Team located farthest from represented city?

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

I get the whole San Francisco Bay area thing and them laying claim to the whole area, but there's 3 separate massive cities within it in SF, Oakland and San Jose. It's not like New York where everything is one giant city. 

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

I get the whole San Francisco Bay area thing and them laying claim to the whole area, but there's 3 separate massive cities within it in SF, Oakland and San Jose. It's not like New York where everything is one giant city. 

 

Have you been to the Bay Area lately? It's one giant city with a body of water in the middle. Sure the legal entities are all separate, but you can't go from San Francisco to San Jose to Oakland and leave the urban conglomeration that is the Bay Area.

[OnWis97]

Maybe I am taking it too literally but to me, the "Tampa Bay" teams are IN the "place" they represent, while the 49ers are not.  Therefore, the Niners fit the thread intent (as I read it) and the Tampa Bay teams don't.

 

And I don't think that means I (or anyone else) am attacking the Niners.  Putting a billion dollar 10-uses-per-year-plus-U2-and-monster-trucks stadium that city is probably a terrible idea.

 

And I get that people throughout the area are all a part of it and cheer for the teams in the SF Bay Area.  But people in the Denver suburbs still identify with Denver...The Niners are still named "San Francisco" and if we want to "include" those who "identify" then the entire thread is kinda moot.

 

 

3 hours ago, McCarthy said:

Thanks to their sports teams I wasn't aware the city wasn't called Tampa Bay until my early 20's. Always thought Tampa was just an abbreviation. 

I don't recall when that light bulb went on over my head, but I think I was probably a high school graduate (and my parents and I drove through Tampa when I was like 12).  "Tampa" was like saying "Vegas"* or "Frisco."  Sports ruined me.

 

* Oh crap.  A generation of kids are going to grow up thinking "Las Vegas" is actually called "Vegas."  That is, assuming the team is around long enough to make that impact.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

49 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Have you been to the Bay Area lately? It's one giant city with a body of water in the middle. Sure the legal entities are all separate, but you can't go from San Francisco to San Jose to Oakland and leave the urban conglomeration that is the Bay Area.

 

San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland are all one giant city? I get that it makes up a giant metropolitan area, but they are SEPARATE cities themselves, not suburbs or anything else.

 

I get your argument- I really do, but it's not the point of this thread.

[dfwabel]

20 minutes ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

 

San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland are all one giant city? I get that it makes up a giant metropolitan area, but they are SEPARATE cities themselves, not suburbs or anything else.

 

I get your argument- I really do, but it's not the point of this thread.

Outside of topic being akin to a that of a "bar bet", what IS the point of this thread?

 

A team wears laundry for four hours bearing a name in which they don't play.  So what? 

 

Most of them don't spend the rest of the work week inside the city limits either.  Off the top of my head, JAX, CIN, PIT, HOU, TB, PHI and GB are the teams whose practice facilities are within the city limits.  Thus the majority of the clubs run their businesses OUTSIDE the city limits. Heck, the 49ers moved to Santa Clara in 1988, but before that they didn't do business in SF proper, they were in Redwood damn City. 

[B-Rich]

14 hours ago, the admiral said:

I asked in another thread when "Tampa Bay" became the prevailing name for the Tampa-St. Pete region and whether the Buccaneers in fact coined it as such. No one got back to me, sooooo

 

Actually, it was the Rowdies (original NASL), not the Buccaneers, that were the first pro team to use the designation... in 1975, though they were named "Tampa Bay" in late 1974.  Per Wikipedia:

 

On June 19, 1974 George Strawbridge and Beau Rogers, IV purchased an expansion franchise in the NASL for the sum of $25,000. On November 21, 1974, the Tampa Bay Professional Soccer Club announced that they would henceforth be known as the "Tampa Bay Rowdies".

 

A little more research into the B-Rich archives (The Names of the Games) reveals these quotes from initial owner Hugh Culverhouse:

 

"I think of the coast-line community  and the rich history of so-called freebooters whom they tell me took charge in their days of pirating and buccaneering. Well. we want  our football team  to be as aggressive, high-spirited and colorful as were the old buccaneers. As for "Tampa Bay", it laps up on the shores of most surrounding communities.  I like it. "

 

Apparently the term "Tampa Bay" being used to describe the area as a whole DID exist before the sports teams, however.  According to Rodney Kite Powell, curator of history at the Tampa Bay History Center,  while Tampa Bay as a descriptor of the whole area came back in vogue in the 1950s, it wasn't until the arrival of professional sports franchises that the name really began to stick. (http://www.tbo.com/lifestyle/are-we-in-tampa-or-tampa-bay-251655).

 

Also interesting to note that as of 2012, the St. Petersburg Times was renamed the Tampa Bay Times, and shortly afterwards absorbed the separate cross-bay competitor Tampa Tribune.

