Baseball is a regional sport: Take 47

Just to continue a theme we’ve been beating into the ground for several weeks now. This time inspired by the observations of Rich Coutinho of CBS New York, found over at BTF:

You know we all say the New York baseball fan is smarter and more perceptive than any other fans in the country, but if the truth be told we’re as provincial as any of those other fans. When our baseball teams are out, we shut down and I guess what that means is we are really not baseball fans ... The NY football fan still had interest in the Super Bowl after the Jets were bumped by the Steelers and the NY NBA fans were certainly mesmerized by Heat/Mavericks last year, but if we don’t see Yanks, Mets or Phils or Red Sox (only because we hate those last two teams) we shut down.

Being smart and/or perceptive has nothing to do with it.

Because there are so many games and because the vast majority of them we consume cover the local nine, baseball fandom is, almost by necessity, a local thing. Even the smartest, most perceptive baseball fans lose some degree -- maybe a great degree -- of interest when their team is out of it. Such is life given the dynamic of the sport. Maybe things were different when the vast majority of the country got nothing but the Game of the Week -- and when baseball wasn’t rivaled by sports apart from horse racing and boxing -- but those days are long gone.

Baseball fandom is not as wide as it used to be. But it is way deeper than it used to be. If I knew anything about business I’d say something about vertical markets or something. But I’d probably just be talking out of my rear end.