WSJ: Popularity Contest: Baseball vs. Football

[Tugg Speedman]

Popularity Contest: Baseball vs. Football
NFL scores big with fans, but the national pastime isn’t past its time

By Jo Craven McGinty
April 10, 2015 11:24 a.m. ET

http://www.wsj.com/articles/popularity-contest-baseball-vs-football-1428679449?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories



Baseball is slow, low-scoring and quiet—the opposite of the fast, loud and violent game of football. But is baseball really dying in the shadow of its flashier rival?

While football is undoubtedly very popular, the numbers show that the demise of the sport known as the national pastime has been considerably exaggerated.

Since it is spring and the pinstripes are finally out, let’s take a swing at another of America’s favorite pastimes: debating the popularity of Major League Baseball and the National Football League—and to make it interesting, let’s keep score.

If luring raw numbers of fans to stadiums is the best measure of success, baseball blows football away.

Last year, 73.7 million people attended professional baseball games. That’s less than the peak of 79.5 million in 2007, before the financial crisis siphoned off some fans, but the total number of people going to NFL games has never come close. Last year, only 17.6 million people attended professional football games, the high for the sport.

But wait! Total attendance ignores the fact that Major League Baseball teams play 162 games in the regular season—or 2,430 games total—compared with only 16 regular-season games for NFL teams, or 256 in all. So on a per-game basis, an average of 30,345 people attended each MLB contest, compared with 68,776 for each NFL game (usually in bigger stadiums).

Point: Tie between MLB and NFL. (I know, a cop-out, but we’re comparing spheroids and balls here.)

OK, let’s view the question from another perspective: the attention each sport commands.

The NFL season is short. The regular season enthralls the nation for a mere 17 weeks. It’s the sport equivalent of a raucous fling.

MLB by contrast inspires devotion. It absorbs the public’s attention for 180 days, a season twice as long as the NFL’s.

NFL games are largely confined to Sundays, with single games played on Mondays and Thursdays for most of the season. Baseball is played every day—often during the workweek. Yet on Tuesdays, the day with the worst attendance last year, baseball still, on average, pulled in 27,000 fans.

Point: MLB

If baseball wins for a devoted fan base, the NFL has the edge when it comes to money.

According to Forbes magazine, which compiles the information annually, the NFL’s revenues exceeded $9.5 billion in 2014, while MLB’s revenue was just over $7.8 billion. MLB isn’t hurting, but the winner here is unambiguous.

Point: NFL

So, which sport do people say they like better?

Since 1937, Gallup has asked survey participants which sport they prefer to watch. The question leaves a lot to the imagination. As Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport notes: “I might say my favorite sport to watch is football, but in fact, I don’t watch much football at all.”

That said, in 2013, the last time the question was asked, 39% of those surveyed said football is their favorite sport to watch, while only 14% said they favor baseball. Until the 1960s, baseball had the edge.

Pew Research Center takes a different approach in its poll. It asks whether fans followed the World Series or the Super Bowl very closely, fairly closely, not too closely, or not at all closely.

Twenty-three percent said they followed the Super Bowl very closely, while 16% said they followed the World Series very closely.

In some ways it is an unfair comparison. Following the World Series closely requires paying attention to a series of games played on seven different days, including weekdays. The Super Bowl is a single-elimination game played on a Sunday.

Point: NFL, on a technicality

When it comes to which game is viewed more, the NFL rules, according to statistics compiled by Nielsen. The biggest mismatch is the championship games.

Last year, the Super Bowl attracted an average of 112 million viewers, putting it among the most watched events in television history, many of which are Super Bowls. Meanwhile, only 13.8 million on average watched the World Series across seven telecasts.

The NFL also beat MLB on mobile devices. Fans spent 5.3 billion minutes on NFL Mobile, compared with 4.6 billion minutes on MLB At Bat, according to Nielsen. And on computers, NFL.com had an average unique audience of 3.3 billion, compared with 2.4 billion for MLB.com.

