Popularity ranking of NY sports

[Brooklyn Rangers Fan]

Yankees
Mets
Giants
Knicks
Jets
Rangers
Islanders
Nets
Devils

I'd go Nets over Islanders since the move to Brooklyn, but other than that I think you're spot on.

 

[nyr2k2]

Yankees
Mets
Giants
Knicks
Jets
Rangers
Islanders
Nets
Devils

I might flip the Giants and Mets, but otherwise I think that's pretty close.

 

[Gospel of Prospal]

Of the four major sports, here is how I would rank it as far as fan popularity:

Yankees
Knicks

Giants
Mets
Jets
Rangers








Islanders
Nets

 

[Gospel of Prospal]

If the Knicks had a modicum of success and weren't a complete dumpster fire for the last 20 years, they'd be as high, if not higher than the Yankees

 

[nyr2k2]

It's also way different depending on if you're talking about the City, or specific boroughs within the City, or Long Island, Westchester, NJ, etc. I honestly don't know how to accurately break it down on a state level.

 

[Kaapo Hollweg]

In NYC Hockey is a Niche sport. It is not a sport that most people watch in comparison to NBA/nfl/mlb.

Because of the Yankees and the history of baseball in this town I would say MLB is number 1 in NYC. It also helps they have a season that takes up half the year.

The NFL is clearly number 2 and would be number 1 if the Giants and Jets werent so ****ing awful. They also have a very short season compared to other sports and college football isnt as big in nyc as it is pretty much everywhere else. Despite this the NY Giants are as storied a franchise as any in the NFL.

I suspect the NBA would be as big as Baseball if the Knicks were a great team. Basketball is played the most out of any of the 4 major sports inside the city. And a lot of pro basketball players are native nyers. They are clearly third imo. When the Knicks are winning the Garden is even louder than when the Rangers are.

Next would be Hockey, out of the four major sports they would be dead last. But in spite of this Hockey is still infinitely bigger in NYC than it is in most other places in the US just from the sheer number of fans it has. I would say there are at least 1 million Ranger fans in this town without exaggerating. It is more than just a Niche sport when you compare it to other places in the US but it is a Niche sport compared to the other 3 sports within NYC.

Soccer is huge in nyc because of minority communities and hardcore soccer fans who watch international leagues but because the MLS sucks they havent achieved the foothold they want in the casual fan market. Plus the US is still decades behind the south american or european soccer powers for the sport to really gain interest even though it is probably the third most played sport at the amateur level in this entire country behind basketball and football and way above baseball.

I have always wondered why you guys called football soccer, while the sport you reserve the name football for would be more accurately described as handball.

I will see myself out.

 

[Nicky Santoro]

Hello NY'ers. I stumbled upon this thread as i googled "NYR popularity in NY"

This thread is 4.5 yrs old and based on most answers, back then, they were 6th most popular in NY, and this is when the NYR were not fun to watch and not good yet. (U new yorkers are spoiled with this fun and amazing team)

Now that they're doing great and 1st overall in NHL and are so fun to watch with Panarin, Igor, Kreider, Z, Fox and Trocheck, etc.. are the NYR still 6th behind NYY, NYK, NYG, Mets and Jets, or have the NYR popularity in NY moved up a bit... maybe 4th or 5th?? Have they at least surpassed the Jets or mets??

Thanks

 

[BroadwayStorm]

Well to be honest, I think Baseball has declined in popularity in general over the last half decade or so. With all the cheating scandals and the NY teams being mediocre. The Yankees have declined and lost their swagger and their importance. Yet they remain the most profitable team in all of Baseball and probably of all the pro teams in NYC.

That being said the NFLs popularity and revenues have surpased baseball and both the Giants and Jets remain two of the richest teams in the sport. The Giants being second behind only the Dallas Cowboys. This in spite of their bad play. But as soon as they get good they have no trouble taking over the city and generating buzz. Jets are shit and they still dominate headlines in most backpages of newspapers the moment anyone in there even farts.

The Rangers have been a strong team for 15 years or so with a couple of bad seasons that were never awful and they have their fans and they are the richest team in the league yet they remain 4th in popularity in the city. It's just not a sport that generates new fans and is mostly generational.