 

It could have been different. A second term used to describe the area is the Florida Sun Coast (or Suncoast), which was coined in 1952 by St. Petersburg mayor Samuel Johnson. This was, of course, the original name of Tropicana Field (Florida Suncoast Dome).  It was also the regional name place designee of an earlier sports franchise, the Suncoast Suns of the Eastern Hockey League, who existed  from 1972 to 1973, about 1 1/2 seasons. (http://www.litterboxcats.com/2013/7/30/4571320/florida-hockey-history-a-look-back-at-the-ehls-suncoast-suns).

 

 

[The_Admiral]

Very interesting. Thanks for the research!

[The Six]

4 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

 

And I don't think that means I (or anyone else) am attacking the Niners. 

　

You should. They're pretty terrible.

[Breakwood]

Because of the issues going on in Eastern Ukraine many teams in the Ukranian Premier League don't play anywhere near the cities they represent. Most notably Shaktar Donetsk play in Lviv which is over 1200km east of Donestsk.

[Cosmic]

6 hours ago, dfwabel said:

Outside of topic being akin to a that of a "bar bet", what IS the point of this thread?

 

A team wears laundry for four hours bearing a name in which they don't play.  So what? 

 

Most of them don't spend the rest of the work week inside the city limits either.  Off the top of my head, JAX, CIN, PIT, HOU, TB, PHI and GB are the teams whose practice facilities are within the city limits.  Thus the majority of the clubs run their businesses OUTSIDE the city limits. Heck, the 49ers moved to Santa Clara in 1988, but before that they didn't do business in SF proper, they were in Redwood damn City. 

Jacksonville should come with an asterisk, since the "city" is approaching the size of Rhode Island.

[bosrs1]

15 hours ago, Cosmic said:

Jacksonville should come with an asterisk, since the "city" is approaching the size of Rhode Island.

 

A good dozen cities in the US can make that claim.

[Cosmic]

3 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

A good dozen cities in the US can make that claim.

It's the biggest land area city of substantial population, though. It leads Houston by a Tampa.

[sc49erfan15]

So, what we've learned so far is that city borders/limits are arbitrarily drawn and essentially meaningless?

 

Because... they are.

[kroywen]

14 hours ago, sc49erfan15 said:

So, what we've learned so far is that city borders/limits are arbitrarily drawn and essentially meaningless?

 

Because... they are.

Exactly. That's why I hate misleading statistics like "San Antonio is the 7th largest city in America!" or "San Jose is the 10th largest city in America!" (when it's not even the primary city in its metropolitan area). It's entirely a function of where the city lines are drawn, and city limits tend to be much, much more expansive in recently-developed Sun Belt areas.

 

A true measure of how "far" a team is from the city it represents is the distance from its stadium/arena to the central core of the city. For instance, MetLife Stadium is 6 miles from Times Square, as the crow flies. Meanwhile, AT&T Stadium is 17 miles from downtown Dallas. By any reasonable metric, the Giants and Jets play closer to New York City than the Cowboys do to Dallas, even if there happens to be a state line in between in the former case.

 

I believe under that logic, the 49ers play furthest from their namesake city. Which actually makes sense, in many ways, since a.) San Francisco is a super dense city that doesn't really have space to fit a football stadium, and b.) the Bay Area has three main cities (SF, SJ, and Oakland), with population distributed throughout the entire region. In most metropolitan areas, being 36 miles outside of the "main city" would place you in the exurbs or outlying suburbs, in a location that's far away from most of the metro population (and probably poorly connected via transit and highways). I'd contend that was one of the many reasons that the Patriots lagged far behind the other 3 Boston teams in terms of popularity and success until Belichick turned them into an NFL superpower. But the Bay Area is a huge exception to that, since Santa Clara is in between two very large cities, in a very densely populated area itself. They're probably the only team that would be able to get away with playing that far away from their namesake city, other than perhaps if a Dallas team  built a stadium in Fort Worth.

[The_Admiral]

24 minutes ago, kroywen said:

San Francisco is a super dense city that doesn't really have space to fit a football stadium

 

But at least they did fit one for over fifty years. Probably could have continued to if the Niners had worked out some deal where they built a new stadium at Candlestick Point and played the intervening years at Cal and/or Pac Bell. Would have been better than Lego Stadium.

 

24 minutes ago, kroywen said:

I'd contend that was one of the many reasons that the Patriots lagged far behind the other 3 Boston teams in terms of popularity and success until Belichick turned them into an NFL superpower.

Yeah this part is true. Foxboro Stadium was reportedly an ingress/egress nightmare because it was (still is) out in the middle of nowhere, had only one way in and one way out, and US 1 was only two lanes. Of course, hardly anyone wanted to go to Patriots games until the mid-1990s anyway, so at least too many people weren't too inconvenienced. You know, if we're going to revisit the '70s and '80s by living in constant fear of THE RUSSIANS, we should revisit the '70s and '80s by only having 20,000 M@ssholes watching the Patriots lose 12 games a year. That's Cold War nostalgia I can get behind.

