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Oct 27, 2009 10:55 pm US/Central
Good Question: Why Is Football The Most Popular?
(WCCO)
If baseball is the national pastime, and Minnesota is the "state of hockey," how did football become the most popular sport?
"Football has kind of surpassed baseball and it's been that way for a long time," said Gregg Cylkowski, a sports analyst and the owner of his own firm Athletic Achievements, in Little Canada.
Thirty-one percent of Americans told the
Harris Poll that football is their favorite sport. Just 16 percent said baseball was tops.
"In America, you need to be able to gamble and be able to market something on TV. Football is the perfect sport to be marketed on TV," Cylkowski said.
Baseball draws more total fans to the ballpark because it has so many more games. But on a per-game basis, the numbers aren't even close. In 2009, Major League Baseball averaged 30,338 fans per game. The NFL averaged 68,241 in 2008.
Television revenue also tells the story of what the sports are worth to broadcasters. The NFL brings in about $2.2 billion per year in broadcast money, which dwarfs MLB's approximately $450 million per year.
"Football is strong in every part of the country, where even baseball is not as strong," Cylkowski said.
Football has several advantages, according to Cylkowski. Its relative scarcity creates demand and anticipation and the point spread creates an appetite for gambling.
"It's not easy to gamble on a 3-2 baseball game," he said.
Gambling is important because it brings fans into a game that may not otherwise have an interest into a game. In the 2000's, fantasy football has done the same thing – expanding interest to the casual fan.
Television is a huge factor, according to Cylkowski. Most of the action in a football game can be captured in a fairly tight shot at the line of scrimmage. Baseball is more spread out.
And the marketing prowess of the NFL has succeeded in hyping up their product.
"The Super Bowl is a happening, not just here but worldwide. The World Series is no longer a worldwide happening," Cylkowski said.
Historians track the rise of the NFL to a 1958 title game at Yankee Stadium between the Giants and Colts. NBC televised that game nationally.
The first Super Bowl in 1967 wasn't even called that. It was the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, broadcast on NBC and CBS.
And in 1970, ABC launched "Monday Night Football," telling the country that pro football wasn't just for hardcore fans, rather, it was a cultural event that belonged in primetime.
In Minnesota, the so-called "state of hockey," football is supreme even at the high school level. According to the Minnesota State High School League, 28,000 kids played football for 392 teams in 2008. Baseball had 14,120 kids on 379 teams. And hockey had 10,000 kids on 284 teams.
Football has more kids (because the teams are larger), but there are also more teams.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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