Football: Which Is The True American Pastime? In todays world of big time professional sports there are the two major players and they are football represented by the National Football League (NFL) and baseball represented by Major League Baseball (MLB). Now there are other sports that the American public enjoys watching, however the argument generally boils down to which sport is the true favorite of the American people: baseball or football. In this paper I will attempt to examine both sports from several different angles to include attendance, television revenue, ticket costs, venues, salaries, entertainment value, and athlete perception. The goal of this exercise will be to determine, once and for all, which sport is the American favorite and can truly be called the American Pastime. One of the single greatest measurable facets of professional sports is attendance. A sports popularity is in direct correlation to the number of people that will show up to watch that sport. Overall 2000 regular season attendance in Major League Baseball was a record 72,782,013 in 2,416 games for an average per game crowd of 30,125 whereas official overall paid attendance in the National Football League for the 2000 season was 16,387,289 in 248 games for an average per game crowd of 66,077. The average per game crowd is the measurable statistic due to the fact that the number of games in a regular season for baseball and football are very different. A NFL team plays a regular season schedule of 16 game however a MLB team plays a regular season schedule of 162 games so average attendance per game presents an accurate picture of popularity. Therefore, football appears to be more than twice as popular as baseball when measured by attendance. Ever since the introduction of television into American pop culture professional sports organization have looked to maximize this medium. Television revenue is now big business in sports today w...