[GGGG]

We'll see if its the beginning of a trend, or just another blip that goes away, but look at the top graph since 2009.  Football shrinking.  Baseball increasing.  Just a little bit but still.

[ChicosBailBonds]

We'll see if its the beginning of a trend, or just another blip that goes away, but look at the top graph since 2009.  Football shrinking.  Baseball increasing.  Just a little bit but still.

Dawn Hudson, CMO of the NFL, presented to us on Wednesday afternoon along with Steve Phelps of NASCAR and Pam El, CMO of the NBA.

Hudson had some interesting comments about the popularity of the sport, financial strength, etc.   I thought the most interesting part was the discussions she has with other moms about the safety of playing football.  Moms asking her.  Note that she was the head of several Pepsi divisions for a number of years and only with the NFL for a short time.

Not surprisingly, she is very bullish on the NFL which she has to be in a forum like that.  However, she did not mince words around the hit the "shield" took in the last two years, but was very articulate in explaining the difference between the Shield popularity and the popularity of the game.

I note this because I'm interested to know how this survey was done.  The NFL came right out and said the popularity toward the game is as high as they have ever seen it with their internals, but the popularity of the "shield" has taken some hits.  Two different things.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

I've never done any research, but I often feel I'm the only American under 40 yrs. old who doesn't like football.  (I also live in the western suburbs of Chicago, and have never watched an entire Blackhawks game on tv).

All I watch is MU basketball and MLB.

[brewcity77]

I've never done any research, but I often feel I'm the only American under 40 yrs. old who doesn't like football.  (I also live in the western suburbs of Chicago, and have never watched an entire Blackhawks game on tv).

All I watch is MU basketball and MLB.

I can verify that you are not alone. There's at least two of us.

If you include American females under 40, my wife also fits that mold.

[chapman]

I've never done any research, but I often feel I'm the only American under 40 yrs. old who doesn't like football.  (I also live in the western suburbs of Chicago, and have never watched an entire Blackhawks game on tv).

All I watch is MU basketball and MLB.

Also not that big into football.  Over half the Niners games are on here, yet I watch maybe half of those and don't care to get them all.  But I'll pay to get MLB.TV catch most of the Brewers.

[MUsoxfan]

If it weren't for fantasy football, I might watch 1 or 2 games a year. I love watching baseball at any level

[buckchuckler]

I've never done any research, but I often feel I'm the only American under 40 yrs. old who doesn't like football.  (I also live in the western suburbs of Chicago, and have never watched an entire Blackhawks game on tv).

All I watch is MU basketball and MLB.

You aren't alone.  I also live in the western burbs and am under 40, and care less about football every year.  First game I saw in its entirety this season was the super bowl. 

I have already watched more baseball this year than I did football last season.  Can't seem to make myself care about watching football.

[Tugg Speedman]

Dawn Hudson, CMO of the NFL, presented to us on Wednesday afternoon along with Steve Phelps of NASCAR and Pam El, CMO of the NBA.

Hudson had some interesting comments about the popularity of the sport, financial strength, etc.   I thought the most interesting part was the discussions she has with other moms about the safety of playing football.  Moms asking her.  Note that she was the head of several Pepsi divisions for a number of years and only with the NFL for a short time.

Not surprisingly, she is very bullish on the NFL which she has to be in a forum like that.  However, she did not mince words around the hit the "shield" took in the last two years, but was very articulate in explaining the difference between the Shield popularity and the popularity of the game.

I note this because I'm interested to know how this survey was done.  The NFL came right out and said the popularity toward the game is as high as they have ever seen it with their internals, but the popularity of the "shield" has taken some hits.  Two different things.

CBB, let me be blunt ... I have no doubt that NFL suits are going to tell DirectTV that their $12 billion commitment to broadcast NFL games is good, clean, moral and the sport is the most popular it has ever been and destine to get even more popular.  How do you know they were not just filming an episode of "lie to me?"

