re: Anyone else surprised baseball is still popular in the United States?

First off, I dont think anyone is arguing against football being the most popular sport. But between baseball and basketball, maybe we need to define "popularity". Because it is really tough to compare a sport with 162 games in a regular season to one with 16 or even with 82. On a per game basis for tv viewers, yes basketball and (and football obviously) wins. But for actual attendance (both total and per game) baseball absolutely crushes basketball.

A regular season football game is 6.25% of the games for the season 1/16). i.e. each one is really, really important.

A regular season basketball game is 1.22% of the season (1/82). That is somewhat important to the outcome of the season.

A regular season baseball game is 0.62% of the season. That is one game isn't really that important.

Anyone got any numbers on total television viewers for all football, baseball, and basketball games in a season?

Total attendance in MLB in 2011 was over 73 million and almost 75 million last year, for an average attendance of about 30,000 per game. that is way more than total NBA or NFL (and more per game that NBA, which averaged about 17,200 per game).

So yes, by the metric of how many people watch a specific game, basketball will often win. But when you look at how many people go to games, baseball wins handily.

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The NFL has seen 24 of its 32 teams reach the playoffs since 2006, or 75 percent. In that same timeframe, MLB has seen 22 of its 30 teams make it to October, or 73.3 percent. As Jayson Stark of ESPN.com recently noted, only 15 of baseball's 40 playoff teams (or 37.5 percent) in that five-year span had reached the playoffs the year before. Compare that with the NFL, which saw 29 of its 60 playoff teams (or 48.3 percent) repeat.

Over the last 15 years, 120 postseason slots have been available in baseball, and 61 teams (50.8 percent) have made a back-to-back appearance in the postseason. The NFL's percentage of repeat postseason entries in that same timeframe is nearly identical. Of the 180 available playoff spots, 90 (50 percent) have gone to teams that returned to the playoffs in consecutive years.

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Continuing with the championship discussion, consider this: The Super Bowl has been held since 1967 and has had 18 different winners. Pretty panoptic, right?

Well, no fewer than 20 teams have won a World Series title in that same time period (and there wasn't a World Series held in 1994).

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Looking back at the past 10 years of Super Bowls and World Series, both the NFL and MLB have seen the exact same number of teams -- 14 -- compete for the ultimate prize. The Patriots (four appearances) and Steelers (three) have set the standard in the NFL, and the Colts have appeared twice. Meanwhile, the Yankees (three), Giants (two), Phillies (two), Red Sox (two) and Cardinals (two) are all repeat attendees in MLB.

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That's wonderful

Doesn't change the fact that 1 small market team has win a championship in the last 25 years

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It's a spike on a downward slope. But everyone is on that downward slope, which is plateauing. And once LeBron stops winning titles, history shows us that the NBA ratings will tank again until they can get a new Jordan.

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I think this is more illustrative of a league that became increasingly popular from Magic/Bird through the end of Jordan, went way way down after Jordan and is now coming back up with the popularity of Lebron. While I don't think the ratings will ever get back to what they were in 1998, I see them increasing the next three or four years.

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All those WS winning teams come from large markets

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Are we defining large market by media market or how much the teams spend?

Last years WS teams ranked 5th and 8th in payroll
While last years Super bowl teams ranked 4th and 10th in payroll

2011 WS teams ranked 11th and 13th in payroll
2011 SB teams ranked 12th and 19th in payroll

2010 WS teams ranked 10th and 27th in payroll
2010 SB teams ranked 6th and 28th in payroll

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Other sports. The ones you seem to ignore, and cherry pick data to suit your argument.

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Elaborate.

Media markets. But those things are closely related.

How would you define parity?

A) The amount of teams that compete

Or

B) The ability of different teams based on market to put a consistent winner on the field, year in, year out.

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Youth basketball leagues are dying. Youth baseball teams have turned into a year round obsession.

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I live in Georgia and youth baseball is dying while Lacrosse is quickly replacing it.

Hello.

Do you know us?

We're a major league baseball team.

But since we haven't won a pennant in over 30 years, nobody recognizes us. Not even in our own home town.

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Hello.

Do you know us?

We're a major league baseball team.

But since we haven't won a pennant in over 30 years, nobody recognizes us. Not even in our own home town.

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don't steal home without it.