27 replies to this topic

[BSLMikeLowe]

Haha I figured that would generate some good responses.

It's not like I was disagreeing though.

[BSLMikeLowe]

The Bay Area is much more of an amorphous blur... whereas NYC is much more insular... for example, in the Bay Area rush hour traffic goes both ways... or, really, all 4 ways... whereas in NY, it's mainly into the city in the morning and leaving the city after work...

Ok. Not sure what rush-hour traffic patterns really has to do with connections to area college teams though.

[RShack]

Ok. Not sure what rush-hour traffic patterns really has to do with connections to area college teams though.

 

It has to do with whether or not people in the city feel at all connected to anything nearby the city... in NYC, they don't... Rutgers means nothing to them...

[BSLMikeLowe]

It has to do with whether or not people in the city feel at all connected to anything nearby the city... in NYC, they don't... Rutgers means nothing to them...

I think it has more to do with the fact that NYC (and SF for that matter) attract a lot of transient residents who already have a loyalty to their alma mater or the team close to where they grew up. Go to a sports bar in either city on a Saturday afternoon and I bet you see a ton of different colors huddled around different TVs.

[DJ MC]

Huh?  Of course you count Stanford and Berkeley... why wouldn't you?

 

Why would I? Berkeley is well outside of the city, and Stanford is essentially as far away from downtown SF as Rutgers from downtown NYC (~30 miles).

 

You mention the "amorphous" nature of the Bay Area, but I don't think that's true from what I know. It seems more like three distinct "cities"--San Francisco, East Bay (Oakland-Berkeley-etc.), and South Bay (San Jose-Santa Clara-Palo Alto-etc.)--as opposed to one gigantic city drawing on extensive suburbs. But I don't think that matters in this case.

 

The argument for it is that due to the whole Stanford-Silicon Valley-SF connection a lot of students from that school in particular end up living in the city, but I don't know how much of a collegiate culture that creates in terms of sports.

[RShack]

Why would I? Berkeley is well outside of the city, and Stanford is essentially as far away from downtown SF as Rutgers from downtown NYC (~30 miles).

 

You mention the "amorphous" nature of the Bay Area, but I don't think that's true from what I know. It seems more like three distinct "cities"--San Francisco, East Bay (Oakland-Berkeley-etc.), and South Bay (San Jose-Santa Clara-Palo Alto-etc.)--as opposed to one gigantic city drawing on extensive suburbs. But I don't think that matters in this case.

 

The argument for it is that due to the whole Stanford-Silicon Valley-SF connection a lot of students from that school in particular end up living in the city, but I don't know how much of a collegiate culture that creates in terms of sports.

 

Look, I lived there for a couple years.  For many if not most folks there, the boundaries you're citing are lines on a map and are not particularly meaningful re: daily activities.  Lots of people live in SF and work in Silicon Valley *and* vice versa.  Same thing re: San Jose... and re: the East Bay... and even re: Half Moon Bay. Lots of people live on one side of the bay and work on the other side. It's everyday-normal for people to have much longer commutes than is true near BAL.  

 

The city limits might mean something to you, but that has no bearing on this issue.  There is much more mental distance between BAL and DC than there is among the various zones out there.  You can claim that Stanford and Cal have followings local to their respective cities, but you'd be just as wrong as if you were saying Mets fans live in Queens, MFY fans live in Manhattan, and people in Brooklyn don't follow baseball because there's no team there.  It's the same basic thing, just with a different scale of distance.

[McNulty]

Shack is mostly right, IMO.  In NY, you never cross the bridge out of the 5 boroughs.  And really, if you live in Manhattan, even going to Brooklyn feels a tad weird.  In the Bay Area, its pretty much everything included.  

[RShack]

Upon reflection...

 

It's normal for big cities to have less intense college-sports-mania, simply because they have pro teams... most passion-crazy college fans are crazy about teams in college towns that are relatively little places.  But most big cities also have some kind of university team that it's natural for residents to bond with... like OhowIhateohiostate is a natural thing for folks in Ohio's big cities... and Michigan and Michigan State for folks who lived in what used to be the great city of Detroit... the Bay Area's got Stanford and Cal... LA's got UCLA and USC... Florida's big cities have 3 brand-name schools to choose up sides about... Atlanta's got 2... and so on.  

 

What's odd about NYC is that there's no obvious analog to that.  I suppose Syracuse could be, in theory...but it's not... I think it's because NYC is pretty much an entity unto itself... it's too big and important for to care much about what's what in its surrounding areas...

 

It might be an artifact of the original ML cities in baseball and football... those cities are old cities, and when team sports first really became a big deal, they had ML teams of some kind... but while that was going on, the rest of the country bonded with whatever was available to them.. and since the rest of the country was mostly boondocks, the original bonds in those areas were to teams from schools that started out as public cow colleges... then, when ML teams expanded to places that had grown into big cities, there were already some college allegiances in place as part of the local culture... but since NYC was always up to its ears in ML teams, it never had any kind of college-team-bonding phase...

 

Well, whatever..

 

Regardless of all that, I can't believe NYC will ever get it now... you'd think the people chasing that market would come to their senses about that... but they haven't.  I wonder if the B10 will catch on after several years of nobody caring about Rutgers... and after several years of not many people really caring much about UMD either.  Except for people who already have reasons to be MD or Rutgers fans, does anybody really wanna watch MD or Rutgers play on TV?  I don't think so.  Neither one is ever gonna be either America's team or the team that America loves to hate.  I think the last schools to pull that off were Miami and FSU... and those schools were filling a void in a place where population was growing like crazy with nobody interesting to root for.  I don't see places where that could happen now... too much stuff is on TV everywhere from teams that already have standing...