Hikedi Matsuyama taps in his putt on the 18th hole at Augusta National to win the Masters. Matsuyama becomes the first male Japanese player to win any major. In basketball the Lakers and Nets get into a little bit of a fist a cuffs in a potential finals preview in a statement win for the Lake show. In baseball the Cubs are hitting .167 after their first nine games of the season after getting smoked by the Pirates (yeah those Pirates!) two days in a row. The Cubs offense looks like a bunch of Curt Schillings facing Curt Schilling at the plate so far this season. On the ice the Avalanche and the Golden Knights are duking it out to be the top team in the Western Conference heading into the playoffs. All of these events are currently happening and there is a lot of intensity and high stakes in all four of those sports. My question about all of this to America is does anyone care? If they do Twitter and National Sports talk does not show that we truly do. You know what National Sports talk shows and twitter are talking about this morning? Who would you rather have moving forward Baker Mayfield or Joe Burrow? Are the Jets really taking Zack Wilson at number two? Is the Broncos sticking with Drew Lock as their starter and is working out with Peyton Manning really going to make a difference if the Broncos do stick the Missouri product? Yes the masses are talking about speculation of a sport that hasn’t had an actual game in 64 days and won’t have another meaningful game for 150 days over sports that are happening right now and have high stakes in place. My question is why do we care about all of this dare I say nonsense over actual games and data in other sports? Let’s take a look into the ten main reasons why Football dominates all of our lives everyday.
- Football has urgency every week- Football only has 16 (now 17 games) and every game is amplified massively compared to 162 games or 82 games. In the hooked on our cell phones short attention span era football fosters our urges for the now instead of the later. This urgency keeps us hooked on the league and our teams and it feeds into the need to know every move our favorite teams and players do on a daily basis even on the offseason.
2. Football only happens once a week- This has to do with number one more than anything but in baseball the teams play every day. Golf has events Thursday to Sunday. In Basketball and Hockey every team plays 3-4 times a week over a 6 and a half month span with a two month playoff calendar. Football games are primarily on Sunday’s which gave us something to look forward to and talk about all week. This concept helps feeds our brains and the beast every week.
3. Gambling aspect of Football-Football is a very easy sport to gamble on. Well, not really but there are 13-16 games a week and they span over 17-18 weeks. Because of the 365 nature of how much we all follow football we are familiar with the teams and it’s players. Football lines are easier to gamble on because of the template of how the schedule is constructed and how football teams score 3’s and 7’s instead of 1’s and 2’s). Basketball is very shifty with momentum swings and high scoring games, baseball and hockey are lower scoring and very difficult to handicap on a daily basis. The scoring system and familiarity of the teams keep it easier to gamble on football or at least try to more than other sports. Those big buildings on Las Vegas Boulevard weren’t built on winning bets.
4. Fantasy football- Millions of people in the United States play fantasy football, either daily fantasy or a league with their friends and family. The fantasy football aspect keeps us engaged in football more than we normally would on every game that’s on. We will watch a Jaguars-Chargers game at 6:30 in the morning in London because we have Kennan Allen and James Robinson on our fantasy teams. What other sport would say yeah I’m going to watch a Reds-Pirates game on a Thursday morning or a Sabres-Islanders game on a Wednesday evening to follow my fantasy team, yeah no one.
5. Football is played when we are home- Most families in the country will plan their vacations in the summer. When the kids are out of school and the weather is warm. Football Season is during the fall/Winter (September-February). Travel is light for the majority of these months with the exception of holiday travel. With many Americans at home and the games on at the same times every week we all watch it more than summer sports such as baseball and golf when many Americans are going on vacation or out and about with the warm days with late sunsets.
6. Football is domestic- If many of us haven’t learned already from the pandemic Americans are proud and stubborn. This isn’t a political argument but more of a fact or life. This does not matter which side you lean American’s are proud to be American’s and love what is ours. Many of these other sports are international sports. Baseball is very popular in Latin America. Basketball has exploded in popularity all across Europe. Golf is also popular in Europe, South Africa, Japan (Hikedi Matsuyama!) and Australia. Hockey is more Canadas sport than ours. But football (even though Roger Goodell is working tirelessly in making the sport international) is very much America’s sport. We wear that with a badge of honor and even though this may sound ridiculous me writing this it does matter to many this fact that Football is primarily ours.
7. Marketing- The most powerful tool that football has is the marketing of the sport. Baseball and hockey are terrible at marketing their sport and their stars and product. Basketball is great at marketing their stars but also mediocre at best in marketing their product as a whole. Many will watch the Lebrons Lakers Vs Durants Nets (still not to the volume a football game or even the draft) but who cares about a Timberwolves-Grizzlies game on a Tuesday night? Um well the answer is no one. Football markets their shield and product like no other sport in the world. There is always some information about either a rule change, or the schedule changes, or draft coverage, or team updates on a daily basis. We are always being informed everyday in the football world.
8. College Football- Pro football uses college football as a platform for their sport like no other sport. We already know who Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields are well before they even entered the draft. This is because we saw them in college. College baseball and college hockey are only exposed on Television in the college World Series and Frozen Four. Even with that the small exposure the players do get dissipates once drafted because they players are in the minor leagues for their first couple of years before being called up to the pro rosters. Pro basketball almost shuns at college basketball as a platform and even if they did the best players are only in college for a year. So only the rare occurrences (Zion Williamson, Jalen Suggs) does the country even knows who the players are before they enter the draft.
9. Football is a national sport- Football is a national sport compared to more of regional sport for their adversaries. They do a great job of having a huge Browns-Ravens game on a Monday night. An awesome Cardinals-Seahawks game on a Sunday night. A Chiefs-Bills game on a Thursday night (oh I mean Monday afternoon darn COVID). We all watched all of these games in droves and it’s teams all across the league and country. As stated above we will watch a 6:30 Jags-Chargers game in London which no other sport we can say that about.
10. Social Media namely Twitter- Twitter allows us to follow our favorite, players, journalists and the NFL itself. We can follow and communicate with Stefon Diggs, Patrick Mahomes, Adam Shefter and many more in the football universe. This keeps us engaged in what is going on in the daily lives and happenings of the league, it’s players and columnists like never before.
These are ten main reasons why football dominates our daily lives in the United States. There are many small more reasons that I didn’t even name that I’m sure many of you can come up with to add to my list. If other sports want to become more relevant to the masses they may want to look at what football is doing right and steal some ideas. In the meantime we will all be talking about mostly irrelevant nonsense in football through the summer then what happened in golf yesterday or basketball on Saturday or baseball any day. Having everyone talking about nothing your doing more than something else another is doing, that’s true power my friends.