Interactive Map of Baseball Fandom

[Lions]

Check out Up Close on Baseball’s Borders if you want to see how fandom varies by zip code throughout the US. I was surprised that the Yankees had such a large swath of Connecticut. I thought the Munson-Nixon line was closer to New York. What nation do you live in?

[roncollins]

Interesting...Bartholomew County, Indiana...26% Reds, 17% Cubs. Sounds about right.

[Vic]

This oughtta make for an interesting comparison: [img]http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/25/edupu8eg.jpg[/img]

The article:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/201 ... teams.html


Brian Kotler - New Ghosts GM

[Borealis]

Love it!!! Giants... Still Giants... I don't think F-Head Kevin's going to like that one...

Interesting concept, that's for sure.

[Denny]

I felt bad for the Mets and A's....neither of them is the most popular team in even a singe zip code! :eek:

I also enjoyed the Ohio map--it really points up the four-team shatter zone in the northwest corner.

[Morris Ragland]

Poor Mets, they don't even have Queens.

[Ghosts]

When I was in college in New Hampshire in the 1990s, there was a very, very firm "Vermont = Yanks and New Hampshire = Red Sox" thing going on.

Red Sox nation just keeps expanding now, I guess. It demonstrates the thing I hate most about the fans from West of the White Mountains down to Virginia ... there are always a couple options to choose from in every sport.

It took me 30 seconds to find this tweet from Spike Lee ... who was all about the Mets in the 1980s and now loves the Yanks, apparently. What a joke.

As a Tribe, Browns, and Cavs fan, who has lived in Chicago for 15 years (and likely forever at this point) it is damn well inconceivable that I would ever root for any other city's teams but Cleveland. I can't even root for the Blackhawks. And my kids may become Chicago fans, but they are going to pass through a thick wall of NFL Sunday Ticket and MLB.TV showing the Browns and the Tribe in order to do so.

[Alleghenies]

When I was in college in New Hampshire in the 1990s, there was a very, very firm "Vermont = Yanks and New Hampshire = Red Sox" thing going on.

Red Sox nation just keeps expanding now, I guess. It demonstrates the thing I hate most about the fans from West of the White Mountains down to Virginia ... there are always a couple options to choose from in every sport.

It took me 30 seconds to find this tweet from Spike Lee ... who was all about the Mets in the 1980s and now loves the Yanks, apparently. What a joke.

As a Tribe, Browns, and Cavs fan, who has lived in Chicago for 15 years (and likely forever at this point) it is damn well inconceivable that I would ever root for any other city's teams but Cleveland. I can't even root for the Blackhawks. And my kids may become Chicago fans, but they are going to pass through a thick wall of NFL Sunday Ticket and MLB.TV showing the Browns and the Tribe in order to do so.

It's always great to see another extreme loyalist. I grew up just north of the red/blue line in central IL. My brother was a Cardinals fan, and I had to oppose everything he did, so I became a Cubs fan. Poor me. Anyways, a fan for life I also am, although I picked up to also following the Athletics when I was living in California. I just couldn't root for another NL team, as much as everyone else out there was rooting for the Giants, I fell in love with Green Collar Baseball. Now I take my Cubs and Athletics with me wherever I move. It just boggles my mind how some people can just switch teams. I actually remember trying once. I was like 10 years old, and tried hating the Cubs and listening to the Cards games with my brother every night on the radio in our upstairs bedroom with no AC in the humid IL summer nights. I just couldn't do it, and went back to hating the Cardinals a few weeks later. You just cannot change your heart, I don't get how people can just change favorite teams. While I picked up and now also follow the A's, the Cubs are always first.

[Zephyrs]

Two things jump out at me; the Indians have a very small area and the Carolinas need a baseball team.

[Alleghenies]

Two things jump out at me; the Indians have a very small area and the Carolinas need a baseball team.

Yeah, does it bother anyone else how wherever there isn't a team, there are Yankee fans, and even in strong markets with a local team, there are almost always Yankee fans. No wonder I grew up hating the Yankees. And I always thought it was just because they always won and the Cubs always lost. I really don't like bandwagon fans. Or perhaps it is just that they are the most "visible" team in the nation so people searching for a favorite team look to them? I still don't understand how that would ever happen though, why not like the local team? Is anyone in this situation that can share a first hand experience on it? I know a lot of people are dislocated fans, and their fathers liked a certain team, so the kids became a fan of that team, but that just cannot be the case with every Yankee fan out there, there are way too many. Are there really that many casual fans that just like the Yankees because they win?

[Lions]

I remember in the mid-90's when the Dallas Cowboys were suddenly everyone's favorite football team who didn't already have one. This was true even in my neck of New England, where the Bills and Giants were very good and the Jets and Patriots were other, local options. Ultimately, winning a title and having sustained success leads people to favor your team. The Yankees have both of those things plus the fact that they're the most visible team on TV and radio in many parts of the country. The Cubs and Braves, due to their national telecasts, are also fairly popular all over the country. The local team for Billings, Montana, isn't substantively more local than the Yankees in the sense that a trip to go see them at the park is just as prohibitive and they probably don't get the team's local TV station.

I'm actually far more bothered by the barriers to entry in a given market. It seems completely unreasonable to me that MLB should be able to tell teams where they can and can't move to. Yes, MLB should consult on those things, but if every team in the league decided to up and move to New York, then they should have the right to do so with all the potential benefits and consequences thereof.

[Alleghenies]

Yeah, I'm reminded of the Oakland A's situation now and how they cannot build a stadium down near silicon valley because it could take away from the Giants business. This is one of the biggest reasons that I extremely dislike Bud Selig. The Giants have the rights to this territory but are several miles and millions of people to the north, so I don't see the problem, but the Giants have the rights, so I cannot blame them for not wanting to risk losing any business, so the A's appealed to MLB. Selig put together a ridiculous committee about 5 years ago to make a decision on the matter. 5 freaking years! Selig is just way too big of a little girl, he wants to be liked and loved by all, so he just doesn't make a decision and then nobody can be mad about it. Being a very small market team, it never attracted enough attention to the public to hurt baseball in any way, so Selig just gets away with this crap. The city of San Jose is even suing MLBbecause they made plans to have a stadium build downtown. All this because Selig is too much of a wimp to make a firm decision. He just has to be the most loved commish of baseball ever and it really makes me sick. Supposedly, he is even friends with A's owner Wolff but just cannot make a decision. 5 years, I still cannot believe it! When I was living there, I would hear endlessly about fans calling into talk shows, countless of them have written MLB and Selig, the radio show even gave out Seligs number a couple times, and Selig just ignores them because he can. I'm so happy to see him go. Sorry for this little rant, but you brought up a whole issue of MLB and the restrictive control they have. Some of it is necessary. A lot of it is complete crap.