[irish]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Let's look at this from another point of view- baseball was known as the national past time long before the explosion of money and exposure that occurred, IMO, sometime in the 80's. Why? Not b/c it was the biggest grossing sport (if it even was), but b/c everyone PLAYED it. When you threw a ball around, it was a baseball - every kid had a glove and baseball and most had bats.

BUT, as football became popular, kids started playing IT instead baseball - hell, you only needed on piece of equipment - the ball. With the advent of cheap footballs in the 70's and 80's (you may laugh at them - but who here didn't have a nerf football growing up?)

Again, as the balls became cheaper and smaller (K-2's anyone?), football got played more as THE pickup game. Almost any place can be a field, you can have legitimate games with as few as 3 people (okay, who's the permanent QB?) and, again, only one piece of equipment needed.

When the weather's nice outside, the kids on my street are playing football. Not baseball. Maybe basketball - but as only one kid's got a net, that's not nearly as often. They ALL have footballs so any 2 or 3 of show up and it's game time. I have NEVER seen them play, or even throw, a baseball.

Whether football became the national past-time b/c of the NFL or the NFL became an obsession b/c football became the national past time, I don't know. I do think that a reasonable argument could be made that the NFL owes its current competitive advantage over other pro sports to the advent of the nerf football.

You can also include the rise of TV. A football team plays 1 game per week and everyone can look forward to that game and treat it as an event. Baseball teams play almost every day so the games are less of an event and less build-up surrounds each game and less analysis follows each game. Football also translates better to tv as the action is essentially centered around the ball (unlike baseball) and the ball is easily seen on tv.