Ultimate Debate #4: Baseball is a Better Sport than Football

On with the next round. Argument 1. Fan enjoyment. Football fans get into the game way more than baseball fans. Sure, baseball has it's hardcore fans, but they pale in comparison to football fans. When was the last time you saw a tailgating party for baseball? The most baseball fans do for group enjoyment is a barbecue. Not to mention the crowds at live games. The crowd can get so loud that it interferes with their headsets. (1) When you look at a live game, or fans sitting around their living rooms, the excitement and energy is palpable. Football pools circle the workplace. When was the last time you saw a baseball pool? Football also excels at fan enjoyment outside of the actual games. Fantasy football is a huge form of recreation in this country, and a great way for fans to get into the sport more. Approximately 32 million fans above the age of 12 play fantasy sports, 90% of which is fantasy football. (2) That's not just baseball vs football, either. That's 90% football and 10% all other fantasy sports combined. The stats speak for themselves. What makes a sport great is how much fans get into it, and that shows how much more fans love their football. Also, fan enjoyment outside of watching the sport comes into play with another version of fantasy football so to speak, video games. Football games are much better than baseball ones, as shown in this top ten list. (3) Three of the ten are football, and only one is baseball. Plus, that one is barely on the list at number 10. Of course, just because the games are ranked as better doesn't say much about the popularity or fan base, but all one has to do is look at the Madden series and how much hype surrounds it to understand the immense popularity of football games. There is even a celebrity tournament called Madden Bowl centered around it. Can baseball say the same? In short, football is much more popular than baseball (4) Argument 2. Championship games. The Super Bowl is far and above the World Series in so many ways, but in 2013 the World Series barely squeaked by with more ratings than the once a week Monday Night Football. (5) When comparing the ratings of sporting events throughout the world, the Super Bowl came out in 2nd, even beating out the Olympics. The World Series didn't even make the list. Cricket made the list and the World Series didn't. (6) Every aspect of the Super Bowl trumps the series, from the commercials to the halftime show to the actual game. Some might argue that the sport should be what rakes in the ratings, and for the most part they would be correct. The halftime show is usually a huge event that draws big numbers, but it comes down to fan entertainment. It might not technically be part of the game, but if the NFL goes the extra mile to entertain their fans while the players regroup, I say that gets them points. Some people tune in for the commercials, sure, but it's not exactly a chicken and egg scenario. The entertainment value of the commercials is a concern for advertises as well as an advantage for football in this debate because advertisers know that memorable commercials are going to stick in a consumer's mind, and they concern themselves with this during the Super Bowl primarily because of the ratings. Advertisers pay huge amounts of money for Super Bowl commercials because those ratings are so high. They understand that they will make their money back and then some because such an exorbitant amount of people will see their commercials. If such creative and expensive commercials are worth it to the advertisers, then that just shows how many people watch the Super Bowl. Argument 3. Profit. The NFL takes in $9.5 billion annually, $2 billion more than baseball. (7) This factors into it being a better sport for two reasons. One, advertisers wouldn't shell out that much for something with lower ratings, as made clear in the last argument, plus fans are willing to spend huge amounts of money on the sport. Something they wouldn't be willing to do unless it was worth it to them. I look forward to the next round, but on a side note, I think we've both done well so far with facts for something that, according to the comments, is just an "opinion". :) 1. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. . http://www.forbes.com... 3. . http://boston.cbslocal.com... 4. . http://espn.go.com... 6. . http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com... 7. . http://sports-facts.top5.com...