Is your town a "Baseball Town" or a "Football town"?

[FiddySicks]

I disagree with that one. Obviously east bay is a football town, you go to an A's game and can get front row parking 15 minutes before the first pitch. You show up to the Coliseum 5 hours before a Raiders game and still can't get into the main lot. Now San Fran is a bit different. It's more of a toss up that depends on how well the team is doing. If the Niners suck but the Giants are winning 100+ games in a season, than it's probably gonna be a baseball town. But if the Niners are pulling in first round byes and the Giants are selling it's stock come june, it's gonna be more of a football town. But either way, no matter what the record is, both teams are extremely popular.

[PeytonManningRocks]

I would say LA is a Lakers town, period. It's where all the celebrities and the "in" crowd hang. It's why Lakers tickets are so hard to get in comparison to Dodgers, Clippers or Kings tickets.

[Gary]

I would say Phoenix is a basketball town, we had the Suns since 1968. Good or bad, they have always had good to great attendance either way. The metro area is still young as we have had every other "major" sport since the Cardinals in 1988, Coyotes in 1997 and the Diamondbacks in 1998. But as far as a football or baseball town, I would have to go with Football. Yes we do have Spring Training and the first place Dbacks, but this place goes crazy when we get to football season, with highschool, college(ASU and UA) and the Cardinals. Football has always been king to baseball.

[Milo Meningocele]

The Tigers (or any Detroit team) is popular when they are a winning team. However, this city has supported the Lions through good and mostly bad.

Dead on. I remember posting in another thread a while back that Detroit was totally fair-weather about every team except the Lions--and waiting to get torched by my fellow Detroiters who couldn't admit it as truth.

St. Louis is The Best Baseball Town in America.

I just threw up in my mouth.

I thought Detroit was Hockeytown?

Only because a marketing team dreamed it up and painted it on the ice. This area deserves no such title, considering the attendance figures during the "Dead Things" era. Fair-weather all the way.

[MadmanLA]

I would say LA is a Lakers town, period. It's where all the celebrities and the "in" crowd hang. It's why Lakers tickets are so hard to get in comparison to Dodgers, Clippers or Kings tickets.

You pretty much summed it up there...them and USC football are the "in" thing right now. However, I wonder how much that will last if and when Kobe leaves (I have my doubts he'll retire a Laker). All of the all teams, even USC basketball nowadays (who were probably worse than the Clippers in terms of fan support), get very sizable fan support.

[epper]

Needless to say, Toronto is a hockey town. During the NHL season the Leafs are king, with the Raptors far, far behind. Although the Raps are building respectabilty and the Leafs havent made the playoffs in a few yers, basketball still has a ways to go to catch hockey.

In the summer, the Jays get pretty good press, but I dont think the city will ever recover from the strike. Pre-strike, we were back-to-back champions and the toast of the town. Now it's just encouraging when we get over 30,000 fans out to a Jays game. Bringing in names like Burnett and Thomas, and the progression of Alex Rios have helped but underachieving the last 3 years certainly hasn't

[DEAD!]

Needless to say, Toronto is a hockey town. During the NHL season the Leafs are king, with the Raptors far, far behind. Although the Raps are building respectabilty and the Leafs havent made the playoffs in a few yers, basketball still has a ways to go to catch hockey.

That got me thinking, is there any town in Canada that is NOT a hockey town?

[Alphabet Man]

Yeh well Melbourne is the sports capital of the known universe, so there

[charger77]

The Tigers (or any Detroit team) is popular when they are a winning team. However, this city has supported the Lions through good and mostly bad.

Dead on. I remember posting in another thread a while back that Detroit was totally fair-weather about every team except the Lions--and waiting to get torched by my fellow Detroiters who couldn't admit it as truth.

St. Louis is The Best Baseball Town in America.

I just threw up in my mouth.

I thought Detroit was Hockeytown?

Only because a marketing team dreamed it up and painted it on the ice. This area deserves no such title, considering the attendance figures during the "Dead Things" era. Fair-weather all the way.

YOU ARE MY NEW HERO!

[DDR]

I'd be interested to hear what the locals say about Chicago. I'm betting it's a Baseball Town.

And, you'd lose that bet. Chicago's a Bears town, all the way. Part of the problem, I believe, is that there are two baseball teams, and that makes it hard to unify the town behind the sport.

The Chicago Trbiune ran an article recently that tracked the percentages of Chicagoans that either; 1) attended, 2) watched on TV, or 3) listended on radio to each of the towns major sports teams. Ballparking the numbers, they came out with the Bears at 62%, the Cubs at 56%, the White Sox at 54% (and they just had won the World Series), the Bulls at 30%, and the Blackhawks at 15% (I don't think they ran the numbers on the Fire).

