 |
|
There is an ongoing debate that football is overtaking baseball as “America’s Pastime”. There are many ways to prove that one can out-duel the other. Most recently, there was a battle during primetime television when primetime football faced off against primetime baseball on Sunday, October 23 and again on Monday, October 24.
Based on the Nielsen Ratings, the World Series beat out Sunday Night Football on Sunday, October 23 at the hours of 8pm, 9pm and 10pm with baseball peaking at 13.99 million viewers and football at 11.3 million. On Monday, October 24, the World Series did the same thing to Monday Night Football as baseball attracted 13.0 million and football had 7.5 million.
Recent history shows baseball trumps football, but if you look further, you’ll see a different story. Last year, Sunday Night Football averaged 21.8 million viewers and Monday Night Football averaged 14.6 million. Meanwhile, the World Series averaged 14.3 million last year.
It may not necessarily be fair to compare playoff baseball against regular season football, especially considering the Super Bowl last year attracted about 111 million viewers. Another argument is that the World Series is stretched over a multi-game series and the football games are all winner-take-all format.
You could also take into account the number of people who watch the games. In the 2011 season, a total of 73.5 million people attended MLB games, or an average of 30,532 per game. Meanwhile, last season the NFL drew 17.3 million people, or an average of 67,509 per game.
So which is it? This will definitely be an ongoing debate as there are many different arguments for both when taken into different statistical categories. Gallup News Service actually polled people on whether or not they were baseball and/or football fans. In 2004, 64% of people polled said they were football fans and only 52% said they were baseball fans.
Finally, I turn to the immortal George Carlin who spoke highly of both sports. Of the two, he would sum things up with the following:
“The objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
blog comments powered by Disqus
