In the United States, both baseball and football have passionate fans who claim that they follow the true number one sport in America. But, how does one determine what is the actual “number one American sport”?
There are several categories that can be considered when determining America’s number one pastime. Analyzing attendance, ticket costs, revenue from television, salaries, venues, will help to present a case for which sport is number one in the United States. These six factors will help determine which sport is more beloved by Americans.
Attendance
One way to determine whether baseball or football is more popular in America is by looking at how many people go to the games. During the year 2000, the average crowd at a baseball game was 30,125, while the average crowd at a football game was 66,077. This figure is based on a total yearly attendance, divided by the total number of games that were played in the sport. Simply based upon this one factor, it would appear that twice as many people went to football games than to baseball games in that particular year.
Ticket Costs
An aspect which can contribute to the popularity of a sport is ticket cost. An important question is: how affordable is it for the average family in America to go to a live sporting event? Pertaining to this factor, baseball is more accessible and potentially more popular overall with average, to below-average income earning American families. Baseball games, in the year 2000, cost $20.02, while football games cost an average of $54.14. Clearly, live baseball is easier to afford than live football, and watching games live is an experience that can create a lot of fans and generate plenty of excitement for a particular sport.
Television Revenue
Another important factor to consider when analyzing the popularity of a given sport is how much money that sport accumulates from television revenues. In this case, football is the clear winner. The NFL brings in about 2.2 billion dollars a year in revenues from television. The MLB earns about 340 million. The significant difference pertaining to TV revenue is that football is on a few days per week, and baseball is on nearly every night. However, football still brings in much more money from ad revenues on television, which means that there are more people watching the football games than are watching the baseball games. When it comes to television revenue, football is the number one sport.
However, this does not settle the argument. The baseball season and the football season are opposites in many ways. Baseball season is long and drawn out, with a team playing almost every night. Football games are essentially once a week, even though the league and the networks have added Saturday and Thursday games to the already successful “Monday Night Football”. This creates more of a buzz for a football game, and the TV numbers and the revenue generation is a product of that buzz.
Salaries
Another measure of how popular a sport is would be how much its players are paid. In the Major League Baseball, the average salary is a little over 2 million dollars a year; while the average salary in the NFL is right around 1.18 million dollars a year. Therefore, baseball pays its players more money, but it is essentially unclear what effect this aspect has on the fans preference between the two sports.
Venues
The different venues in which the two sports are played is another aspect to take into consideration. When attempting to determine which sport is number one sport in America, this can be a factor. The number of seats in stadiums is important because it shows the number of fans that can be expected per game. The average baseball stadium holds 47,000 people. The average football stadium holds 70,000 people. Therefore, there are more seats to watch football games, meaning that more people typically go to football games. Again, this may be skewed due to the frequency of games played in both football and baseball. However, a regular season football game is more of a major event on a consistent basis than a regular baseball game.
The Role of a Sport’s Athletes
Another factor to consider when discussing what America’s favorite pastime may be is the impact the games players have on society, both positive and negative. For instance, if an Arena football player or an A-class baseball player gets in trouble, or does something very generous, it is not big news. If a NFL or MLB player does one of those things, it usually gets plenty of coverage. This may be a draw, mostly because both MLB and NFL players are consistently in the news for various run-in’s with the law or charitable actions.
Looking at these factors together, one realizes that football and baseball are both extremely popular and also very different. Due to this dynamic, it becomes difficult to compare the two fairly. Both sports have been around for many years, and both of them will continue to be popular for many years. Which one, however, is the more popular, is still undecided.
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How do the baseball rules work?I only want to know what the numbers mean on the top of the screen when someone is on bat. Like it will show 2-2. I think it has something to do with foul balls and strikes, but what determines if its a strike or foul ball? How does a baseball player get a walk off, is it four consecutive bad pitches?
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Grant Eckert is a freelance writer who writes about sports and leisure activities, similar to what consumers read in ESPN Magazine | ESPN the Magazine
Nice work, you did pretty good.
You’re really good man. You’ve got excellent talent.
I would say that 60 is a reasonable guess, but it might be a little lower than that. I used to play as a kid but i don't play much anymore and I was clocked in the low 60's last summer at a fan day thing. Of the 4 people I knew that were clocked i think the highest ws 67 with average being a little under 60.
Yes. There have been a few "switch pitchers"
Greg Harris did Sept 28, 1995. He was the last guy to do this in the MLB.