Then comes the interesting new development, the Knicks. They have been a turd for 25 years and suddenly they are good again and to be frank I think its a matter of a few seasons before they win a championship again. You can see it, their team is beyond solid and has everything except one last star to absolutely dominate. Even with 3 starters down most of the season they are a really good team. Jalen Brunson is the biggest star sports player in NYC right now. Last year whenever they won I saw young fans, between the ages of 15-25 going absolutely crazy outside the Garden. I never saw anything like that and basketball being a true NY Sport their popularity is as high as ever. The NBA has never exploited the NY Market with the Knicks who are still the richest team in Basketball despite having 2 championships from 50 years ago in their entire existence. If they won or became a dynasty they would indeed take the number 1 spot easily from the current Yankees, unless the Yankees start winning titles again.

Soccer has grown enormously in popularity with young people. But its still behind because the local teams and the format of the mls does not provide the best players in the world. Its instead the English premier league which has gained more popularity than ever in the us, especially with their deals with NBC and Fox.

 

[Nicky Santoro]

Thx broadway.... so i guess the NYR are still a distant 6th despite how great and exciting they are?? Have they at least passed the NYJ or mets??

i'd have to think so cuz this team is so fun to watch. I thought hockey in NY has really gained in popularity cuz of how great and exciting they are.. I'd also assume at one time Henrik and Messier were more popular in NY than brunson is now, no???

Is there a ranger that is very popular right now in NY, or not really.. maybe The Bread Man, Kreids, Rempe, or Igor??

Is my list right? NYY, NYK , NYG, NYR, NYJ, NYM..

Do u know what the order is now??

Thanks

 

[Ruggs225]

If the Jets won a superbowl it would blow away all others. Just for the sheer improbability of it ever happening lol.

Also the earth would end the next day.

Edit: a Knicks win would also be huge due to the longevity

 

[TopShelfSnipes]

How big would be Stanley Cup for New York?
I know NY is not a hockey hotspot, but is NHL a major sport in New York or it is more like MLS?
Thanks

Rangers are popular, but like most things in NY would just become an excuse for ticket scalpers and the "hobknob with the celebrities crowd" to come out and jack up the prices beyond what most fans can afford.

Remember, in 2014, it was cheaper to buy plane tickets and fly to LA to pay LA prices at the Staples Center, a hotel, and fly back, then it was to buy one game at MSG.

I'd be ecstatic if they got there, but I'd prefer to host a watch party at home, and I've never been big on parades so...

The thing that always irked me is how the Knicks sucked ass for close to 30 years and were routinely the talk of the town anyway. As someone who gives exactly 0 f***s about basketball, this never made sense when the Rangers were generally one of the better teams in the league for much of that time.

 

[eco's bones]

I'm a Rangers fan. I use to like the Yankees and the Knicks but for both that's a long time ago. I don't really care about them now and actually I like to have summers away from sports pretty much.

 

[TopShelfSnipes]

I'm a Rangers fan. I use to like the Yankees and the Knicks but for both that's a long time ago. I don't really care about them now and actually I like to have summers away from sports pretty much.

I still like the Yankees, but strongly believe analytics has ruined the game of baseball.

Analytics was always a player evaluation tool, not a coaching tool, but it's being used as one anyway. Little 5'6" 150 pound middle infielders are being taught to muscle up, hit exclusively to the pull side, and launch balls in the air because they too can hit 25 home runs. No one hits-and-runs anymore. Less than 10% of batters use the opposite field effectively. Pitching repertoires have become ridiculously standardized now. How many knuckleballers and true sinkerballers are there in MLB? How many pitchers still throw a split-fingered fastball, or a screwball? Infield shifts and technology aided defensive field positioning have taken the art out of fielding styles. No one bunts, even when it makes sense to, and they usually mess up when they try because they are out of practice.

It makes modern day baseball nigh unwatchable at times. 90s/00s baseball was pretty good though. I miss it.

The hockey equivalent today would be if some genius decided "hits per 60" or "shot velocity" was some kind of predictive indicator of goals per 60, and overnight, every Johnny Gaudreau was coached to focus on their clapper and their hitting ability, even though most would be terrible at scoring and defending that way, and the game predictably degraded as a result. Then some jackass who never played dissed the backhand shot because it "scores less" and the game made a conscious decision to just eliminate it altogether while pretending it still existed.

Hockey is by far the best live sport, and the best TV sport, and it's not even close. It's just most people don't know it because they're too busy watching the 48 minute snoozefest / 3 point shooting contest that is basketball.

 

[eco's bones]

I still like the Yankees, but strongly believe analytics has ruined the game of baseball.

