Pro Sports in the South

The Game Room
21

[QUOTE=spoke-]
I have a hard time understanding why anyone would get emotionally attached to a pro team. Pro players are mercenaries. Except for free agents, they don’t choose their teams. They usually have no prior geographic connection to their teams.

A college player, on the other hand, is often from the state where the school is located. He is a hometown boy. If not, he has at least chosen to be there, so he shares the affection of the fans for that particular team.

So I’m going to turn it around on the OP: why would you get emotionally attached to a pro team?

“Our mercenaries are better than your mercenaries!”

How is that a source of pride?
[/QUOTE]

While I agree with your main point about the mercenary aspect of pro athletes, I’d like to point out that at least in the case of my own involvement with the Titans as a TV fan (never been to a game and don’t own a single piece of fan or even NFL merchandise) I’m very much interested in “our mercenaries” and would suspect that many Tennessee fans feel the same way. Seeing several of the old guys returning this off-season after being away at other teams for the past few years (guys like Kearse and McCareins) is heartwarming even if these guys are anywhere from 3 to 5 years older now and may not produce as well as they did last time they were Titans.

And I’m one of those fence-straddlers about Pacman Jones. I hate that he’s made a fool of himself the past year or so, because he’s so much fun to watch playing the game. I’ll hate to see him in a Cowboys or Raiders uniform or whoever picks him up after he’s officially gone from the team.

But as long as Vanden Bosch, Bulluck, Bironas, Hentrich, and some of the old-timers are still around and playing hard, I’m all about “our mercenaries.”

To be fair, though, I believe in my own case that’s mainly due to the loyalty Coach Fisher appears to have to Nashville and Tennessee and the team. He strikes me as sincere when he talks about his satisfaction with living in this part of the country and how he has no plans to go elsewhere. And even though he’s a big USC fan, and even though not all that many of the Titans are from the SEC, I do sense a lot more team spirit among our guys than on other teams, especially the other Southern teams.

Call me a homer. It works, even though they don’t have any of my money.

22

Well, I don’t know what part of the country you put San Antonio in but the Spurs are pretty durn popular here. And last check they have been relatively successful.

Also, we have more of a northern migration issue rather than southern.

And for mercenaries; Tim Duncan signing for less, so that he can be surrounded by better players doesn’t quite fit the definition.

23

I see where Diomedes considers Texas its own animal. Actually, we’re our own country and state of mind.

24

[QUOTE=peekercpa]
I see where Diomedes considers Texas its own animal. Actually, we’re our own country and state of mind.
[/QUOTE]

And the plight of the Rangers is one of the few things in the world that makes me smile about my poor Indians. :slight_smile:

25

I don’t think there’s anything particularly unique about Texas, at least as far as this is concerned. They have a good tradition of supporting both college and pro sports franchises in just about every league. The same can be said for the entire Midwest, particularly Big Ten country.

[QUOTE=NDP]
I think one reason why, on the whole, pro sports aren’t as popular as college sports in the South is because college sports have had more time to develop their fan bases and rivalries. The NFL, the NBA, and MLB didn’t have any franchises in the Deep South until the 1960’s. Contrast that with the Northeast and Midwest which, in the case of the NFL and MLB, have had teams since the earliest days of those leagues.
[/QUOTE]

This is my first inclination, but I’m not entirely convinced I’m right. Generally speaking sports fans are taught by their parents who were taught by their parents and so on. In the north we’ve had both college and professional sports in tandem since their inception. So it’s no surprise that they can share popularity and that there are generations of people married to their teams.

The south for several generations only had college teams. There were grandpas and fathers raising their kids to live and die with their college teams. As the pro teams come in fans aren’t aping learned behavior as they grow up.

There’s a few problems with this though. First, Texas as just as football crazed and college-centric as the deep south before the Cowboys came to town in the 60’s yet they have supported the team just fine and have no trouble supporting their basketball and baseball teams too. There are probably more Mavericks, Spurs and Rockets fans than there are UT, A&M and Baylor college basketball fans.

In the deep south people are almost solely interested in college football. The college basketball teams don’t get much love off-campus. Ironically the Carolina’s tend to love college basketball in lieu of all others, but I think that might be something of an anomaly. This begs the question why the Deep South can’t seem to support baseball or basketball teams, I find it hard to believe that college football tradition trumps that.