DTV new NFL deal
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/10/08/directv-extends-its-deal-with-nfl-for-12-billion/


Meanwhile ....

Pat Haden, AD of USC, was interviewed on CNBC today

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000370121&play=1

Wide ranging interview.  Haden said that youth football saw a 7% decline in the numbers of kids playing.  He said this is the largest decline in history.

He said the driving force is Moms keeping their kids from playing.  I'm going to guess these Moms and others are not going to have a change of heart anything soon.

[tower912]

You aren't alone.  I also live in the western burbs and am under 40, and care less about football every year.  First game I saw in its entirety this season was the super bowl. 

I have already watched more baseball this year than I did football last season.  Can't seem to make myself care about watching football.

Throw me in that list.   I didn't watch a single NFL game end to end that didn't include the Lions other than the Super Bowl.    In fact, if you combined all of the other NFL I watched last year that wasn't the Lions and wasn't the Super Bowl, it would equal about one game.    A couple of years ago, I went an entire college football season without watching a single second on TV until January 1st.    If football were to implode, I would not miss it.   

[Eldon]

Throw me in that list.   I didn't watch a single NFL game end to end that didn't include the Lions other than the Super Bowl.    In fact, if you combined all of the other NFL I watched last year that wasn't the Lions and wasn't the Super Bowl, it would equal about one game.    A couple of years ago, I went an entire college football season without watching a single second on TV until January 1st.    If football were to implode, I would not miss it.   

Throw me in there, too.  Once Brett retired, I stopped caring.  I watch the Super Bowl because I am a proud American, but that's it.

[ChicosBailBonds]

CBB, let me be blunt ... I have no doubt that NFL suits are going to tell DirectTV that their $12 billion commitment to broadcast NFL games is good, clean, moral and the sport is the most popular it has ever been and destine to get even more popular.  How do you know they were not just filming an episode of "lie to me?"

DTV new NFL deal
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/10/08/directv-extends-its-deal-with-nfl-for-12-billion/


Meanwhile ....

Pat Haden, AD of USC, was interviewed on CNBC today

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000370121&play=1

Wide ranging interview.  Haden said that youth football saw a 7% decline in the numbers of kids playing.  He said this is the largest decline in history.

He said the driving force is Moms keeping their kids from playing.  I'm going to guess these Moms and others are not going to have a change of heart anything soon.

I don't work for them any longer.  This was an industry meeting.

Again, my point was talking about the popularity of the game vs the NFL shield...two different things.  I would be curious how the questions were asked.  From a financial perspective, TV ratings normalized, etc, football as popular as ever.

As far as youth football is concerned, it was addressed at the conference.  A lot of it depends on who isn't playing anymore.  As one of the presenters said, it's one thing if the players not playing were never going to amount to anything anyway on the field, vs others that could be the next great players.

Also of great interest was the impact of video games and the sport popularity.  If they can get a kid 8 to 13 hooked on a sports video game, ore than 60% of the time they have a fan for life.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Throw me in that list.   I didn't watch a single NFL game end to end that didn't include the Lions other than the Super Bowl.    In fact, if you combined all of the other NFL I watched last year that wasn't the Lions and wasn't the Super Bowl, it would equal about one game.    A couple of years ago, I went an entire college football season without watching a single second on TV until January 1st.    If football were to implode, I would not miss it.   

I feel that way about the NBA.  Simply don't watch a single game and don't miss it one bit. 

[Tugg Speedman]

I don't work for them any longer.  This was an industry meeting.

Again, my point was talking about the popularity of the game vs the NFL shield...two different things.  I would be curious how the questions were asked.  From a financial perspective, TV ratings normalized, etc, football as popular as ever.

As far as youth football is concerned, it was addressed at the conference.  A lot of it depends on who isn't playing anymore.  As one of the presenters said, it's one thing if the players not playing were never going to amount to anything anyway on the field, vs others that could be the next great players.

Also of great interest was the impact of video games and the sport popularity.  If they can get a kid 8 to 13 hooked on a sports video game, ore than 60% of the time they have a fan for life.