[kroywen]

25 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

But at least they did fit one for over fifty years. Probably could have continued to if the Niners had worked out some deal where they built a new stadium at Candlestick Point and played the intervening years at Cal and/or Pac Bell. Would have been better than Lego Stadium.

That's true, though it was in an absolutely terrible spot for a stadium, thanks to the harsh winds that came off the bay. That was a little more of a problem for baseball than it was for football, granted, but there's a reason the one spot of open land for a stadium was, well, open land. The Niners absolutely could've built a new stadium there if they weren't seeking public handouts, but it's no coincidence that the absolute least desirable/hospitable piece of land in the city of San Francisco was pretty much the only open spot able to fit a football stadium (and accompanying parking lots).

 

25 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

Yeah this part is true. Foxboro Stadium was reportedly an ingress/egress nightmare because it was (still is) out in the middle of nowhere, had only one way in and one way out, and US 1 was only two lanes. Of course, hardly anyone wanted to go to Patriots games until the mid-1990s anyway, so at least too many people weren't too inconvenienced. You know, if we're going to revisit the '70s and '80s by living in constant fear of THE RUSSIANS, we should revisit the '70s and '80s by only having 20,000 M@ssholes watching the Patriots lose 12 games a year. That's Cold War nostalgia I can get behind.

The Krafts' stupid decision to build a new stadium in Foxborough has been papered over by the fact that the Pats have been so freaking good since it opened. Up until Belichick, New England was decidedly not a football region, and no one in Boston would ever make the trek to go sit in a glorified high school stadium in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure it'll go back to that once the Pats run (mercifully) comes to an end. And then we'll be back to the good old days of a half-full stadium, only this time surrounded by a failing outdoor mall that will attract no one.

[IceCap]

On 2016-12-14 at 2:13 PM, dfwabel said:

Outside of topic being akin to a that of a "bar bet", what IS the point of this thread?

 

A team wears laundry for four hours bearing a name in which they don't play.  So what? 

 

Most of them don't spend the rest of the work week inside the city limits either.  Off the top of my head, JAX, CIN, PIT, HOU, TB, PHI and GB are the teams whose practice facilities are within the city limits.  Thus the majority of the clubs run their businesses OUTSIDE the city limits. Heck, the 49ers moved to Santa Clara in 1988, but before that they didn't do business in SF proper, they were in Redwood damn City. 

What's the point of anything on this forum, really? 

Try not to look at it too closely

[DG_ThenNowForever]

16 hours ago, sc49erfan15 said:

So, what we've learned so far is that city borders/limits are arbitrarily drawn and essentially meaningless?

 

Because... they are.

 

Well, how taxes are collected and apportioned within those limits is very, very important. But I think that has more to do with the relocation thread than this one. Or one begets the other.

[Gothamite]

3 hours ago, kroywen said:

A true measure of how "far" a team is from the city it represents is the distance from its stadium/arena to the central core of the city. For instance, MetLife Stadium is 6 miles from Times Square, as the crow flies. Meanwhile, AT&T Stadium is 17 miles from downtown Dallas. By any reasonable metric, the Giants and Jets play closer to New York City than the Cowboys do to Dallas, even if there happens to be a state line in between in the former case.

 

That's true in most cases, although the major difference is that MetLife Stadium is not accessible by the primary mode of transit in the city, and the Cowboys' stadium is.  So the Cowboys are actually "closer" to the city center than the Jets/Giants in the sense of being far more accessible.  But your larger point is well taken. 

[dfwabel]

3 hours ago, kroywen said:

That's true, though it was in an absolutely terrible spot for a stadium, thanks to the harsh winds that came off the bay. That was a little more of a problem for baseball than it was for football, granted, but there's a reason the one spot of open land for a stadium was, well, open land. The Niners absolutely could've built a new stadium there if they weren't seeking public handouts, but it's no coincidence that the absolute least desirable/hospitable piece of land in the city of San Francisco was pretty much the only open spot able

 

The Krafts' stupid decision to build a new stadium in Foxborough has been papered over by the fact that the Pats have been so freaking good since it opened. Up until Belichick, New England was decidedly not a football region, and no one in Boston would ever make the trek to go sit in a glorified high school stadium in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure it'll go back to that once the Pats run (mercifully) comes to an end. And then we'll be back to the good old days of a half-full stadium, only this time surrounded by a failing outdoor mall that will attract no one.

FWIW, SF voters approved a $100M bond issue to start the stadium process circa 1997, but Eddie D. went to trial, had to give the franchise to his sister, and in 2008 the SF voters repealed the bond issue.

 

As for NE, Kraft wanted to build on Port Authority land in South Boston, but then Mayor Menino wanted Kraft to build where Orthwein wanted to build during his brief tenure as owner, the South Bay.

 

But you gotta build where the land is, plus while it still a b!tch to get in/out of, it is a few miles closer to Providence than it is to Boston.

 

Heck, when the Pats host the AFC title game, the NFL prefers Providence as their HQ for the weekend and have since '97.