favorite of the big four american team sports

music

"beisbol...been bedy bedy good...to me"

I know that hockey is traditionally categorized as one of the "big four" American sports, but I wouldn't be surprised if NASCAR has overtaken it in popularity.

Baseball is the only one of the four that I follow closely, although I'm kind of a fair weather NFL fan if a team I like is doing particularly well.

NASCAR is more popular than all of these but the NFL I think? it's just not a sport.

football is so much better 2 watch altho im a bigger "fan" of baseball if that makes sense

Baseball regular season vs. Basketball post-season for me.

Heh, yeah, if you divide it up like that Hockey's post season might be the best of all.

I don't watch any sports but I enjoy playing baseball the most. I know that's not what was asked.

baseball > football > basketball > hockey

why do you guys have to make this so difficult????

cause it ain't all one thing or the other, Rorschach

too hard. football is probably the most outright enjoyable and the best for watching on tv/chilling with friends/arguing/playing fantasy. i know the most about baseball, and in a lot of ways it's the most complex/interesting/"deep." i've played the most basketball, it was my favorite when i was a kid, i still get worked up about it in a way i don't about the others. i don't have much history with hockey but it's cool too!

(sorry, that came out meaner than intended)

Hockey. The rest can die in a fire.

haha it made me laugh so don't worry

oh and I voted football

basket > foot > hock > watching paint > base

SB'd you for that

I don't really watch sports that often, but I enjoy following baseball the most.

it's baseball for me. i like the relaxed atmosphere, matches take ages, the world championship in the Netherlands in '05 had this doing nothing on a summer's evening vibe. some good movies about baseball too, can't recall a good movie about any of the others (wait Space Jam) as a small guy i dislike basketball for obvious reasons (that's another + for baseball, these guys same to be of all sizes, even fat!)
hockey is great on consoles (Mallrats!), but sort of useless on tv.
American Football is probably the worst sport ever. Ever ever.

but all 4 don't come close to the 3 best sports: road cycling, football ("soccer")& tennis

Tennis does pwn all of these for me. Sometimes golf, too.

When will it be possible to suggest ban someone from America?

I now hate baseball the way a neocon hates liberals: I just loved it too much to maintain my relationship in light of 1994. And going to Notre Dame a few later made me ripe for radical conversation. So for me it's now

football >> basketball >>> hockey >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> baseball

football>basketball>baseball>hockey

NASCAR is more popular than all of these but the NFL I think? it's just not a sport.

― iatee, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 6:54 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^not really true...nascar's been having a lot of problems lately, i think its ambitions to be dominating national sport were misplaced...lots of sponsors have dropped out and lots of teams are hurting financially...think rating's are down too.

(though i'd imagine it's still way more popular than NHL)

oh yeah, I remember reading something about that.

still not a sport, tho.

Basketball - Playoffs/NCAA Tournament>NFL>College Basketball Regular Season>>>>hockey>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>baseball.

I will never turn down tickets for anything, though.

Wtf was that, Ronaldo?

i prob enjoy watching (be it on TV or in person) basketball the most, prob "keep up" with college football the most. i'm hardly admant about it though. in fact, if football season started a month late i would likely not even notice.

Oh man I watch golf like crazy, that is some good stuff. Not like I deliberately tune in but if it's on I'm hypnotized by it.

baseball is the only one i follow now, i have been a fan of the other three at times but i didn't even know the sonics don't exist anymore until a couple of weeks ago.