Analytics was always a player evaluation tool, not a coaching tool, but it's being used as one anyway. Little 5'6" 150 pound middle infielders are being taught to muscle up, hit exclusively to the pull side, and launch balls in the air because they too can hit 25 home runs. No one hits-and-runs anymore. Less than 10% of batters use the opposite field effectively. Pitching repertoires have become ridiculously standardized now. How many knuckleballers and true sinkerballers are there in MLB? How many pitchers still throw a split-fingered fastball, or a screwball? Infield shifts and technology aided defensive field positioning have taken the art out of fielding styles. No one bunts, even when it makes sense to, and they usually mess up when they try because they are out of practice.

It makes modern day baseball nigh unwatchable at times. 90s/00s baseball was pretty good though. I miss it.

The hockey equivalent today would be if some genius decided "hits per 60" or "shot velocity" was some kind of predictive indicator of goals per 60, and overnight, every Johnny Gaudreau was coached to focus on their clapper and their hitting ability, even though most would be terrible at scoring and defending that way, and the game predictably degraded as a result. Then some jackass who never played dissed the backhand shot because it "scores less" and the game made a conscious decision to just eliminate it altogether while pretending it still existed.

Hockey is by far the best live sport, and the best TV sport, and it's not even close. It's just most people don't know it because they're too busy watching the 48 minute snoozefest / 3 point shooting contest that is basketball.

I could never get into anything if I couldn't play it but for me a couple things happened. I had to be active. Hockey was just starting to grow in my area in my mid teens and I got into that....and learning how to skate and play started to consume a lot of my time. If you're going to get any good at it it became apparent to me real fast that I would have to put some real time into it and I loved doing it. Kind of even ate into the time I was putting into playing both baseball and football. And then I went into the Coast Guard in 1981 and then it seemed I had even less time for other sports. I was stationed the last 3 years on Governors Island and you could skate year round at Sky Rinks which later on moved from an apartment building near MSG to where it is now and today is known as Chelsea Piers. It was that operation I believe anyway. I wasn't there when the Sky Rinks thing ended. When I got out of the service in '85 I just moved back home upstate to work nights for USPS. I liked hockey best.....the rest became a distraction so eventually they all just fell away but there's also starting a family and other things I like to do besides sports.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

If you want to know how popular the Rangers are all you need to do is listen to sports radio. The #1 team in the league for most of the season is barely a footnote. Give me a break about its popularity. Maybe in absolute terms because the city is so large.

 

[TheGortonConspiracy]

Hello NY'ers. I stumbled upon this thread as i googled "NYR popularity in NY"

This thread is 4.5 yrs old and based on most answers, back then, they were 6th most popular in NY, and this is when the NYR were not fun to watch and not good yet. (U new yorkers are spoiled with this fun and amazing team)

Now that they're doing great and 1st overall in NHL and are so fun to watch with Panarin, Igor, Kreider, Z, Fox and Trocheck, etc.. are the NYR still 6th behind NYY, NYK, NYG, Mets and Jets, or have the NYR popularity in NY moved up a bit... maybe 4th or 5th?? Have they at least surpassed the Jets or mets??

Thanks

3am bump on this post at this time of year is crazy

 

[Nicky Santoro]

If you want to know how popular the Rangers are all you need to do is listen to sports radio. The #1 team in the league for most of the season is barely a footnote. Give me a break about its popularity. Maybe in absolute terms because the city is so large.

it's sad, cuz the NYR are such a fun team. But i get it. NY is not born into hockey like here in MTL.

Here in Montreal, it's 100% hockey.. They never talk NBA or MLB.. It's 24/7 hockey. Late july early AUG last yr, i'm in my car in the scorching heat, i turn on sports radio in french and english and both are talking about habs draft picks and who should be on the 3rd and 4th line. And this is the middle of summer heat wave.

I saw our MLS team last week were 1st overall and undefeated. I had no idea and no one talked about it. I dont know 1 person that watched 1 sec of MLS this yr.

When Lebron broke the record last yr, they mentioned it for 1 sec. that was the only highlight or talk of NBA. When DEN won the title, we got 20 secs of highlights, then back to hockey.. they never give us the scores, NOTHING. Just hockey..

So i can understand NYR not getting any radio time. Hockey is KING here in Montreal, just like i'm sure baseball, NFL and NYK are in NY. hockey in NY is probably like MLS here in MTL.

It's really too bad. NYR are AMAZING, and so fun to watch.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

If you want to know how popular the Rangers are all you need to do is listen to sports radio. The #1 team in the league for most of the season is barely a footnote. Give me a break about its popularity. Maybe in absolute terms because the city is so large.