Also, it’s worth noting that the south loves it some NASCAR. So they can support another sport besides football. Maybe the question is why the south seems to like NASCAR better than basketball and baseball.

I personally don’t by the transplant argument. There are more transplants in LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas and NYC than anywhere else. Those towns seem to support their home teams just fine and they tend to indoctrinate their incoming people. No reason Atlanta and Miami shouldn’t do the same.

26

Perhaps the issue here is economic.

Professional sports teams are supported, disproportionately, by realtively wealthy people. The typical attendee at a pro sports event is white and upper middle class.

How many upper middle class folks are there in Atlanta? Nashville? Raleigh-Durham? Jacksonville? A lot of the cities cited in the OP are ALREADY small cities by pro sports standards.

27

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Perhaps the issue here is economic.

Professional sports teams are supported, disproportionately, by realtively wealthy people. The typical attendee at a pro sports event is white and upper middle class.

How many upper middle class folks are there in Atlanta? Nashville? Raleigh-Durham? Jacksonville? A lot of the cities cited in the OP are ALREADY small cities by pro sports standards.
[/QUOTE]

In my experience, wealthier people prefer college to pro events. I always notice how much more “blue-collar” the crowds are when I go to a pro football game.

I think the lack of support in the South has more to do with the fact that pro sports ignored the area completely until the 1960s.

28

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Perhaps the issue here is economic.

Professional sports teams are supported, disproportionately, by realtively wealthy people. The typical attendee at a pro sports event is white and upper middle class.

How many upper middle class folks are there in Atlanta? Nashville? Raleigh-Durham? Jacksonville? A lot of the cities cited in the OP are ALREADY small cities by pro sports standards.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure I agree with the argument that wealthy people dominate a teams fan base. They might buy the season tickets but the middle and lower classes buy most of the jerseys and tend to care about sports more in their day-to-day lives.

Also, Miami and Atlanta aren’t small markets by definition.

29

[QUOTE=Omniscient]
I’m not sure I agree with the argument that wealthy people dominate a teams fan base. They might buy the season tickets but the middle and lower classes buy most of the jerseys and tend to care about sports more in their day-to-day lives.

[/QUOTE]

I meant to say something similar to this. As I already said, I’m a “TV only fan” of our area’s pro team but that applies equally well to my support of the college teams that I care about and follow closely on TV. I have paid to watch college games and to be in the stands to get all that excitement, but it has been decades ago. So I’m not one to provide more than “outsider looking in” commentary.

However, it appears to me that the people in attendance at Titans games (as well as UT, Vandy, Auburn and other colleges I follow) are in the categories of students, alumni, and working class people. TV rarely shows the skyboxes and special seating occupants, for whatever reason I’m not sure, but focuses rather on the fans in crazy getups, body paint, scanty clothing, or some other gaudy display. A good number of those people (especially at college games) probably don’t have a lot of other ways to spend their money for entertainment, with sports being their main outlet. But I propose that it’s their money that constitutes the “support” the OP is talking about.

I’d be very curious to know the percentages by economic class and educational level of the fanbases of Southern pro teams (all sports) as compared with other areas of the country in terms of what they contribute to that team’s income. Does anyone have access to such figures?

30

[QUOTE=Diomedes]
And the plight of the Rangers is one of the few things in the world that makes me smile about my poor Indians. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

Well, I am more of an Astros fan. Probably didn’t influence that smile much.

31

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Perhaps the issue here is economic.

Professional sports teams are supported, disproportionately, by realtively wealthy people. The typical attendee at a pro sports event is white and upper middle class.

How many upper middle class folks are there in Atlanta? Nashville? Raleigh-Durham? Jacksonville? A lot of the cities cited in the OP are ALREADY small cities by pro sports standards.
[/QUOTE]

That may be a factor, but Cleveland is one of the poorest cities in the country, but they have the biggest financial support adjusted for market size in all of the NFL (this despite being pathetic for most of the last decade).

