Pro basketball. College basketball is nothing but a bunch of chuckers and try hard guys. Anyone with real talent does not stay long enough to develop into a real player. The level of play in the NBA so much higher in the NBA. The tournament is more exciting because it is one and done but the excitement does not make up for the poor quality of play.
Pro Football. The level of innovation is much higher in college but it is essentially european soccer in that some teams have such a huge advantage over everyone else that it is not really a fair contest at least half the time. Teams in the NFL all have similar resources and win or lose based on competence and not institutional advantage.
I swear I’m not trying to pick a fight here, but I feel like, if you watch college basketball but are “bored” by pro basketball, you must derive entertainment from watching basketball for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual quality of the basketball.
College football over professional. The players chose to play for these teams. The fans are really into it. The teams aren’t going to move. The players act like they care a lot more.
College basketball over professional. I don’t care much for either, but the NBA season is boring. The refs suck- “Oh, you’re a star? Go ahead and take 5 steps without dribbling.”
Pro hockey over college. The pros are MUCH faster and more highly skilled. Though when Michigan State has a good team I follow them.
Pro baseball over college. Hate the ‘chink’ of the metal bats in college. On the plus side, I can get into an MSU game for a buck.
There’s a difference besides the quality of the players and their experience/skills. They aren’t playing by the same rules. The NBA game is intentionally tweaked towards forcing higher tempo and higher scoring. That works for a lot of people. It doesn’t work for me… I’d likely do better if they adopted rules closer to college - ditching the 3 second defensive violation and lengthening the shot clock a bit. We don’t disagree about quality. I think we disagree about what makes “basketball” interesting.
You think that decreasing the possessions by forty-three percent, and making zone defense legal makes basketball more interesting? :eek:
Yep, that’s me.
I’m so ignorant of basketball that I couldn’t even name all the positions on the court. I chose college over pro because the only time I pay it any attention is to track my March Madness bracket.
Also, college hockey is a bit different than the other sports. Less than 50% of NHL players from the American college system (around 30%, IIRC). The rest come from the Canadian Major Junior leagues or Europe. Which “minor” league one watches is mostly determined by geography.
I prefer college football to pro; baseball and hockey I prefer pro. Basketball I really don’t care for at all one way or another, but, if pressed, I might also go college for that.
I voted for the pros, across the board.
Don’t really care about baseball or hockey, so won’t bother voting.
Basketball - I’d definitely lean towards college. The March Madness tournament is just amazing. And I feel like the NBA season is just too long - 82 regular season games, half the league makes the playoffs, 7 game playoff series, etc… just too many games. Which probably helps contribute to the feeling that the players aren’t going all-out at all times, or bother playing defense until the playoffs. The fact that some players clearly get favoritism from the refs (and that traveling apparently doesn’t exist) is also a turnoff.
Now, the skill level is definitely a lot better in the professional level… I’ve seen some downright ugly games in college the last couple years, not sure if it’s all the one-and-dones or what, but it feels like the skill difference is greater than it’s ever been. But college still carries it for me.
Football - this one is a toughy. I like aspects of college - their overtime is a lot more exciting, for example, and there’s a great variation in offenses (though unfortunately not as much as there used to be) that you don’t get in the NFL. I certainly agree with the feeling that the NFL is somewhat sterile feeling sometimes. And the whole “every game matters” of the regular season setup is interesting. But fantasy football really brings me into the pro game, and the fact that your team can actually become suddenly good in a year or two instead of constantly being on the bottom of a conference is nice.
College preferred:Football (the NFL under Goodell ugh unwatchable), Basketball (no zone defense? what?)
Pro preferred: Baseball (then minor league baseball and college baseball), Hockey (minor league hockey first then pros, then college)
You must not have watched NBA for like a decade. Zone defense has been allowed for quite some time now.
I voted pro for baseball and hockey, mainly because the best players tend to bypass college and go straight to the pros in those sports. On the other hand, I’m more a fan of the event rather than the sport when it comes to football and basketball, so I went with college.
