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The Hawkeye

The Student News Site of University of Louisiana Monroe

The Hawkeye

The Student News Site of University of Louisiana Monroe

The Hawkeye

Baseball passed its prime, football reigns supreme

Every fall, everything else in the sports world seemingly takes a step aside to allow room for the elephant in the room, football.

Some would say that this isn’t fair that suddenly football steals publicity away from other popular sports such as baseball.

However, there is a reason for that: football is simply more popular.

According to SportsBusinessDaily.com, the National Football League reported 9.5 billion dollars in revenue in 2012. Sportingnews.com reported Major League Baseball’s total revenue to be 7.5 billion.

The NFL is made up of 32 teams, two more than the MLB.

However, the MLB season is made up of 162 games per team before the postseason. The NFL season is made up of 16 games per team before the postseason.

The NFL made two billion more in about 146 fewer games per team. This alone is enough to push the NFL to the forefront of the sports world.

Those numbers may not mean much to many people, but it explains why football sometimes oversaturates the market come season kickoff. People simply spend more of their hard earned money to watch their team.

Just a few years ago a Monday night football matchup between Tampa Bay and Indianapolis, whose best player, Peyton Manning, was out for the season, beat out a MLB playoff game featuring the Tigers and the Yankees!

The Yankees! One of the most glorified franchises in professional sports. Yet the playoff game could not get more views than a NFL game in which both teams combined for a record of 6-26 for the year.

That goes to show just how much more people care about football.

The Harris Interactive has a poll that is ran every year and asks its users to rank their favorite sports.

Thirty-six percent of users preferred professional football to all other sports in a 2011 poll. What was second?

Well, it was a tie.

Professional baseball and college football tied with 13 percent.

One could expect college football to surpass professional baseball within the next year or two, as professional baseball has been on a steady decline since 1985.

College baseball is not even listed.

Baseball certainly has its merits. It’s America’s pastime. However, maybe it’s just that, it’s pastime.

A majority of baseball’s fan base is made up of the older generation.

Football has caught the attention of the younger viewer and has not let go.

Baseball may be the pastime but football is the present and future, which is why it gets the publicity it does.

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