I also remember hearing a story of a minor league pitcher who did this in a game.. against a switch hitter, and the two switched back and forth many times until the umpire had to intervene.
read the bottom of this page for a brief mention of the story:
http://www.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news_story.jsp?article_id=mlb_20000303_holtzman_cols&team_id=mlb
Perfect.
First find how long the ball is in the air. Velocity X Distance (converted units of course)
Then multiply by the revolutions per minute and you will get revolutions.
Mainly just a unit conversion problem
amazing! Willy teach me how to paint like you!
Very nice!!
hm i couldn’t tell the difference between photograph and painting comparing the final resault.
This is sick
:O
:O
:O
how is this not a real photo?
Well, these days with all of exercise and weight training they do, many baseball players are strong and big ( taking away the notion that most baseball players aren't athletes ) since most baseball players are athletes anyway. They actually cut their hair to military style because having a full head of hair slows down a player some what. For a "cop attitude" baseball players are the only pro athletes who are allowed to police themselves whenever a fight happens and leave the dugout.
don't let the easy one get away……. Barry Bonds
It says that we (yes I am Black) did what we did what had always when done when Whites would not allow us to do something. We started our own version which was just as good (and in many cases better as N-e-g-r-o League All Star teams routinely beat MLB All Star teams in exhibitions) as what they had. Most people don't know this but the East-West Colored All Star Game played at the original Comiskey Park in 1933 actually outdrew the first ever MLB All Star Game which was played in the same stadium one week earlier. This shows that White America was beginning to realize the quality of baseball that was played in the N-e-g-r-o Leagues was just as high as (and arguably higher than) that played in MLB. This also made racist owners try even harder to keep us out of MLB.
Often, N-e-g-r-o League teams would get their names by placing the word "Black" in front of the name of the local MLB or MiLB team, i.e. New York Black Yankees, Chattanooga Black Lookouts, Atlanta Black Crackers ("Crackers" was the name of the first professional team in Atlanta, a reference to cracking home runs), Birmingham Black Barons (who at one time counted Satchel Paige and Willie Mays among their players and were owned by Abe Saperstein, the same man who founded and owned the Harlem Globetrotters), Washington Black Senators, Jacksonville Black Caps (Jacksonville's MiBL team was the Red Caps) Shreveport Black Captains, New Orleans Black Pelicans, Little Rock Black Travelers,etc. The Kansas City Royals name is a tribute to the most famous N-e-g-r-o League team of them all, the Kansas City Monarchs.
When the MLB and MiLB teams were on road trips, the N-e-g-r-o League teams would often play in their stadiums and give the MLB team owner a portion of the receipts. This was also true for some MiLB teams. For example, when the Birmingham Barons were on a road trip, the Birmingham Black Barons would play at Rickwood Field. The N-e-g-r-o League teams were, however, required to use the MLB or MiLB teams announcers who were often just as racist as the owners. When the Barons played at Rickwood Field there was one section of the right field bleachers that was designated as "The Colored Section" and whenever a player be it a member of the Barons or the opposing team would hit a home run into that section the announcer would say the player hit it into "The Coal Bin." The bleacher designations were the exact reverse for the Black Barons' games, with one difference: the one section of the bleachers had no denigrating designation.
In short, the N-e-g-r-o Leagues showed that we could do anything that Whites could do and could do it just as well, if not better in some cases. The N-e-g-r-o Leagues endured until 1962 when they finally closed down shop for good because they had served their purpose, which was to give us a place to play professional baseball. When Pumpsie Green debuted with the Red Sox in 1959, it meant that every team in MLB had integrated.
Before anyone says anything about the date in the question it is correct. Jackie Robinson signed to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league team, the Montreal Royals in early 1946. He played one year for them before being called up to the Dodgers with whom he debuted on April 15, 1947.
Brilliant Willy, Just Brilliant =D
I want to add to Kyle's response. The answer is B. If uniforms are sold to fans, then they are final goods and will be included in GDP. However, since professional baseball players use uniforms as an input in supplying a match to spectators, then the cost of these uniforms is already included in ticket prices and will not be included in GDP.
woww that’s really relax and beatiful soung .good picture of jhony depp !
All broadcasters have endless information in front of them and constantly given to them during the game. So they know what pitches a pitcher throws, as well their tendencies they have to throw certain pitches in certain situations. They know between what speeds their fastball is thrown as well as the rest of a pitcher's pitches. So then by looking at the speed of the pitch, and its movement, they can deduce what pitch was just thrown. Its not quite as easy as looking at what sign the catcher is putting down, since that camera angle isn't usually the one being shown when the signs are flashed.
the same as we do