Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
What do you mean by accessible, though? I don't think basketball is the kind of sport that Canadians are generally unfamiliar with or don't really understand, like, for example, cricket or rugby.
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Three points:
- 1) Age Demographics;
- 2) Immigrant Demographics; and,
- 3) Age of franchise/league impact in country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Globe and Mail
The game is being played by 354,000 Canadian kids, according to the Youth Sports Report, making it the third most popular team sport, after soccer and hockey. But among new Canadian kids (and immigrants make up half Toronto's population), basketball ranked second. It's also more popular than hockey among girls, with more than 100,000 participating.
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The Canadian Youth Sports Report (2014), by the Solutions Research Group, highlighted the interest that young Canadians have in basketball:
"Thirty-two percent (32%) of Canadian kids and youth follow the NHL, ranked #1 in all youth demographics. The NBA is in the #2 spot in Toronto, Vancouver and among New Canadian youth. MLS ranks #3 in Vancouver and #2 in Montreal. The research suggests that youth engagement with professional leagues is an area of concern, however: even among teens 13-17, 43% do not follow any professional league."
They also echoed the beliefs from the G&M Article:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sport Report
BASKETBALL IS THE 2nd MOST POPULAR TEAM SPORT AMONG NEW CANADIAN YOUTH, NEXT TO SOCCER
New Canadian families, where the parents were born outside of Canada, value sports too, but they also put priority on participation in music, art, book clubs, language learning.
Fifty-five percent of new Canadian youth aged 3-17 participate in organized sports but they are slightly less likely to be in organized team sports (24% vs. 30% average). Top team sports for New Canadian youth were soccer, basketball, hockey and volleyball, in that order.
With over one million immigrants settling in Canada every four years, establishing a strong base among New Canadians is essential to the future growth of any sport in the country.
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Also Sportsnet:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sportsnet
In the recent Canada Project survey of more than 1,500 Canadians, 11 per cent of millennial respondents said basketball would be the sport they’d want their child to excel in, while just 19 per cent said hockey. When the question was “Which sport do you watch with your parents?”, millennials were seven times more likely to answer basketball than baby boomers.
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Many first-generation Canadians are second-generation Raptors fans who don’t know a Canadian existence without the Raptors.
The Raptors very own Superfan, Nav Bhatia, a Sikh immigrant turned sports celebrity, is testament to how basketball has been an assimilation accelerator in Canada like few other sports.
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Essentially, the Jays have had forty years to become an engrained image in the Canadian imagination (particularly with the WS wins in the early 90s) compared to the Raptors' 20 years. This sort of accessibility, coverage, and exposure needs a generation cycle or two to have full effect on interest and participation.
The put things bluntly, the Raptors are going to be more accessible in areas with higher ethnic minority and immigrants counts, which essentially means Canada's largest cities. Outside of that it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the Jays would be more accessible for bandwagons. The more that Canada's demographics shift towards ethnic minorities the more that interest will shift from the Jays to the Raptors, if only looking at those two in a vacuum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63
Baseball is definitely not more accessible to participate in than basketball.
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I didn't imply participating in the sport, I meant watching and feeling culturally attached to the sport.
To put this in the most obvious of ways (it's Leafs, not Jays, but still relevant):
CTV, Twitter
CBC