I think there are a few factors, not the least of which is a small town mentality. Here's another interesting article from a month ago... http://www.oregonsports.com/Story.aspx?sc=11&sid=372
Haha LOL. Of course I am. I appologize to Tom Potter and his family. Potter was just a bad mayor for sports in Portland
Couldn't agree more. Especially your remark about Pitt's design/view from stadium. It makes that city look really cool. I have no doubt that Portland could support MLB.
The Stadium should point the other way, but damn - that is sick. EDIT: Then again, maybe not. The view of Mt Hood is nice. Hmmmm....river, bridges and skyline vs Mt Hood. I guess, either way, you win.
I've never bought into that argument. True, Portland has just 2 fortune 500 companies based here: Nike and Precision Cast Parts. But some other metro areas have a similar number and still have more professional sports teams. There are only 5 fortune 500 companies in all of Arizona, but they have 4 pro teams. San Diego has only 3 fortune 500 companies, but 2 pro teams. Kansas City has 3 fortune 500 companies and 2 pro teams. I don't know...it may be a SMALL part of the problem, but how many fortune 500 companies do we REALLY need? Or fortune 1000? Or whatever? If Arizona is filling 4 stadia worth of luxury boxes with just 5 fortune 500 companies, evidently they're getting some other companies that aren't based there to buy a luxury box. It's not as if Portland has NO big businesses. 6 fortune 1000 companies. Tons of big companies that would at LEAST split a luxury box. I think that 'lack of corporations' line is created by the Blazers to keep other teams from cutting into the absolute BEST situation for any professional sports team. We have 2.2 million people in the metro area with no pro sports competition. I can see why they'd want to keep it just like that.
The author simply does not understand that Oregonians have better things to do than to waste 3+ hours every day of their lives sitting in front of the tube watching other people get rich playing games. With camping, canoeing, swimming, fishing, bird-hunting, deer-hunting, elk-hunting, clamdigging, bicycling, backpacking, spelunking, barbecuing, hot-tubbing, guitar-playing, photography, and listening to live music, I barely have time to follow 1 team. I'd love MLB in Oregon, but I'd have to (and would) drop the Blazers to have time for it.
Since it has more fans in this world than American Football, Baseball or basketball - I find this argument... baffling... Soccer is not a major sport in the US. That's about as far as it goes.
Ping-Pong has far more fans in this world than soccer, and so does Islam, but I wouldn't call either a real sport. As far as sports go, the US is all that really matters to me, and to most Americans. Don't care if they play Pongo in the Congo, or if soccer fans kill each other weekly in Brazil and Europe. It's still one of if not the most tediously boring game to sit through as a spectator.
I can see where you could make the argument that soccer is not a major sport, since people are so US centric the fail to realize that 0 people outside of the US and areas with US army bases cares about American Football or that 0 people outside of the US, Latin America, Korea and Japan care about baseball. BUT, can you explain to me how soccer is not a real sport? What in baseball makes it a sport, but soccer not?
I think you mixed up baseball with soccer. If you record a baseball game, you can watch every play in under 10 minutes. < 10 minutes of action stretched out over 3+ hours. If that's not tedious, I'm not sure what is. And this is coming from someone who likes baseball and played it through HS.
