"Yankees suck" is a synonym for "New York sucks". You don't know that? That's the reason why they don't chant "Mets suck" either. It's all about the NY/Boston rivalry. This still isn't evidence of anything except that one MLB team has become popular enough to be comparable to NFL teams.
False. The NFL coming lockout has been a story for a few years. People are very concerned. People love football more than they do baseball, which is why people would spend time watching the most meaningless football game of the year instead of the Red Sox/Yankees. You are probably older than me and that's why you think this way. There was a time when people cared about baseball more. That day is long gone and I've even heard very knowledgeable and important baseball people call the NFL the most popular sport in America.

So once again, the highest rated sporting event on Sunday was a really bad practice game played in Canton, OH. This beat the greatest rivalry in MLB history in a pennant race. It's clear that people care a lot more about the NFL than they do about MLB.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2010/08/nfls-hall-of-fame-game-beats-red-sox-yankees-on-tv-draws-highest-rating-in-six-years/1
[/quote]

This proves that nationwide, not as many people give a flying fuck about ESPN's beloved Yankees/Red Sawx rivalry.

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Right, baseball is largely a regional sport. However, I do find it quite ironic that in another thread a bunch of elitist Chicagoans are bashing the very people that make up those ratings numbers as "toothless hillbillies" and "white trash".

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Don't take it personally.

I always thought that nobody chants "Jets suck" because more often than not, they actually suck. It seems pretty pointless for a crowd to chant the obvious.

"Clippers suck! Clippers suck! Clippers suck!"

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Is that a fact? I've never heard that before. So "Yankees suck" and "New York sucks" are the same thing? If that's the case I find it odd that people who so obviously prefer football wouldn't reference a team from the more popular sport in their slogan. Why isn't "Jets suck" or "Giants suck" a synonym for "New York sucks"? Are you really telling me a the name of a team from a less popular sport is standing in to represent five entire boroughs?

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Don't take it personally.

I disagree with this.

There might be more football fans, but people care more about their baseball teams.

It has to do with the every day aspect of it.

Just my opinion. People live and Die with their baseball teams.

Hop on, RPB! There's plenty of room with me here on the meatball wagon.

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Don't take it personally.

Well Im not signing on for Baseball is more popular.

Football is.

But Baseball fandom is a completely different thing. More importatnt to people maybe. Not more popular overall though.

Earlier in the thread, you thought it was ludicrous to think that the NFL preseason game would be watched by more people than the Yankees/Red Sox. Anyways, that's not too important but does go to show how you have a mis calibrated sense of baseballs position in this country.

You cannot call baseball a regional sport, and presumably football a national sport, and make any case that football isn't more popular. It makes no sense. If one sport is a nationally popular sport, and the other is a regionally popular sport, the national sport by definition is more popular.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The Yankees are the representative New York team. That's a fact. They are the biggest and most successful team(partly because the Jets/Giants split the fan base but the Mets/Yankees is much more one-sided). The Yankees are something like the third biggest franchise in all of American sports surrounded by NFL teams.

The Yankees are more popular than the Jets or Giants even playing a less popular sport.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well that gets into how we define "popularity". Frankly, as I've said all along, I don't think there is a definitive answer. And I think any uninterested observer would call that the least meatballish perspective in the entire thread.

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Don't take it personally.

This has been proven false by the fallout of the strikes that baseball has had. Baseball fans were very willing to give up on the team they supposedly lived and died with. I did after the strike in the 90's.

I don't know what would happen if the NFL missed a year, but I know what happened when MLB missed a World Series and the fans proved that it didn't need baseball because most of them didn't come back for years after if at all.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I was surprised when I thought there was an 7 page about the Afternoon Saloon, but was disappointed when I saw it was just another shouting match. Can't we go back to arguing about how 9/11 was an inside job?

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Interestingly, more board members seem to believe that the Government was complicit in the events of 9/11 than think that baseball is more popular than football.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

Why do you say that like its fact? Its not. Its very much open to interpertation. Proven false?


Some would argue that supports the "Baseball is more important" side. People took that personally. They didnt just say "whatever, Ill watch next year"

They felt like part of their life was stolen from them


Its your 5th favorite sport


That doesnt mean they dont need it.

Need doesnt really enter into this equation.


Also, football fandom is centered around the Sunday gathering aspect.
Thats a big portion of it. Im sure many of us go to gatherings for games where there are middle aged women, people's girlfriends etc. They are there becasue of the social aspect, not the sport.

Shouldnt John "I spend 95% of my disposable income on season tickets and watch every road game" Public count more than Aunt Jinny who makes brownies for the sunday party?

Another unmeasurable.


To clarify, im not talking popularity.

I do think overall, people tend to care more about their team, live and die with their team, in MLB

Baseball was my #1 sport when the strike happened. In fact, I think I shared the story before about how I vowed never to become a full time baseball fan again until I got the World Series appearance that I felt was stolen from me that year. It's one of my most vivid sports memories ever. Almost overnight, the NBA moved up to #1. Eventually it became the NFL as I understood the game more and found it more interesting to watch.