The interesting thing was that this study has been done for several years, and the Bears have been #1 in every one, while the Cubs have been #2 (and were a lot closer to the Bears the year after 2003), but the White Sox were a distant #3 until just after the World Series win (numbers as low as 49%-52%, if I recall)...

Moose

That's 110% of Chicagoans that actively watch baseball. Seriously though, using that format, you could argue that New York is a basketball town, because the baseball and football are split with teams. I say Chicago is a baseball town. It's more of a Bears town than a Cubs or Sox town, but it's still a baseball town.

[Swiss]

Boston has always been a baseball town but the success of the Pats has slightly changed that, but I would still say it's a baseball town.

Well, my perception about Boston is that it's a baseball town. The Red Sox won the 2004 WS and have all that strong, rich history attached to the city...

[tp49]

Question for New Yorkers. It seems like NY is clearly baseball over football, but I have heard that basketball is truly king. Any truth to this?

I would say that basketball is king of the playground. Many people play basketball but as for being a basketball town I don't really think so. Given the history of the Knicks and the Nets both being just incredibly pathetic during the 80's and into the 90's with the exception of the mid 90's when they were not quite good enough to beat the Bulls though they made the finals twice. Not too many New Yorkers root for the Nets though they have been the better team of late.

I would say that baseball is king in New York but football is a close 2d.

[Don]

unfortunately Steve Czaban is right, Washington is a Redskins town, then a political town. nothing else even comes close in this city and its sad considering the bright future of the Nats, Caps and all the success DC United has had. im not a Wizards fan, so i really could care less about them lol.

[Nick 1733]

Denver is 100% a football city. Sellouts since 1972, the second longest waiting list for season tickets in the NFL and a fanbase that bleeds orange and blue all year long.

No one in this city would argue this point either.

[mania]

Buenos Aires is a Futbol town.

[Shumway]

Lancaster's clearly a football town. What, you've never heard of the Lancaster Lightning?

In all seriousness, there's a fair amount of baseball history here. We've got the Barnstormers now, which is a great place to go on a random summer night. Formerly, Lancaster had the Red Roses. There actually is a football team called the Lancaster Lightning, but I have no idea what league they play in, or even where they play.

Oddly enough, hockey's pretty popular here as well. No professional teams, but within the area, there are four mens roller hockey leagues, as well as two ice rinks, each of which has a few leagues going on. It's really a growing sport as far as the local high schools go.

[illwauk]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Milwaukee is a football town. We might not have a true-home team, but Packers and Badgers football is at least as big a deal (if not more) than the Brewers and definetly bigger than the Bucks. Although it's kind of hard to tell if that's because Milwaukeeans really prefer football, or that we're burnt out on the Brewers and Bucks due to years of inept, apathetic ownership. I still think that if Milwaukee had an NFL team, or a major 1-A (FBS, whatever) football program, they'd be favored over every other sports offering in the city (and Wisconsin as a whole).

And I agree with what Moser said... it'll be interesting to see what happens in September if the Brewers are still in the pennant race. IIRC, last year was the first time in decades that the Brewers had a higher game-day attendance percentage than Packers did on the same day.

But as far as high school... nothing beats City Conference hoops. The winner of the conference is usually nationally ranked and considered the team to beat come state tourney time.

[illwauk]

Needless to say, Toronto is a hockey town. During the NHL season the Leafs are king, with the Raptors far, far behind. Although the Raps are building respectabilty and the Leafs havent made the playoffs in a few yers, basketball still has a ways to go to catch hockey.

That got me thinking, is there any town in Canada that is NOT a hockey town?

You could probably argue that Regina, Winnipeg and Hamilton are football towns seeing as how they all have the CFL and not the NHL...

[illwauk]

I would say LA is a Lakers town, period. It's where all the celebrities and the "in" crowd hang. It's why Lakers tickets are so hard to get in comparison to Dodgers, Clippers or Kings tickets.

Just to solidify LA as a hoops town, I'd add that UCLA probably has the most basketball tradition of any school west of the Mississippi...

[harperdc]

Portland is a basketball city - granted, we've only have the team for 37 years, and it's the only (pro) game in town, but the city loves this team like none other. Just wait for this year, it'll be awesome.

so speaking hypothetically, Portlanders would love a baseball team, while a lot of the rest of the state would love a football stadium. Much of the city is getting younger and hipper, which I think can play to baseball, but not to the demographics of football. plus, I'd think that if we were to hypothetically get an NFL team, we'd have a lot of displaced/non-Portland's Team's fans, just like with Tampa Bay. I think baseball would latch on really quickly though, so I don't know.