that has more to do with culture than football.

This arguing over national sport is all relative, but simply using the technology of flight or two schools despising each other isn't enough. People on the west coast don't care about michigan-ohio. Maybe they did slightly in the 90's when it was THE rivalry, but see, if you don't have a vested interest you won't care when one/both teams suck. Do fans from the SEC watch west coast games? Probably not. If there were more matchups between the teams, they not only might then but you'd see far-flung rivalries develop, like usc-notre dame
 
chromium said:
The baseball playoff is also best of 7, not single elimination. There is more desire to watch the latter. Imagine the "march madness" tournament was best of 7. Ratings for each game would plummet. I do believe football is more popular, but it's smaller gap than you think and also might not last, due to concussions and quickly shrinking youth participation. Every kid plays little league and that ensures future interest.

College football is an anomaly. There's rivalries going back over a century. We can't even remember how they started. I just know that, while michigan-ohio might be farther apart than pittsburgh-philly, ohio was the closest opponent worth a damn for decades. There's also plenty hatred between the fans that has more to do with culture than football.

This arguing over national sport is all relative, but simply using the technology of flight or two schools despising each other isn't enough. People on the west coast don't care about michigan-ohio. Maybe they did slightly in the 90's when it was THE rivalry, but see, if you don't have a vested interest you won't care when one/both teams suck. Do fans from the SEC watch west coast games? Probably not. If there were more matchups between the teams, they not only might then but you'd see far-flung rivalries develop, like usc-notre dame
Click to expand...


In 2014, 35 percent of fans call the NFL their favorite sport, followed by Major League Baseball (14 percent), college football (11 percent), auto racing (7 percent), the NBA (6 percent), the NHL (5 percent) and college basketball (3 percent)

35% to 14%, hardly a small gap. and since football is more or less the same, i'm tempted to add the 11 from college and say that about half the people in the country declare football their favorite sport, notwithstanding its long term viability due to the injuries.

youre right though - its all relative.

fortunately for me, i like a lot of sports (baseball, football, golf, soccer, basketball, hockey). there's something on tv year round for me to get excited about watching and/or actually attend. even if you don't like to watch the day in day out grind of the season, you've got march madness (The college basketball playoffs) in march/april, you've got the Masters in april, you've got the NBA/NHL playoffs from may/june, MLB all star game in july, the NFL kicks off in august, MLB playoffs in sept/oct/nov, football playoffs in jan/feb, and next thing you know its march madness again.

and i'm leaving out a lot of important soccer tournaments and golf events, as well as events like the olympics that only occur every few years

so i don't actually care what the numbers show as far as what is most popular (which is obviously football); if you're a sports fan just watch whatever you enjoy
 
clownboy said:
Basketball is the number one worst sport for any child to play. Fast forward forty years and HS basketball players, if they ever saw any court time, are all frequent customers of the local orthopedist.
Click to expand...


Hm, wonder why that is. I suppose the way they are always twisting and turning and changing directions suddenly, on that hardwood floor with the shoes squeaking like a bag of mice on crank? Wears on the tendons and ankles, maybe knees?


I was just as glad Son#1 resisted the football recruiters... I knew a lot of guys who had serious injuries that would follow them for life by the time they graduated HS from football. Knees mostly.
 
Higgins86 said:
I went to a Red Sox vs Yankees game a few years ago when I lived in the US. For the first hour it was very enjoyable and I was in awe at how fast they could throw the ball, how far they could hit it etc. Fast forward to hour number 3 and it was only the 7th inning and half the stadium was emptying out due to the fact it was nearly midnight. Literally the most bored I have ever been at a sporting event.
Click to expand...
Apparently the Red Sox and Yankees just played an over 7 hour game. I'm not sure it gets much more tedious than that.
chromium said:
There's 30 sec between football plays too
Click to expand...
But there's still action. Time between pitches consists of nothing more than a bunch of people standing around. In football you have substitutions, motion at the line, different formations, etc.

and the commercials are nearly half of the game.
Click to expand...
Commercial breaks in football are awful too. The same with college basketball. The difference is there's a lot more action in both of those sports than there is in baseball.

Commercials don't actually lengthen baseball
Click to expand...
Never said they did (though they do, if you've been to enough games). But commercials happen every half inning and every pitcher change. Even in football, they don't go to commercial every time possession changes. Show me some stats, catch me up on what's going around the league...but no, baseball goes to commercial.

cause the warmups between innings and pitching change would be there regardless.
Click to expand...
If you've been to enough games, you've seen them hold up play after warm-ups in order for commercials to end.

Having said that...football on tv is far more enjoyable.
Click to expand...
As is basketball.

Going to a baseball game live though isn't so bad if the weather's nice, especially at wrigley.
Click to expand...
I love going to ballgames. We go see the Cardinals where I live, but I did catch a Braves game last year on the return trip from Florida. Got to see a kid play whom I taught/coached (coached in basketball, not baseball unfortunately).

Football live is a huge pain in the ass and not in any way like your grandpa's experience.
Click to expand...
I've never been to an NFL game, but I love going to Notre Dame games. The TV timeouts kind of suck, but otherwise, it's a lot of fun.
 
Slyfox696 said:
I've never been to an NFL game, but I love going to Notre Dame games. The TV timeouts kind of suck, but otherwise, it's a lot of fun.
Click to expand...

College football at least can offer something the tv experience cannot. Let me tell you, michigan stadium, a lot of fun for the students but for anyone else...If you need to leave your seat for any reason (which tv makes far more likely), have fun plodding through 30 people and climbing 80 rows to get to the concourse, then repeat on your way back down. There's very little parking within a mile of the stadium. They don't even let you bring in bottled water any more. It doesn't surprise me attendance is down across the country, when you compare hi def tv to that.

The least they can do to entice someone to fork over $80 a ticket plus travel is to make the games tape delay on tv, like the olympics, so there is no commercial interruption. I find it inexcusable that this is not the case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom