Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau
I would argue that Americans are the biggest sports fans in the world. They're joiners and cheerers. They invented cheerleaders, after all. The fact that there are NHL teams in the south and southwest and California is testament to this, because there's no real reason for hockey to exist there otherwise. You want to put a hockey team in Dallas? Sure, why the hell not!
The major cities not only have four or five pro teams, but they also have massive college football and basketball support for one, two or more teams in addition to that. Not to mention the other college sports that put ours to shame (not that I necessarily think that big-time college sports dominating what is supposed to be an intellectual academy is a good thing).
Toronto has the "big four" sports, but then you go down the road to Detroit, and not only do they have those, but they have 100,000 fans attending football games at U. of Michigan. And several other smaller universities nearby also have followings that dwarf what the U. of Toronto gets.
The U.S. is sports mad. We're hockey mad. Two very different things.
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Well... As someone living in the US, I feel like football occupies a similar position in America that hockey does in Canada. Football coverage dominates everything. Football TV ratings are higher in most markets than the combined average ratings for basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer.
I think it's just that when you have a massive population -- the third largest population in the world that continues to grow rapidly for Western standards -- even niche sports, like hockey, soccer, and basketball (which is somewhat non-mainstream compared to football and baseball) will get fans.
With Canada's tiny population, it's harder for the niche sports to flourish.
But I do agree that in a general sense, Americans love their sports. But football comes first and foremost.