Hot Stove Football

[PATSNUTme]

With Free Agency coming up and then the draft, isn't this the same as Hot Stove baseball? Logically, it has to be.

So, how much time do you think the local sports radio and newpapers will spend talking/writing about football vs what they do about baseball (hot stove)?

 

[sdaniels7114]

Boston is a Baseball town, MA is a Baseball state, and New England is a Baseball region.

 

[PATSNUTme]

Boston is a Baseball town, MA is a Baseball state, and New England is a Baseball region.

100%? Then how do we account for the fact that the 68,000 stadium is sold out for every game for the past 10 years? How so we account that the TV ratings for the Patriots are higher then for the Red Sox, even during playoffs?

You are right about the media being baseball. But, I think it's 50-50 among the sports fans. And a good percentage are fans of both.

 

[Bill's Girl]

With Free Agency coming up and then the draft, isn't this the same as Hot Stove baseball? Logically, it has to be.

So, how much time do you think the local sports radio and newpapers will spend talking/writing about football vs what they do about baseball (hot stove)?

Hot stove BB??? I got all tingly until I realized you meant baseball!

Honestly, it depends on who shows up late or fat to Spring Training, the Roger Clemens watch, how warm it is when 'EEI broadcasts live from Ft. Myers.....

Hot stove football is not as exciting because of the Belichick factor. We never know who they are interested in until Mike Reiss tells us who he has seen in the Patriots parking lot! I pay more attention to football in the offseason than I do to baseball in its offseason. The Patriots are cool and calculated, the Sox are all drama. I only pay attention when someone has signed on the dotted line!

I love Nut and his polls! Keep 'em coming!

 

[festy1986]

I think he means, that Baseball comes first then football.

Which I think is more then 50/50

I my self love the Red Sox more and Baseball more, but really nothing is like football and that first week.

I follow both the same with the same interest, I watch both sports and when both are playing I watch both, I only will pay more attention to the other depending on the immportance of the game.

 

[Michael]

I think he means, that Baseball comes first then football.

Which I think is more then 50/50

I my self love the Red Sox more and Baseball more, but really nothing is like football and that first week.

I follow both the same with the same interest, I watch both sports and when both are playing I watch both, I only will pay more attention to the other depending on the immportance of the game.

I was listening to EEI a couple of days ago. Which I haven't done since Feb 6th. And they were already lamenting "don't you wish baseball started this week." Then they went into a hour discussion of how the fans feel about Clemens. And how they are all just fans of laundry.

 

[PATSNUTme]

I was listening to EEI a couple of days ago. Which I haven't done since Feb 6th. And they were already lamenting "don't you wish baseball started this week." Then they went into a hour discussion of how the fans feel about Clemens. And how they are all just fans of laundry.

Exactly. They spend hours speculating about baseball before , after, and during the season.

A little speculation talk about the Patriots would be fun- but not for them.

 

[Boston Boxer]

100%? Then how do we account for the fact that the 68,000 stadium is sold out for every game for the past 10 years? How so we account that the TV ratings for the Patriots are higher then for the Red Sox, even during playoffs?

You are right about the media being baseball. But, I think it's 50-50 among the sports fans. And a good percentage are fans of both.

football and baseball are two different animals. Football is on once a week, baseball is one almost every day for about 7 months, so there is no comparing the two TV ratings. There is just no debating that Boston is a Baseball town...from the begining (1900) to the present win or lose. How long have our Patriots been beloved? Only the last 8-9 years IMO. Dont get me wrong, i am a football/Pats fan, but the Red Sox have been the favorite for a long time and that will not change.

 

[PatsFan37]

The Globe has an ownership share in the Sox. WEEI broadcasts Red Sox games. NESN broadcasts reruns of old Red Sox games (could there be anything more boring than that?) This accounts for their fascination with baseball.

NEST is broadcast on the same channel that shows basketball games.

National networks handle football, there is no part ownership by a media arm, and WBCN, a music station, broadcasts Patriots games locally.

No one has any financial incentive to talk about the Patriots, but they all have incentives to talk about other subjects.

You need no more explanation than this. I believe this is why the Krafts are working so hard to develop their own media connections through their in-house studio and their deal with Comcast.

It's not about interest, folks, it's about money.

 

[patchick]

The Globe has an ownership share in the Sox. WEEI broadcasts Red Sox games. NESN broadcasts reruns of old Red Sox games (could there be anything more boring than that?) This accounts for their fascination with baseball.

I think you have your causality backwards. E.g., NESN could only be broadcasting reruns of old baseball games in a truly baseball-mad region. WEEI became a powerhouse because it got the rights to the Sox games. Etc. Oh, and WEEI is the flagship station of the Revolution and BC basketball too, but that has yet to lead them to devote any airtime whatsoever to those teams. They know their audience.