32

[QUOTE=RickJay]
How many upper middle class folks are there in Atlanta? Nashville? Raleigh-Durham? Jacksonville? A lot of the cities cited in the OP are ALREADY small cities by pro sports standards.
[/QUOTE]

:confused: Why is Atlanta on your list? Atlanta has the 9th-largest metro area in the US - larger than Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, Phoenix, Cleveland and Cincinnati, to name a few.

33

Well in the case of the Jaguars the whole stated public purpose of putting a team there was to “perennially concerned with increasing fan attendence” in an area that the NFL saw as ripe for expansion at the time. So they knew going in that it would be a struggle and one the NFL purposely engaged in and it worked - at first.

The NFL wants to expand its product and keep growing but that is proving a very difficult thing to do outside the U.S. and inside the U.S. it is stretched very close to the end - and maybe thats why you sense in the NFL’s case they are trying to force something that isn’t there

34

[QUOTE=spoke-]
:confused: Why is Atlanta on your list? Atlanta has the 9th-largest metro area in the US - larger than Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, Phoenix, Cleveland and Cincinnati, to name a few.
[/QUOTE]

And so let me ask again; how many upper class folks are there?

I’ve been to a few Braves games and the crowd, which was shockingly sparse, was almost entirely white. Isn’t Atlanta more than half black? If they’re not drawing from half the city’s population, isn’t the city’s population a poor indicator of its attendance potential?

35

[QUOTE=RickJay]
And so let me ask again; how many upper class folks are there?

I’ve been to a few Braves games and the crowd, which was shockingly sparse, was almost entirely white. Isn’t Atlanta more than half black? If they’re not drawing from half the city’s population, isn’t the city’s population a poor indicator of its attendance potential?
[/QUOTE]

Um… Buckhead? Not only this, but the lower class (and also the blacks, who sometimes, but not always, coincide with the lower class) have been pushed out of Atlanta since 1996. Atlanta is becoming whiter than the whitest sheets faster than you can say “gentrification.”

Oh yea, Buckhead. Or Atlantic Station.

36

[QUOTE=RickJay]
And so let me ask again; how many upper class folks are there?
[/quote]

In Atlanta? You must be joking! But in case you’re not, here you go.

Here you seem to be changing the subject. I think. or are you suggesting that only white people in Atlanta have enough money to go to a ballgame? Wow. Well, you have much to learn. Here you go.

Do you mean within the city limits (which are small) or the metro area? The metro area is mostly white. The city itself is more than half black, but just barely, and possibly not for long. Take a gander.

But I still don’t see your point with the racial stuff.

Uh.

Hmm.

You want to see black fans, go to a Falcons game, where there are plenty. Baseball just doesn’t generate that much interest among the black population these days (not just in Atlanta). (I would suggest taking in a Hawks game, but nobody, black or white, shows up for those these days.)

I’m not sure why you’re intent on putting a racial spin on this topic anyway.

37

The only way that race can play an issue as far as I can tell is in reference to Baseball. Baseball has seen a marked decline in interest in the black community over the past few decades and this fact has manifested itself at the ticket office, in professional players at all levels and in the little leagues across the country. So, one could argue that a predominantly black city/region would have more trouble supporting a baseball team than an mostly white city of equivalent size and wealth.

However this does nothing to explain why Atlanta and Miami have struggled to support Football and Basketball teams. And I think both cities’ white and latin populations make up a large enough proportion to indicate that those groups should better support a team than small market cities elsewhere in the country.

38

[QUOTE=Omniscient]
The only way that race can play an issue as far as I can tell is in reference to Baseball. Baseball has seen a marked decline in interest in the black community over the past few decades and this fact has manifested itself at the ticket office, in professional players at all levels and in the little leagues across the country. So, one could argue that a predominantly black city/region would have more trouble supporting a baseball team than an mostly white city of equivalent size and wealth.

However this does nothing to explain why Atlanta and Miami have struggled to support Football and Basketball teams. And I think both cities’ white and latin populations make up a large enough proportion to indicate that those groups should better support a team than small market cities elsewhere in the country.
[/QUOTE]

Curiously enough, some of the country’s blackest cities, Detroit (82% black), Baltimore (64%), Chicago’s South Side (wiki doesn’t have handy figures for this) support their baseball teams pretty well. While I’ve never been to a Tiger’s home game, there was no dearth of black faces at Camden Yards or at Comiskey when I’ve gone to games there.
Hell, even DC manages to outsell the Florida teams, despite being newer to its area, stepping on the toes of an entrenched franchise in the region, and being in a city that’s well over 60% black.
I think color may be a red herring in this discussion.

