Even with a super bowl winner, New York is still a baseball town--Newsday

People from other towns wouldn't believe it, but you can hear baseball talk on sports radio 52 weeks a year in the New York area. A Newsday article notes baseball's popularity and wonders whether football can win out in fan interest, obsession, etc.

• From my own experience, I think baseball has been helped in NY because both Mike Francesa and Chris Russo are big baseball fans and enjoyed talking about it all year on a 50,000 watt radio station (of course Chris and Mike are no longer working at the same station, but they can still talk baseball). Baseball is a better sport on radio to begin with, and both Mets and Yankees have had popular voices calling their games (when I attended games I always brought my radio).

To the writer's point about the Yankees having in effect a bully pulpit: they have changed ownership, things are drastically different. What happened for the past several years, attendance, etc., was the result of events that will probably never happen again, certainly not while Steinbrenner's sons run the team.

• (Newsday): "And if they don't generate enough attention in-season, there's more to grab in the winter, when they chase free agents

and interrupt football season.

• Now you know why the Yankees get four million fans a year and sell tons of merchandise and seduce the TV networks.

• They smother the competition in and outside of their sport."

That is not because they're the Yankees. The team barely drew flies when Derek Jeter first got there. I've posted this several times before, dating from 1990 the Yankees did not become #1 in AL attendance until 2003.

• It took 8 consecutive years in the post season to get that attendance. It was winning that brought the money (much of which was then shared with other teams). The Yankees have stopped being in the post season with the change in ownership.
• Even some blue chip acquisitions are no guarantee they'll ever get there again as some have observed.

Football is free to see if it can get more attention via a diminished Yankee persona.

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon