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Yeah, but College football is a much bigger deal than minor league baseball which almost no one cares about at all except for the prospects.
Highschool football is a much bigger deal than minor league baseball in most places, except maybe specific baseball towns like Boston.
College Football brings big names sports to states and towns that otherwise wouldn't have teams.
More people play recreational soccer than either baseball or football.
6.1 million people went to Minor league Baseball games in April this year. That's equal to 1/2 and NFL season, tons of people go to baseball games. Extrapolated that would make the MiLB the 2nd most attended league in the United States after the MLB.
Also the college Softball WS is the most watched women's sports event in America
I've also heard that the world cup in soccer is the most viewed sport event outside of super bowl in the United States . Is that correct ?
Not even remotely close. Of the top 50 most televised sporting events in the US for 2016, only two (#37 and #50) were soccer matches and both involved Copa America matches which most likely revolved mostly around the US Hispanic population. The remaining were overwhelmingly pro football, then pro basketball, college football, world series (baseball), pro golf and other miscellaneous events like women's gymnastics.
Not even remotely close. Of the top 50 most televised sporting events in the US for 2016, only two (#37 and #50) were soccer matches and both involved Copa America matches which most likely revolved mostly around the US Hispanic population. The remaining were overwhelmingly pro football, then pro basketball, college football, world series (baseball), pro golf and other miscellaneous events like women's gymnastics.
6.1 million people went to Minor league Baseball games in April this year. That's equal to 1/2 and NFL season, tons of people go to baseball games. Extrapolated that would make the MiLB the 2nd most attended league in the United States after the MLB.
Also the college Softball WS is the most watched women's sports event in America
You can't just go off of attendance because that is a flawed metric. Even in football markets the baseball numbers will be larger than their actual popularity.
I'll give you an example:
Where I grew up we had a Short Season A Northwest league, the Boise Hawks. Attendance usually floats around 3k per game or about 115k for the 37 home games.
BSU down the street has about 34K per home game or 204K per year.
BSU was much more than twice as popular. Most people in the city couldn't name one player or coach on the Hawks.
For a bushleague team like the hawks, most people are just going because its and inexpensive thing to do and they like baseball. No one knows all the players and most people really don't care what happens at the end of the season. Most people care way more if the Beer Batter gets on base and everyone gets 15 min of half off beers.
I can give you an example from where I live now: The Rangers, even in a bad year will have over a million more people attend their games than the Cowboys do in their best season.
Does that mean baseball is more popular in Texas? Of course not.
I've been to many more baseball games than football games but that doesn't mean I like baseball better. In most places its an enjoyable and fairly cheap way to pass an afternoon or evening.
The large number of minor league teams and more importantly the collective number of games they play of course means that they will have large attendance spread out in little pockets of a couple thousand people.
One of my best friends is from Boston like you and he has trouble warping his head around the idea that Boston is one of a few unique cities where Baseball is still the most popular sport. Just look at the price of tickets in Boston and then Arizona, or Houston or Dallas.
Tons of polling on this. Baseball comes nowhere close to football in popularity. Baseball is in a death match for second place with basketball, which has overtaken baseball as America's second most popular sport in some polls due to its greater popularity among the Millennial generation.
One of the weird things about soccer in the US is that it is clearly the fifth biggest sport in the country, but US vs Mexico in soccer is probably one of the countries biggest international sports rivalries. It is because American football and baseball don't have big international tournaments and the US was dominant in basketball for a long time. Hockey, which is the number four sport, has the other big international rivalry (US vs Russia).
I've got two questions regarding sports in the US .
Which sport is more popular throughout the United States , baseball or american football ? These are two sports that I associate with America the most , but I never could work out , which of them is more popular there .
Do specific regions of the United States fancy different sports , or is it generally all the same throughout the whole country . For example is there an area , where soccer is the most popular sport ?
On the whole, football is more popular. It used to be that baseball was more popular, but I think football is tailor-made for television. The other reason is that so much of the fan base for football is centered around college football as opposed to the pros. And because there's no place in America that's far from a college football program, you have more opportunities to develop loyalty to a specific team. Meanwhile, while college baseball has made some inroads, the stadiums are smaller and the fan base is not nearly as rabid.
Mind you, I say that as a baseball fan. I go to far more baseball games than football games.
Soccer just hasn't captured the national imagination, although it does have a following in select cities, such as the Pacific Northwest. For the most part, the only time we pay attention to soccer is during the World Cup. The reasons for this are several: First, soccer is having to elbow its way into an already-crowded diet of sports. We have football, baseball, basketball, golf, auto racing, and even lacrosse (Lacrosse, by the way, is a great sport. I knew nothing about it until my youngest son started playing. It's fast, hard-hitting, and allows players to hit each other with sticks). Even though soccer is by far the most popular youth sport, most kids lose interest in it by the time they hit ten. My son played soccer until he was fifteen. Can't be bothered with it now.
The other thing about soccer? Its worst enemies in this country are its fans. I'm not sure why this is, but people who love soccer constantly whine about its lack of popularity in this country. For example, you'll hear this plaint all the time: "Everybody else in the world plays soccer. Why don't we play it here?" As if we're somehow culturally deficient for not playing the game. Your favorite sport is a culturally-neutral choice. One is not superior to another. That's all. I mean, a billion people go nuts over cricket. I don't see anyone condemning India, Pakistan, or the Caribbean for preferring cricket over soccer.
Oh, here's another tedious snipe that one hears all the time. usually delivered by some simpering nitwit: "It's not the real football. Why it's not even a ball and you carry it in your hands. So it should be called 'Handegg.'" And they smirk after saying this as if they've scored a point in a debate, never realizing that they sound like pedantic gits. Or they talk about the stop-and-go aspect of football, never realizing that it is, in truth, a form of chess. Every single play has meaning and importance.
So part of the reason soccer isn't as possible is that most Americans simply prefer football or baseball for whatever reason. The other reason is that many of soccer fans in this country are such smug, insufferable know-it-alls, that it's really hard to want to learn more. As in, "Jeez, the last thing I want to do is go to a game with those guys."
I'm not saying that to bash soccer. I can actually watch the game and appreciate it. But I prefer the wheels-within-wheels strategy of football more, and the extra dimensions to the game afforded by the forward pass. I love the fact that baseball has amazing nuance and is actually a more suspenseful sport despite its leisurely pace.
Long rambling answer. Hope that helps.
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