I have heard that Baseball was very huge in the 70s and early 80s but since then, football has become the number 1 sport. My question is when do you think that football became so huge. I mean the ratings are through the roof and it shows no sign of slowing down.
When did Football overtake Baseball in popularity?
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In this day and age of short attention spans and the availability of other sports on tv/internet, the baseball season is just too long.
In the 70's college football was strictly controlled by the NCAA, as to how much could be televised, once that ended and the conferences and teams started making their own deals, it become a free for all. Football is fast paced, action packed and fits into the tv schedules much better than baseball. Football viewership really took off with the move to widescreen digital TV too. It also comes at a time of the year when most people are inside more.
The MLB games are slow paced and usually run long on time. I personally have other things to do than devote 4hrs a night to watch baseball games and that's saying something as I pretty much have no life and am home most of the time.
In the 70's college football was strictly controlled by the NCAA, as to how much could be televised, once that ended and the conferences and teams started making their own deals, it become a free for all. Football is fast paced, action packed and fits into the tv schedules much better than baseball. Football viewership really took off with the move to widescreen digital TV too. It also comes at a time of the year when most people are inside more.
The MLB games are slow paced and usually run long on time. I personally have other things to do than devote 4hrs a night to watch baseball games and that's saying something as I pretty much have no life and am home most of the time.
As far as professional sports viewing in concerned, I'd say, with the advent of Monday Night Football.
Baseball stopped being an informal, participation game thanks to air conditioning and cable TV. It takes nearly 18 people to play baseball, which means that you have to get a lot of people of different ages willing to do the same thing at the same time, but that could only be done when there was nothing else to do.
Baseball stopped being an informal, participation game thanks to air conditioning and cable TV. It takes nearly 18 people to play baseball, which means that you have to get a lot of people of different ages willing to do the same thing at the same time, but that could only be done when there was nothing else to do.
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I like to watch baseball, well I like watching my team, any other team I get bored and fall asleep. I can watch almost any NFL game and stay interested.
The NFL became a lot more popular when FOX got the NFL rights in 1993 and the ratings just haven't slowed down. Meantime, MLB ratings have gone down probably because of two things: (1) Baseball is slow and I have yet to watch a game that actually finishes on time and (2) the steroids scandals in the last few years hurt the reputations of MLB's most talented players and therefore, nobody wants to watch them play anymore.
I would say that football passed baseball in the late 60s or early 70s. Ther are areas where that is not the case but looking at the nation as a whole that seems to be the case.
That is interesting you say that. The game is not 4 hours long
The average football game (3:06) last longer than the average baseball game (2:54)
Football has more downtime. A game that last over 3 hours yet only 2 hours of time on the clock. This is over an hour of time when nothing is going on and this does not count the time the clock is still running while they are in between plays. Baseball has no clock and the only down time is in between innings which totals only a few minutes of the 3 hours.
Baseball has more scoring. NFL averages about 21 points per game (this will be equivalent to 4 TDs to 3 TDs game). MLB averages about 9.6 runs per game (equivalent to about 5 to 4 runs). In baseball each team averages about 1 more score and does so in a shorter amount of time.
I honestly think alot has to do with the fact MOST baseball games are on cable/satellite...ESPECIALLY the local teams. Just about everything for the NFL is seen on a local FOX or CBS affiliate with a Sunday game on NBC. Baseball, has one game locally and more the half of the time, it's not even the local team. I think the fact that there are LESS day baseball games has alot to do with it too....
I think it was when the starting time of the important postseason games were moved to after 8PM ET, especially on weekends. This move has lost the game for a few generations of current fans and more importantly, the kids of today...
This. Between office pools, suicide pools, fantasy football, and straight betting (did I miss anything?) almost everyone not named Sandra has SOME kind of financial stake in football games.
Can't say that about baseball.
Sandra
Yep. Putting 7 days worth of emotion into 1 game a week is huge. The importance of baseball's 160+ games are diluted in comparison.
I think that is a very important factor. With 162 games, each individual game does not have as much significance.
Lose one game in baseball and the fan says, "That's OK, we'll get them tomorrow," or "We still have a chance to take the series". Lose one game in football and that is 1/16 (6%) of the whole season
I agree with this in general, but it's funny how this logic does not apply across the board. In New York, baseball is definitely more popular than football. 1 game, 16 games, 162 games...the math doesn't matter. Baseball is cleary king in the City.
In Philthy it's the opposite...the Eagles rule no matter what the Phillies are doing.
Sandra
i think that is true of most sports but I have to say that if someone were to designa the perfect sport for TV it would likely be American football. American football was largely a minor sport before it went on TV. now look at it.