Besides, it's not really fair to compare hot-stove baseball to hot-stove football. In baseball there are an awful lot of trades and free agent moves, mostly involving well-known major leaguers. The Red Sox completely reinvented their starting infield, for heaven's sake. While there are plenty of threads here drooling over a handful of "name-brand" free agents, the real off-season action is the draft. And even on this board of diehards, only a handful are really interested in comparing the merits of day 2 nose tackle prospects. (We're over on the draft board. And we would be absolute ratings death on the radio. "I've broken down 9 years' of BB's draft tendencies with regard to interior linemen, and concluded that Daryn Colledge's arms are 1.3 inches too short given that he comes from a mid-major conference....")

For that matter...anybody ever hear WEEI obsessing over the baseball draft? They don't even know who's in the Red Sox farm system.

 

[Fanfrom1960]

football and baseball are two different animals. Football is on once a week, baseball is one almost every day for about 7 months, so there is no comparing the two TV ratings. There is just no debating that Boston is a Baseball town...from the begining (1900) to the present win or lose. How long have our Patriots been beloved? Only the last 8-9 years IMO. Dont get me wrong, i am a football/Pats fan, but the Red Sox have been the favorite for a long time and that will not change.

Of the four major pro sports teams in and near Boston, the following, or fervor shifts some among them. For example, hockey was probably #2 or #3 for a while in the 70s, and the Patriots were probably fourth for some years since their inception. But the Red Sox have always been #1, even though their ownership (e.g. under Yawkey when he refused to look at black players for years, and made right handed sluggers the #1, 2 and 3 priority for years, ignoring pitching for the most part) left a lot to be desired. The Patriots are a solid second right now, and if they were based in a lot of the Midwest, or some other parts of the country they'd be #1.

 

[shirtsleeve]

This is a baseball and Red Sox region, and it makes me wanna hurl! If no one else here will say anything bad about those overweight overage ego's over there then I will. I HATE baseball. I HATE the Red Sox. I just wish someone would take that POS team and get them the F*%K outta this region! Comcast is gonna start airing a Pats channel in my area soon, and that is the ONLY sports channel out of New England I will watch or listen to except for the occasional Pats show on NESN or ch5. I have boycotted the Globe. I only read the Herald. And as far as EIEIO goes, I dont even listen to AM radio. Where I live, I get few signals out of Boston anyway.

Other than that- they're ok I guess :singing:

 

[sdaniels7114]

C'mon how can you hate 19 straight changeups that the batter fouls off before finally grounding into a 6-4-3? That's high drama! Or the invigoration of watching highly-conditioned athletes duke it out on a 95 degree August Saturday in KC in front of 8,000 fans? Lets not forget those refreshing 10 pm starts during the 2 wonderfully long west-coast trips that we get to enjoy each season.

 

[allworldrussfrancis]

First, we are currently in a lull sports wise. The Patriots football season is over and with the Superbowl talk complete, the football season is over. The Celtics and Bruins both stink and are not generating much press, although I do believe that with the coverage of the Olympics coupled with the surprisingly strong coverage of the Celtics, the Sox are not getting their normal press time. That will change shortly as Spring Training and the lead up to opening day will be generating almost all the press in the region as it should.

Now, with respect to all of this "baseball town" talk, thats just BS. First, we were never so much a baseball town as a Sox town. I mean, most people don't care about who is playing second base for the Padres and most people usually don't watch Sunday night baseball unless the Sox are playing, even if its a marquee match-up.

Even Bob Ryan has admitted that this is currently a two sports town and region. Football is by far the nation's leading sport (lets not bring NASCAR into this) and would be here as well if the Sox did not have the tradition that they do. Yes, the Sox have been around for a century, but they have not always "owned" this region. It was hockey in the 70s and basketball in the 80s. Even in the mid-90s, before Pedro landed, Parcells and Bledsoe had the region's attention more than Duquette and Mo Vaughn. Fenway had 18-24k attendance while Foxboro was sold out every game and ratings were huge. In the latter half of the 90s, the coming of Pedro and the resurgence of the Yankees rivalry altered the landscape as the Sox became the town's dominant team.

With respect to today, as Peter Gammons recently wrote, both teams (the Sox and the Patriots) are at the all time peak of their popularity. The Sox have the longer history and tradition as well as an ownership that is adept at marketing this to the younger generation (Lucchino and others stoked the fires of hatred toward the Yankees that burned within Sox fans and was never exploited by the Harringtons, Duquettes and Gormans). That and the fact that the rivalry with the hated Yankees is also at an apex. But . . .

. . . the Patriots have been surging for a long time now, not just with Superbowl wins but ever since Kraft and the Tuna took over. They have the best coach in the league, the quarterback is the most popular athlete in town (PERIOD) and the organization is regarded as the model organization in all sports (including by the Sox themsleves). Ratings may be different for the sports but the monster Pats (and other football) ratings can't be ignored. Summer belongs to the Sox, but winter belongs to the Pats. We are a 2 sports town, end of story.