Hey they were talking Rangers the other night on 98.7 after the flyers game. Idk who the guys were but they admitted that they don’t know much about hockey but they were getting hyped about the upcoming playoffs. And they knew enough to say that the Rangers need to play better 5 on 5 lol

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Hey they were talking Rangers the other night on 98.7 after the flyers game. Idk who the guys were but they admitted that they don’t know much about hockey but they were getting hyped about the upcoming playoffs. And they knew enough to say that the Rangers need to play better 5 on 5 lol

I was shocked when Evan started a show after the Rangers 5-1 win against the Devils talking about the Rangers. Before that they talked about the Stadium Series. I haven't heard anything about their potential to have the best record in the NHL.

 

[McRanger92]

The masses have always shown out more for the Rangers than the media has. A cup win would be an enormous story, breaking a 13 year NY championship drought

 

[BleedBlueNYR]

The masses have always shown out more for the Rangers than the media has. A cup win would be an enormous story, breaking a 13 year NY championship drought

I agree. Just because the spring through fall is filled with 90 year olds clogging up the WFAN and ESPNNY phone lines talking about Yanks/Mets trade scenarios and complaining about missing like 10 games out of 162 because of streaming doesn’t mean the Rangers aren’t immensely popular. I personally have a lot of hockey fan friends.

Another thing-I have spent a lot of time in an area that is considered a big US hockey market and it was not nearly as popular as I thought it would be. To my surprise hockey is still last of the four major sports there, so I think New York is doing just fine as a hockey city.

 

[TopShelfSnipes]

I could never get into anything if I couldn't play it but for me a couple things happened. I had to be active. Hockey was just starting to grow in my area in my mid teens and I got into that....and learning how to skate and play started to consume a lot of my time. If you're going to get any good at it it became apparent to me real fast that I would have to put some real time into it and I loved doing it. Kind of even ate into the time I was putting into playing both baseball and football. And then I went into the Coast Guard in 1981 and then it seemed I had even less time for other sports. I was stationed the last 3 years on Governors Island and you could skate year round at Sky Rinks which later on moved from an apartment building near MSG to where it is now and today is known as Chelsea Piers. It was that operation I believe anyway. I wasn't there when the Sky Rinks thing ended. When I got out of the service in '85 I just moved back home upstate to work nights for USPS. I liked hockey best.....the rest became a distraction so eventually they all just fell away but there's also starting a family and other things I like to do besides sports.

I remember the Sky Rink! I was just telling someone about this last week and they couldn't believe it was a thing. The fancy lobby, the exquisite elevator, push the button to the top floor and poof - ice rink! That was where I learned to skate when I was in the city as a kid.

I hated the move to Chelsea Piers...it effectively ended my ice playing time (got forced into roller) as a kid until I was basically a teenager (the prices skyrocketed for ice time when the rink moved to Chelsea Piers), and it started getting MUCH more crowded. I guess my revenge in life is skating 3x a week at up to 3 different ice rinks up by where I am now, haha.

 

[MrAlmost]

I take it some of you aren't watching. I mean, I don't really get a chance to watch much, but the Knicks are good and depending on how they bounce back from some untimely injuries, are a serious threat. If they were to pull off a championship, the celebration in New York would be like nothing you have ever seen.

Edit: didn't realize it's an old thread. Ignore me!

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I agree. Just because the spring through fall is filled with 90 year olds clogging up the WFAN and ESPNNY phone lines talking about Yanks/Mets trade scenarios and complaining about missing like 10 games out of 162 because of streaming doesn’t mean the Rangers aren’t immensely popular. I personally have a lot of hockey fan friends.

Another thing-I have spent a lot of time in an area that is considered a big US hockey market and it was not nearly as popular as I thought it would be. To my surprise hockey is still last of the four major sports there, so I think New York is doing just fine as a hockey city.

I lived in Pittsburgh for two years and I lived in Philly for a year. In Philly it was all Eagles (they won the Super Bowl that year) I met one Flyers fan all year. In Pittsburgh I saw a ton of people wearing Pens gear and almost everyone claimed to be a Pens fan. Their busses had the a flickering "Let"s go Pens" sign. NYC is like Philly. Not even close to Pittsburgh.

 

[BleedBlueNYR]

I lived in Pittsburgh for two years and I lived in Philly for a year. In Philly it was all Eagles (they won the Super Bowl that year) I met one Flyers fan all year. In Pittsburgh I saw a ton of people wearing Pens gear and almost everyone claimed to be a Pens fan. Their busses had the a flickering "Let"s go Pens" sign. NYC is like Philly. Not even close to Pittsburgh.

It helps that their team in Pit has done a lot of winning. Never forget that they were very close to losing the franchise when they didn’t have a generational player.