Baseball vs. Football

In the mid-seventies, English immigrants brought the traditional format of baseball to North America. In 1876, the National League was formed. Baseball is bat-ball sport which is played between 2 teams having 9 players each. The aim of baseball is in scoring runs by striking the bat on a thrown ball and to touch a series of 4 markers named bases which are arranged at bends of the 90 foot baseball diamond. English Colonial pioneers brought football to the Americas in the 17th century. After 200 years, football was initiated in American colleges. This game later was picked by various colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Rutgers and Columbia. In 1921, the American Professional Football Association (APFA) started and was eventually renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922. The object of this game is passing or running the football into the challenger's end zone to score points. The ball is advanced by passing to teammates preceding the goal-line or kicking between goalposts for 3 points. In the US, both football and baseball have zealous fans asserting that they are the most popular sport in America. But, how does someone actually ascertain which sport is the number one sport in the America? There are various categories which could be considered while determining America's number one pastime. Analyzing ticket costs, salaries, television revenue, venues, attendance, and average athletic prowess will help in presenting a case. These six factors help in deciding which sport is the most loved by Americans. Deciding whether football or baseball is the most popular sport in America can be done by counting the number of people attending the games. During year 2000, the average crowd to watch baseball was 30,125 while average crowd to watch football was 66,077. Considering the figures, it appears that twice the number of people watched football on average. The cost of a ticket for football was an average of $54.14 while for baseball it was only $20.12. Obviously baseball is more affordable than football and watching the live games creates plenty of fans generating lot of excitement for that particular sport. Looking further, the NFL fetches around $2.2 billion a year from television revenue while the MLB makes around $340 million. In a week, football is aired for only few days while baseball is aired almost every night. This leads up to the conclusion that football fetches more money through advertisement, indicating many more people are watching football than baseball. In the MLB, the normal salary for players is over $2 million a year while in NFL it is only $1.18 million a year. Another factor, venue, plays an important role as it influences the number of seats available for fans to watch each game live. The average stadium for baseball can easily hold 47,000 fans while the average football stadium can easily accommodate 70,000 fans. In conclusion, the evidence points toward the NFL being a more watched sport on a per game basis. However, baseball likely wins out because almost 10 times more games are played each year per team. Whatever sport is most popular, its minor league players need recognition. Baseball teams give awards and trophies to its team moms, coaches and players. Teams decide what should be engraved on each baseball award and trophy. Name of team and possibly the name of each player should be included. In case of exceptional trophies, title and distinctions should also be included. Team moms, coaches and players treasure these awards and trophies for years and years. Football trophies are usually made of plastic or metals, portraying scenes of players battling or kicking.