You baseball haters make me cry tears of pure acid. Which I am carefully collecting and will eventually throw in somebody's face.

basketball by a million miles. all the rest are hours of boringness with a few seconds of excitement here and there.

baseball is the indie rock of sports

*runs and hides*

football>baseball>basketball>>>>>>hockey

college football is my faves tho

I luv baseball but I think it's pretty easy to understand why some people who don't get the appeal

I've really come around to baseball. I loved it as a kid, more for collecting cards and playing it myself than watching, but kind of grew away from it as I get older. I've been rediscovering it lately. I went to an Orioles game for the first time in over ten years this weekend and it was a really great experience. Relaxing, some great edge-of-your-seat moments, quintessentially American and nostalgia-inducing, beer, hotdogs, peanuts. Loved it all. I've noticed that baseball on the radio is supremely pleasant and comforting too. I like that baseball has managed to maintain a relatively classy, old-fashioned sensibility. It's like Coke in an old glass bottle to football's Mountain Dew in a Big Gulp.

Football's a good time though. Won't knock it too hard. I'll usually tune in during the playoffs.

Basketball's too back-and-forth and high scoring for me to get excited about. Oh hey, another 2 points. Huzzah.

Don't feel like I've seen enough hockey to really comment on it.

xpost

college football is my faves too, I didn't list it because I didn't want to split the football vote

and err "why some people who don't get the appeal"

What really baffles me is my own feelings toward football: hate the college game, love it at the pro level.

pro football = college football with slightly bigger dudes and less exciting things happening

I mean, reggie bush in college vs. reggie bush in the nfl

^feel the same way about college vs pro hoops.
baseball is a great relaxing summer thing. love day games. but there's way too many reg season games and the sport itself is low on action compared to other sports.

listen i love college sports but i always hate that challops about how college is always more exciting, like if you can't vibe off the last superbowl or say the bull/celtics series you don't like football or basketball imo

I was reading ESPN mag's article on the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier today and it said, basically, "small market teams like Pittsburgh can't afford to compete for the top free agents, so they have to try to make do other ways". The article was about why Pittsburgh has sucked since 1992. This is something I love about the NFL and to a much lesser extent the NBA: you don't have to play in a big market to have great players in their peaks. And it's what I hate about MLB.

the last two superbowls were fantastic and the last handful of bcs champ games were awful

but I'll be damned if ANY nfl game in our lifetimes will be able to compare to the oklahoma/boise state game from a few years back

and - one day, a decade from now, when there's a playoff series...

xpost

it can't be understated how much it helps to be able to see the puck

when in doubt, follow the play

basketball > baseball > football >>>>>>>>>>>> since when do americans (lol michigan doesn't count) care about hockey?

(nb: I do go watch the local hockey team every so often, and enjoy it a lot, but don't care about hockey at all)

depending who you ask, minnesotans care more about hockey than michiganders

hockey > baseball > college basketball > pro football >>>>>>>> college football > pro basketball

baseball, though, is just different from the others

basketball > hockey > baseball > football

i cant believe all the hockey-ignorant ppl -- one of the coolest things about it to me is the pure momentum a game played entirely on ice skates has -- its like everything is going in fast forward

roids really fucked baseball's placement on this list for me

i like playing touch football but never really enjoyed it as a game to watch

i like finesse & u know about the bears & quarterbacks ... basketball & hockey are all about finesse

"since when do americans (lol michigan doesn't count) care about hockey?"

I'd put 5 other states, if not more, ahead of Michigan in hockey fandom

the ny/nj metro area has a (surprisingly? maybe not given that there are 3 teams) big hockey following

yeah i don't think there's any surprise there. altho i gather from old-timers that it's not what it used to be. (probably because the islanders and rangers aren't what they used to be.)

and speaking of teams not being what they used to be, if you want a prime example of a team's ownership and management mattering more than its market size, i give you...

http://weblogs.wpix.com/sports/thehuddle/image/knicks.gif

the Giants win in '08 was great fun
― Michael B, Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:39 PM (Yesterday)

I fail to see what was so "great" or "fun" about it. More like excruciating and painful if you ask me.

moodles, this might help you:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/patriots_season_perfect_for_rest

since when do americans (lol michigan doesn't count) care about hockey?

You guys have been smarting ever since the Metropolitans folded in the 1920s.

I'd put 5 other states, if not more, ahead of Michigan in hockey fandom

Really? This only heightens my curiosity.