I understand you're telling me the thoughts at the conference and not your opinion ...

Boy is this a loaded response!  Let me say it outright, as long as the poor black kids and the psychos willing to "do what it takes" still play youth football, then the sports is Ok.  Who cares if the rich white kids from suburbia are told by mommy that football is too rough.  They are fat, slow and nonathletic.  For the long-term health of the sport perspective, that is a dangerous attitude to take. Further, how do they know these kids were not going to amount to anything? 

This leads to the next problem football is going to have ... their best players are going to uneducated psychopaths that spend the weekend killing people on the field and the weekday killing them in society at large (Aaron Hernandez).  Eventually they are going to be as likeable to a general audience as MMA is right now.  It will be a niche sport for people that should be on a list at homeland security.

[ChicosBailBonds]

I understand you're telling me the thoughts at the conference and not your opinion ...

Boy is this a loaded response!  Let me say it outright, as long as the poor black kids and the psychos willing to "do what it takes" still play youth football, then the sports is Ok.  Who cares if the rich white kids from suburbia are told by mommy that football is too rough.  They are fat, slow and nonathletic.  For the long-term health of the sport perspective, that is a dangerous attitude to take. Further, how do they know these kids were not going to amount to anything? 

This leads to the next problem football is going to have ... their best players are going to uneducated psychopaths that spend the weekend killing people on the field and the weekday killing them in society at large (Aaron Hernandez).  Eventually they are going to be as likeable to a general audience as MMA is right now.  It will be a niche sport for people that should be on a list at homeland security.

That last paragraph is quite a leap.

I think you also took the bolded one to an extreme.  There are plenty of very well educated kids from educated families playing football.  I believe the point was that in the past where you had a little scrawny kid playing football, parents aren't letting those kids play anymore....that's fine.  Some really strong, solidly build kids are also not playing.  That's fine.  Plenty of kids are playing, they are working very hard to make the game safer.

Let's not forget that NFL players live longer than the average male in this country, have less illnesses, etc.  The media loves to hone in on a few and make absurd extrapolations, but the numbers are the numbers when it comes to health stats of pro football players after they retire.

[rocket surgeon]

on the one hand, i thought i heard that in the conversations of bringing nfl football back to los angeles, they are talking about 2 teams sharing a stadium.  with that, i also thought i heard, either the nfl and/or the city of los angeles wants a $500 million retainer(non refundable?) as incentive to stay a while.  obviously, there is the opinion that there is money here yet.

on the other hand, the premature retirement of chris borland from san francisco, leaving probably $millions on the table sure, wasn't an endorsement of football as a career despite the bright $$ future it held for him.  he was keeping quite the medical history on the effects of the physical aspects on ones body including his "melon".  i believe he didn't want to look forward to retirement after x years of football eating his steak dinners through a straw in a wheel chair.

[ChicosBailBonds]

on the one hand, i thought i heard that in the conversations of bringing nfl football back to los angeles, they are talking about 2 teams sharing a stadium.  with that, i also thought i heard, either the nfl and/or the city of los angeles wants a $500 million retainer(non refundable?) as incentive to stay a while.  obviously, there is the opinion that there is money here yet.

on the other hand, the premature retirement of chris borland from san francisco, leaving probably $millions on the table sure, wasn't an endorsement of football as a career despite the bright $$ future it held for him.  he was keeping quite the medical history on the effects of the physical aspects on ones body including his "melon".  i believe he didn't want to look forward to retirement after x years of football eating his steak dinners through a straw in a wheel chair.

The chances of eating through that straw is higher amongst the general population than if you played NFL.

[Tugg Speedman]

Good discussion about NFL players' life expectancy and quality of life. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/09/nfl_players_life_spans_and_domestic_violence_rates_could_pro_football_actually.2.html

Part of the article ...