Take a look at how long attendance lagged in baseball post-strike. If baseball was really that ingrained in everyone's life that wouldn't have lasted as long as it did.

I also think you are confusing the "Super Bowl crowd" with real football fans. It's not like people had a "Hall of Fame" game party on Sunday but it did huge ratings too.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I don't think there's been this much in the Afternoon Saloon since the night we found out Mac left.

I stand corrected on your personal experience.
Expos would have won, BTW.


I know of at least 5 regular Bears viewing parties. 17 weeks a year.


Not true or proveable.

So wait a minute, you know of people that get together every Sunday(or Monday or Thursday) to watch a team play but you aren't calling them real fans? I don't even think I was able to watch all Bears games last season. I guess I'm not a fan either.
How can something be not true or provable? It must be one or the other.

I think it is proveable, because if you loved baseball so much that you can't live without it, then living without it makes it not that ingrained in your life. It's like if I said that this message board is ingrained in my life and I must have it in my life. If I didn't come here for a year, that would prove that idea false.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2010/08/nfls-hall-of-fame-game-beats-red-sox-yankees-on-tv-draws-highest-rating-in-six-years/1

</thread>

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Fire Phil Emery

Wait, no, I'm not done (imagine that). I know the absurdity speaks for itself, but since that hasn't helped yet, I'm going to speak for the absurdity.

On station one, we have a matchup between the two most historic franchises in baseball, widely recognized as the greatest rivalry in that sport--with no close number two. The Yankees are in the largest television market, and between the two teams, almost the entire northeast is represented. The game is meaningful, as both teams are still alive for the playoffs and there is less than a third of a season left to play.

On station two, we have a preseason football game in which most of the starters were removed from the game almost immediately. The game was not meaningful in any way, did not involve any sort of rivalry, and one of the teams (Cincinnati) is in one of the smallest markets in the NFL. In fact, the game got higher ratings than every show on television last week except "The Bachelorette". Link for evidence: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/tv/2010/08/10/bengals-game-no-2-show-for-the-week/

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Fire Phil Emery

No. If theyre coming for the party and they watch a total of 5 plays, they arent real fans.




Thats a ridiculous statement. Not everything is black and white. Some things are open to interpertation.

You think people swearing off the game means its not important to them

I think it means it was important and thats why they took such a hard stance.

There's really no proving one way or the other.


Addiction is not the same thing as being a fan or loving something.

Ill match your bad analogy

If youre a HUGE fan of a restaurant. Love the food, service, atmosphere, everything.
You go there every thursday. Then after years of going there, they start to slack. The food is not as good, the service is lacking and you dont like the new design of the dining area.

So you stop going there. Its ruined.

Does that mean you never really loved it?

Here is the final comparison:
Football:7.6 rating
Red Sox/Yankees: 2.7 rating

Two things on RPB's post:
1) I've been to plenty of NFL parties, including with people who are at best casual fans, and I have never seen someone watch only 5 plays of the game unless they were watching children in the other room as not to disturb the others.
2) Your restaurant analogy is a good one. Baseball used to be everyone's favorite restaurant but for whatever reason, they've been replaced. We have concrete evidence above about how people were so desperate for football that they watched the worst game of the whole year more than 2 to 1 over the prime showcase of MLB with the most hyped storyline outside the World Series.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

1)Well, one place I frequent is a big family thing. There's usually about 20-25 people. Like 10 people watching the game at a time. Maybe 5 sit there for the duration.

But even with that, you cant argue that football doesnt have the most casual fans.

2) I was never arguing popularity or numbers. I just think the relationship to one's baseball team tends to be more meaningful.

That's different. If the guys are watching football and the womenfolk are talking about the latest episode of Housewives of New Jersey you can't count that along with the kids. It's really no different then a guy who watches all the Cubs games while his kids play in the next room or his wife does the chores he ordered her to do.

Most fans are casual in all sports. Baseball has the same percentage as football. Even this board is completely different during football season. This is not the right place to make a case that football isn't filled with diehard fans in huge numbers.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

But those women will say they like football and watch the games at Uncle Jimmy's every week.


Football has more extra allure than the other sports
Being one day a week and on weekends (easy to follow)
Office pools
etc.

Remember, we agree football is more popular.

The funny thing is you guys are all referencing NFL... college football augments your arguments that much more. Which is the whole point of this thread in the first place.

And baseball still sucks.

Yeah, baseball sucks. If you you lack a mind.

Go take a bunch of drugs and crash into each other. Three hour telecast with eleven minutes of actual action. A championship game known more for the commercials than anything that occurs on the field. Great "sport".

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Don't take it personally.

yeah... i'm sure making split second reads on defensive schemes and threading a needle with a pass all while being chased down by 250 lb lineman is lacking any intelligence. But sitting around in the field waiting for a ball to come to you is very intelligent. Let's face it, the only intelligence in baseball is deciding which player should be in and trying to guess which pitch is coming. The "if you lack a mind" argument just doesn't hold water.

Football is very complicated. That's why so many geniuses play it.

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Don't take it personally.