College football over Pro, mainly for the reasons already given. Pro football is too “scripted”. Not quite as bad as wrestling*, but in that direction.
College basketball over Pro. Again, it’s mostly been said. The NBA can’t even come close to the excitement of a college game. Then there is March Madness.
I chose Pro Baseball over College. Mostly because Pro Baseball is more widely available. I now live in a college town, so I may start to follow college ball a bit more, go to games, etc… Baseball is much more interesting when you know the players and their tendencies, the managers and their preferences. I do have a problem with a “Tink!” instead of a “Crack!”, but maybe I could get over that if I went to enough games.
I have only been to maybe two (semi-pro) hockey games in my life. I’ve just never gotten into it, so I didn’t vote.
I guess I’m leaning more towards College sports over Pro. With Pro, in very aspect it is all about the money. From the tickets to the refreshments to the players. With college, the majority of the players realize they will never make enough money in the sport to raise above the poverty level, but they do it because they like it. I don’t think there is any pro player who wouldn’t play for their rival if that was where the money was. Sure, in college football, money is king, but the kids playing the game are still kids.
*I am not sure you didn’t include Pro Wrestling vs. College Wrestling. I think including it in the poll would have made some of the responses a lot more interesting.
Mea culpa. You are correct. It’s been a long long long time since I watched pro basketball. Ignorance fought. I hear those Vancouver Grizzlies are looking good though.
They’re no match for the Seattle Supersonics.
I was never that much of a basketball fan, and having grown up in the DC area well before hockey even existed there, I was never a hockey fan at all. And I abandoned football a few years back when I found out it was turning players’ brains to mush.
That leaves baseball, and hardly anyone* pays attention to college baseball. So MLB picks up the uncontested win.
- As a proportion of the population, not in absolute numbers. In a nation of 320 million people, I’m sure there are literally millions of college baseball fans. But if you go up to a random acquaintance the day after his/her college baseball team won a game, and say, “hey, how about your Warthogs (or whatever his/her team’s mascot is), quite some game last night, huh?” you’ll probably get a blank look.
I like the NFL, but college football gets right to my heart. I LOVELOVELOVE college football. Voted college.
I’ve always been a Celtics fan, but to me the NBA is mostly millionaires who seemingly couldn’t give a shit on any given night. The games I do watch I swear most of the players look like they’d rather be any place else than on the court. Until the playoffs. Then it changes. But college is just so much more exciting. Voted college.
I actually do follow college baseball. My team is a perennial College World Series contender, so there’s that. But MLB is just a part of America. There’s a generational appreciation of the sport. I loved going to Cooperstown. I root for the Cubs so hard year after year; I really get caught up in it. Voted professional.
Hockey? Yeah, right. No vote.
In defense of the NBA, it is a very long season and those games are harder on your body than you might think. Especially on those big guys. I wonder how different NBA games would look if the regular season was 45 games.
In general, I prefer professional sports because the quality of play is just higher. The biggest difference I have observed is between college basketball (where players have difficulty beating a simple zone defense, drawing charges is a premier defensive strategy, and the full-court press often befuddles ballhandlers) and the NBA. It’s just a totally different game.
The only college sport I prefer is the NCAA due to a confluence of factors:
-I have no NFL team (the Rams moved away when I was a boy)
-I attended a Pac-12 university, so there was a D-I program to follow
-I find the atmosphere of the pro game to be too corporate/sterile/etc, whereas the college game has a lot more atmosphere/energy/history, between the bands playing fight songs, yell leaders, student sections, and so on.
There’s no argument about whether the NFL is a better product, but I prefer NCAA for ancillary reasons.
I prefer college sports over professional sports except baseball.
There is no rational reason for this, I just do.
I also prefer my coffee with milk no sugar and my tea with sugar no milk. Go figure.
PS: I haven’t watched an entire baseball game since the 1993 season.