Let’s start with money. Writing at FiveThirtyEight, Benjamin Morris notes that while rates of domestic abuse among football players are lower than the national average, they’re “extremely high relative to expectations” based on how much money players make. Women living in households that earn more than $75,000 per year suffer from domestic abuse at a rate that’s less than 40 percent of the national average. Meanwhile, the median salary in the NFL is around $800,000. If researchers controlled for player wealth, the league’s domestic violence stats would look far more ominous.

The same goes for player health: Rich people live much longer than poor people, so any analysis that ignores the effects of money could be said to underestimate the risks of playing football. The NIOSH analysis controls for race but not income. (Approximately two-thirds of NFL players are black.) As a result, when those numbers tell us that football players live longer than their peers, they’re matching up a group of multimillionaires with people who, on average, make a whole lot less. (By the way, there’s no empirical basis for the oft-repeated claim that 78 percent of football players are bankrupt or nearly broke within two years of retiring. It appears to have been popularized by a sociologist and former player named Ken Ruettgers, who told me that “nobody really knows where it comes from.”)

It might seem prudent to compare football players to men in their income bracket, but other factors may be more important. The rate of domestic violence against black women is 35 percent higher than the corresponding rate for white women, and black men die more than five years younger, on average, than white men. If researchers controlled for players’ race, the NFL’s domestic-violence rates could look even better than they did before, and any health “benefits” that come with playing football would go up, too.

So is it better to control for income or race, or should studies strive for both? And what about body size? Large stature has been correlated with both reduced lifespan and increased rates of violence. (The average NFL athlete is 6 feet 2 inches tall and 246 pounds, with a technically “obese” BMI of 31.6.)

These may sound like simple questions, but they’re exceedingly difficult to answer. To some extent, the best approach depends on how you think about the NFL, and what point you’d like to make.

If you’re curious about the specific risks of playing football, as compared to those affecting any elite-level athlete, then you ought to make controls as stringent as possible. Perhaps you’d compare retirees from the NFL and NBA, and factor in their race and lifetime earnings, too. That kind of analysis—which has never been done, so far as I know—might offer evidence on whether football needs to change its rules. Is the game as safe as it can possibly be? A study of former world-class athletes from Finland controlled for their subsequent career paths, among other things, and found that hockey and basketball players live longer than wrestlers and weightlifters.

But if you’re more concerned about the nature of the sport—I mean to say, if you’re evaluating football’s right to exist—then you should take a very different approach. In that case, it’s better to construe a career in the NFL as a sort of lifestyle intervention, and one that happens to be disproportionately applied to young, black men who grew up in the poorest parts of the country.

The NIOSH study, which aimed to “investigate concerns that players were dying prematurely,” did just that: Researchers treated players as if they were a group of patients, and their NFL careers as a type of treatment. They controlled for race and gender, because those traits defined their patient population before the treatment started. On the other hand, they did not control for player wealth because money can be viewed as a treatment outcome—it flows directly from the game. Football players tend to do quite well financially and rise in social status, just as they also tend to exercise and rarely smoke. These factors make them healthier, and as such they’re no less relevant to the central research question than the fact that players are disproportionately likely to get hit in the head on a daily basis or take anabolic steroids.

Such an analysis may not tell us much about how safe the NFL can be, but it does give us very useful information on the bigger question of how the sport affects the men who choose to play it, for better or for worse. Analyses that control for race but not wealth point to an important fact that’s often lost amid the outrage: Whatever the league’s policies on concussions and domestic violence, its athletes are less likely to die young, and less likely to beat their wives, than men from similar backgrounds.

That doesn’t mean the NFL is good for everyone. Each year, around 2,000 athletes enjoy the benefits of employment by the league, while those who try and fail to reach the pros could be left to pay the costs. It’s also possible that football’s evils reach beyond the players to the rabid fans, who may internalize the violence it promotes. (Domestic abuse incidents do seem to increase, slightly, in places where the local NFL team has just suffered an unexpected loss.)

