OT: Baseball coming to Portland in the near future (AGAIN?)

Good point!
http://mlsattendance.blogspot.com/

Some of it is because they're playing in bigger arenas AND have half the # of games and it's spread out over a longer season, BUT I don't think the NHL would get 20-40K per team on average.

Damn Seattle Customers...

Anyways, the size of their stadiums plays a huge role in their #'s, it's why they average more fans than NBA teams do. NBA games are a grind, usually late at night and not usually on the weekends.

Either way, to act like MLS isn't now a major league sport, is just being defiant.

 

Link to the avg baseball fan being 60? What criteria did they use?

It will never be bigger than the MLB. MLS will ebb and flow with the World Cup. It'll be fifth fiddle in 2 years. It's the minor league of soccer, after all.

 

<--- me when I see people continously hate and doubt soccer and its growth, cause its the cool thing to do.

 

It's not the USA sport. It's fact. It's a niche sport here. Other countires? Sure, it's huge. Hockey is huge in Canada... but it's not nearly as huge here.

NFL is huge here, but it's a niche sport in another country. It's just true.

 

also I like Baseball y'all

 

I'm not arguing that Soccer is #1 here. But what I laugh about is the Dwight Jaynes like era who do all they can to bash Soccer.

What we are seeing now is the generation of people who grew up with Soccer as an actual league here, becoming fully grown and having kids of their own too.

MLS salaries are paltry compared to other leagues in the US and the world. But MLS is also what 18 years old? And even that is showing to be changing with the MLS ownership changing and money they are throwing around.

I havent even touched on the melting pot that this country is, and the love of the sport generations of their families bring.

I use the Burns pic cause its funny for me the awakening people are in for just cause they've grown up hating soccer.

 

also people keep wanting to say it will never be NFL and king. MLS season overlaps with about a month of NFL, they dont need to compete with NFL. MLB is the only one with direct competition for pretty much the whole season.

 

lastly I wasnt really trying to single you out Strennus, sorry if it came across that way.

 

I don't actually hate soccer, but I don't "enjoy" it either. I also just don't see any actual trends that it's growing outside of the cities that the MLS is in outside of when the World Cup happens.

Everyone talks about the NFL here, whether it's in their city or not. (Though I wish that stopped.) Everyone talks about the MLB for the same reason, and people talk about certain players in the NBA (Not usually actual teams, but that's a media thing).

Anyway, you may be right that the generational thing may be happening, but it will never overtake the MLB, NBA, or NFL.

 

I think the main difference is accessibility now. I had no league of Soccer in this country until I was 10 years old. There were obviously established leagues then, but no real way to watch them. Now its incredibly easy to keep up with leagues with the best players in the world.

There is some study that shows the age demographics and how many younger ones have Soccer as their 2nd favorite sport behind NFL. I think it was on ESPN or something, but I'm staying away from that to avoid today's scores. I'll try and find it later haha.

IMO MLB will be passed but NBA and NFL are a ways off to even worry about overtaking them (which fortunately again, they dont have to)

 

I think this is the report. Sorry if not, I think scores were at the top of the screen so I avoided lol

http://www.espnfc.com/major-league-...hes-mlb-in-popularity-with-kidssays-espn-poll

http://sportspath.typepad.com/files/soccer-popularity-continues-to-climb.pdf

 

Thanks for the links. I just don't see it though. I wish they had a bigger number of people than 13,000 ish people for an entire year. That's not enough to draw a conclusion for any sport.

I think once Baseball gets out of the steroid era, it will go 2nd or 3rd with the NBA 10-15 years from now. Ironically, it's why it did get popular in the late 90's with Mcgwire and Sosa... but it was already Americas Pastime.