39

[QUOTE=Diomedes]
Part of the problem with my accepting that is the fact that I’m 25. I’m friends with people as young as 17, and despite the fact that southern teams were popping up around here around the same timeframe that I began learning about sports… they just care about college basketball. All of them!
[/QUOTE]

Diomedes, I think the simple answer may be that for the longest time, college sports were all we had. I’ve lived in NC my whole life. My “home” NFL team was the Redskins before the Panthers came to play. :stuck_out_tongue: In the last 20 years, this area has seen phenomenal growth with an influx of people from all over the US and the world even, and the opportunities for pro franchises to thrive came with that growth. We natives are getting used to having the pros here, but the college tradition will never die here. We have 4 ACC teams within an hour’s drive of each other, and some long ingrained rivialries to go along with them. Part of growing up here is picking a team - State, Carolina, Duke, or if you really wanna buck the system, Wake Forest, or more accurately your family will tell you who to pull for. Then you stick with that team your whole life.

College tickets are less expensive than pro tickets, and in some instances more readily available. Possibly more accessible for your buddies. My personal preference is college basketball over pro, and both for football. I simply despise watching NBA games. I don’t know why I feel this way for basketball and not football, but I think the NBA players are overpaid ego-maniacs, so I have no interest. I’m a Hurricanes season ticket holder, and there didn’t seem to be a big attendance problem this season. I don’t go to Panther’s games because Charlotte is too far for me to go except occasionally.

I’m not speaking for the entire South, of course, just giving my opinion on NC specifically.

40

[QUOTE=Diomedes]
Curiously enough, some of the country’s blackest cities, Detroit (82% black), Baltimore (64%), Chicago’s South Side (wiki doesn’t have handy figures for this) support their baseball teams pretty well. While I’ve never been to a Tiger’s home game, there was no dearth of black faces at Camden Yards or at Comiskey when I’ve gone to games there.
[/QUOTE]

I think those numbers are deceptive. Detroit and Baltimore suffer from urban blight and white flight. The downtown areas and the census figures within the city limits are heavily black but this doesn’t do a good job of properly illustrating what the actual media market is like. The suburbs of Detroit have some very affluent areas and have huge middle class population made up of white, middle eastern and latin people. The Detroit fan base is almost certainly less black than many of the southern cities. Baltimore is very similar and still has fans from the very white and wealthy suburbs of the DC, northern Virginia, southern Maryland along the Beltway region. Southern Chicago is popularly thought of as a black ghetto, which some neighborhoods are, but it is also a bastion of white and latin blue collar/middle class people. Much of the region is made up of traditional Irish and Italian neighborhoods and the Sox tend to be the favored team of the huge Jewish population here. Additionally the southern suburbs are one of the fastest growing areas in the country for the stereotypical suburban commuter crowd.

Overall I think race is something of a red herring as far as the OP is concerned, it only really applies to baseball. Economics don’t seem to apply either because of examples like Miami and Atlanta struggling the way they do. The strength of college football’s tradition doesn’t cover it because of the strength of the Texas market and the fact that the struggles seem to apply to sports other than football.

I wonder if it’s just a cultural thing in the south. People in the north and west seem to love to get dolled up to go to big events. Expensive dinners, theater openings, sporting events and the like are something of a status symbol. Everyone aches to get out of the house as often as possible. Perhaps people in the south put a lower value on this type of stuff and have traditionally alloted a smaller share of their expendable income to this stuff.

The stereotype seems to paint the typical southerner as more happy to have a few beers at home or in the yard with the neighbors where the northern and western counterparts are likely to head to the corner bar. Southerners tend to complain about spending luxury prices on things like food even when they can afford it. They tend to like the mom-and-pop diners, the Walmart and the popular chain stores and think northerners are fools for pissing away their money at Whole Foods and the boutique stores.

I don’t think this is all wrapped up in comparative wealth since many parts of the south are flush with old money and expendable income. Perhaps pro sports with their $30+ ticket prices and $6+ beers are just not what they traditionally consider to be a worthwhile investment.