I definitely had a "wha?" moment when I went away to college in Michigan and suddenly met all these fans of hockey and Barenaked Ladies.

michigan = canada?????

most of the upper Midwest = Canada!

I'd put 5 other states, if not more, ahead of Michigan in hockey fandom

lol crazy talk, I can see MN and *maybe* MA, but after that I don't know where you're going with this.

MA, MN, MI, and NY are the only states that are have their own designation under the USA Hockey organization, i.e. that are not part of regional conferences. This is due to the high amount of players in those states.

You could make arguments for ME, NH and VT but I'm guessing there are more skiers there than hockey players...?

moodles, this might help you:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/patriots_season_perfect_for_rest

― iatee, Friday, 29 May 2009 19:52 (31 minutes ago) Permalink

;__;

"lol crazy talk, I can see MN and *maybe* MA, but after that I don't know where you're going with this."

Whatever dude, I'll make sure to run my posts by you before I hit send.

or you could just name some states?

MN, Mass, Upstate NY, Wis, North Dakota, Alaska, NH-just based on the us born players from my college hockey team. Non-scientific, sure , but my point was that Michigan is not the place in the US where hockey's popular. Hell, there's as many guys from Illinois as there are from Michigan on your dumbass Red Wings.

http://www.fromtherink.com/2008/12/9/687282/where-nhlers-come-from-the

look at those graphs!

Michigan has 24 NHLers born in the state playing this season, led by Brian Rolston, Brian Rafalski, Mike Modano, Doug Weight, Ryan Miller, David Legwand, Ryan Kesler, Jeff Finger, David Booth and Vezina candidate Tim Thomas.

I played junior hockey with this guy, he didn't even move on to the high school level like everyone else, he went off and played crazy AAA travel midget or something.

lol maple leafs

Are we talking strictly pro sports here? If not: college football. If so: hockey (yeah, I'm from Michigan lol)

we're counting college-level

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

so happy basket beat base

I'm surpised that football didn't run away with it.

aw basketpaws, sooo close yet no cigar :(

hockey - for minnesotans, michiganders, massholes and other such canadian weirdos, plus the violent and/or closeted/repressed
football - for southerners, midwesterners, bridge and tunnelers and other such suburban fatsos
basketball - more urban and therefore better than the two above, but lost me when it got boring and lost its grace and my hometown heroes
Nascar - requiring more exertion and/or precision than some of the others, it's totally a sport even if machines are involved, but i'm kinda bored by it now tbh; last week's race was ok, and considering one this weekend, but probably not
baseball - for everyone, not always the most exciting, but the classiest and best of all (so long as the less-populist tennis doesn't get to play)

hockey - almost no blended haircuts
football - minimal number of blended haircuts
basketball - average number of blended haircuts
Nascar - above average number of blended haircuts, but starting to decline
baseball - ideal number of blended haircuts

"hockey - for minnesotans, michiganders, massholes and other such canadian weirdos, plus the violent and/or closeted/repressed
football - for southerners, midwesterners, bridge and tunnelers and other such suburban fatsos"

^utterly moronic

oh yeah, they;re for dudes who like hookers too

^i repeat, utterly moronic

After all this time, I finally found an occasion to want to suggest ban gabbneb.

http://wayneandwax.com/wp/images/truth-hurts-crop.jpg

i would like to point out that i have been offtm in this thread

https://twitter.com/BrianPickett/status/756134629493571586

isn't that like the finnish version of baseball

i remember watching some videos on youtube a few years ago, it looked p dumb

haha @ gabbneb upthread taking such care to be seen appreciating nascar after writing football and hockey off as flyover circuses

yeah that's bizarre, what a rube.

i would list the big 4 in this order:

baseball
football
hockey
basketball

and nascar is good ... for me to poop on

apologies to Canada for the relatively low placement of the two sports invented here

The sports equinox:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/today-is-the-sports-equinox/