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Throw me in that list.   I didn't watch a single NFL game end to end that didn't include the Lions other than the Super Bowl.    In fact, if you combined all of the other NFL I watched last year that wasn't the Lions and wasn't the Super Bowl, it would equal about one game.    A couple of years ago, I went an entire college football season without watching a single second on TV until January 1st.    If football were to implode, I would not miss it.   

Make that 3.  I've watched more Yankees this season than football last. I only watched the Super Bowl last year.  Actually the only football I watched in the last 15 years were parts of NY Giant playoff games.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Good discussion about NFL players' life expectancy and quality of life. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/09/nfl_players_life_spans_and_domestic_violence_rates_could_pro_football_actually.2.html

Part of the article ...

On the domestic abuse question, they are normalizing against how much they make, but they fail to look at their background or the environment in which they were raised or grew up as a factor.  Some of these players were brought up in a world where beating on women was just fine and because you throw $2M contract at them doesn't mean they change their behavior they were taught.

The myths of NFL player health after they retire is like the 50% divorce rate in this country.  The media runs with this and can't get out of their own way, even when some in the media try to clear it up.


http://kkcb.com/nfl-addresses-player-myths-about-health-and-criminal-activity-in-special-email-to-fans/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/08/18/why-everything-you-hear-about-the-deadly-game-of-football-is-false/

http://www.ajconline.org/article/S0002-9149%2811%2903387-X/fulltext

[muwarrior69]

on the one hand, i thought i heard that in the conversations of bringing nfl football back to los angeles, they are talking about 2 teams sharing a stadium.  with that, i also thought i heard, either the nfl and/or the city of los angeles wants a $500 million retainer(non refundable?) as incentive to stay a while.  obviously, there is the opinion that there is money here yet.

on the other hand, the premature retirement of chris borland from san francisco, leaving probably $millions on the table sure, wasn't an endorsement of football as a career despite the bright $$ future it held for him.  he was keeping quite the medical history on the effects of the physical aspects on ones body including his "melon".  i believe he didn't want to look forward to retirement after x years of football eating his steak dinners through a straw in a wheel chair.

Which two cities are moving their franchises to LA?

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Which two cities are moving their franchises to LA?

I had heard on NYC sports talk radio that it would be San Diego & the return of the Raiders.

SoCal alums can probably elaborate.  There's two possible stadium development deals.  One is Kronke moving the Rams back to LA and the other is a joint build with the two teams above.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

I also watch some baseball, some college basketball, and that's it.

I don't have cable/satellite. If there was some way for me to pay to watch more of those two sports, I probably would.

I'm two states away from Milwaukee and am still considered in the local market, so I can't even pay for the MLB app to watch the Brewers' games.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Which two cities are moving their franchises to LA?

One or 2 of these three...maybe

Rams
Chargers
Raiders

I'm hoping for none of the above, we've been doing just fine for 20 years without a football team.  Quite frankly, watching the NFL in stadium is a far worse experience than watching it on tv. 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

From a pure economics standpoint, there is such a thing as absolute market saturation.

At some point, the NFL is simply going to have maxed out it's viewership, consumer loyalty and ultimately its revenue.

It likely won't be some sort of major event (like real estate), but rather a simple peak followed by a small decline, and then it will normalize.

Football isn't going to go away, but the absolute non-stop gravy train is eventually going to end.

[ChicosBailBonds]

From a pure economics standpoint, there is such a thing as absolute market saturation.

At some point, the NFL is simply going to have maxed out it's viewership, consumer loyalty and ultimately its revenue.

It likely won't be some sort of major event (like real estate), but rather a simple peak followed by a small decline, and then it will normalize.

Football isn't going to go away, but the absolute non-stop gravy train is eventually going to end.

It's all relative.  Is anything going to replace it?  Not in the short term, that's for sure.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

It's all relative.  Is anything going to replace it?  Not in the short term, that's for sure.

I didn't say anything would replace it.

I said there is an absolute saturation point, and there will be a decline/market correction. That's just econ. Doesn't matter what the product is.