Jake Plummer Denver Broncos

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(This article was originally published by Sports Media Watch on November 4, 2005.)

Any map freaks out there? Anyone looking for a sports map of the US you can play Risk on? You want a fascinating look at sports allegiances in the fringes of this country? Check out the maps of sports fandom.

Begun this past September, the Common Census Map Project is an attempt to define the US by geographic and cultural allegiances. From the main page you can alert the project to your hometown, the city closest to your hometown, and the big city nearest that city. It’s like a Wikipedia-census, an open source account of where people are in America and where they consider themselves “from.�

The map doesn’t adjust itself, though, with each respondent. Instead, the archivists wait until certain response thresholds have been met. It makes fascinating reading, though, as visitors to the site can see what the census map looked like after 4,000 responses, 8,000 responses, 16,000 responses, and the current one which represents 24,000 responses. The next version will be published after 32,000 votes, which should happen shortly after this article publishes.

And as I mentioned in the teaser paragraph, the project also charts the sports allegiances of respondents. The site has maps for the fan bases of the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and NCAA I-A football. And for whatever reason, these maps are updated far more frequently than the main project’s map. Obviously, these maps have some serious flaws, most notably the lack of representative data from across the country. Currently, the votes are skewed heavily toward the northeast, as witnessed by the fact that, as of this writing, Boston College football has more votes of allegiance than the University of Miami and Florida State combined.

I need a stand-alone sentence to emphasize how stupid that is.

Nonetheless, these maps offer a pretty cool look at regional loyalties. Each one allows users to look closely, within a fifty mile diameter, at what allegiances people in particular areas hold.

On the college football map, for example, the plurality of respondents in New Hampshire support Boston College, but Notre Dame is close behind. Make’s sense: Notre Dame’s the most famous Catholic school in the country. And New Hampshire is largely Catholic, having gotten populated and papaled by French Canadians and Boston Irish.

Sure BC, is Catholic too, but Notre Dame is far more famous and prestigious. Heck, thirty years ago BC was on the verge of financial ruin; the University of Massachusetts was planning on buying its campus for UMass-Boston. And geographically, you’d think BC would leave Notre Dame in the dust, but seriously â€" how long has BC had football? Pretty much since Doug Flutie. Sure there was football before at BC, but it doesn’t count. Kind of like all those guys who went to the USFL and then went to the NFL; no one cares that Jim Kelly passed for over 5200 yards with the Houston Gamblers in 1984. And so BC wins out in the fringes of its own market, but only barely.

Anomalies like this assert themselves in every sport and all over the country. On the NFL map, the Packers are most popular around Green Bay: Wisconsin, the upper peninsula of Michigan, and western Iowa. Beyond that, according to the map they receive the most ardent support from pockets of rural Mississippi. This looks asinine to anyone who doesn’t pay attention to the NFL, but those fans among us realize that those rural Mississippians are cheering for one of their own â€" Brett Favre, Gulfport's favorite son.

In the fringes of sports fandom, without a major sports team nearby to hook our loyalties, other factors become dominant. To whose farm system does our local minor league team belong? What team drafted our favorite player from the state university’s basketball team that unexpectedly went 20-6 last year? What team does that local guy play for? Where geographic proximity is the strongest pull of teams in the middle of major markets, idiosyncratic randomness is often the strongest pull of teams for people in the fringes.

Now look at the baseball map. New York state is dominated by the Yankees, with pockets of resisting Mets fans (give Steinbrenner time, though â€" eventually Selig will let him liquidate those holdouts). But the middle of the state is largely Red Sox fans. Why? How did so many Red Sox fans end up in the Middle of Nowhere, NY?

The answer: college. Red Sox allegiance dominates central New York because there are a ton of liberal arts schools there that kids in New England fall over themselves applying to. Every year, Syracuse, Hamilton, Colgate and others attract thousands of young, die hard Red Sox fans to their campuses. This shifts the balance of fandom.

This particular issue â€" and actually, the Common Census Map Project in general â€" brings up several key questions: What defines a media market? Who populates those markets? What are the allegiances of those people and -- last but certainly not least -- Where do markets end?

According to Nielsen’s Listing of Media Markets, central New York essentially falls under two different media markets: Syracuse (#76) and Utica (#166). But according to the project’s main map, that area is pretty evenly divided between cultural ties to New York City and Syracuse. Does that mean that the heart of the Syracuse market is bleeding into the New York suburbs? Or is Syracuse simply a media market in name only, and actually functions as a very organized fringe to New York City?

And Utica is actually smaller than Manchester, New Hampshire, yet receives its own media market while Manch Vegas is officially tied to Boston. Is that to make Boston feel better? Does Boston need to stuff a potato down its population pants to compensate for a smaller than expected viewing audience? Or is Utica the one being humored? (Which would, of course, bring up the question: “Of whom does Utica have naked pictures that it warrants being humored?�)

And what kind of market is it, anyway, when most of those people don’t feel any loyalty to that market? Boston could be said to have that problem too, as the city attracts more college kids than almost anywhere, but manages to counteract that by browbeating most of those students into cheering for our sports teams, particularly the Red Sox. That clearly doesn’t happen in central New York. Does that make it a typical or atypical example of how things can be weird on the fringes of media markets?

Market fringes aren’t easy to describe because they’re different everywhere. What defines Mississippians’ loyalty to the Packers does not define central New York’s loyalty to the Red Sox. In the center of media markets, sports are easier to describe â€" Denver roots for the Broncos because they’re right there. Same for Seattle and the Mariners. And Long Island and the Islanders.

I admit that I’m going to be writing more about New Hampshire and Boston than about the fringes in other media markets. But every once in a while I intend to return to the fringes of other markets and sports fandom in general, just to see how others live there. The sports maps on the Common Census Map Project are a good tool to do that, and since they’re updated so frequently I might return sometimes to review how they’re progressing. They hint at the complexities of sports fans in the outlands of TV, radio and newspapers. The project shows apparent randomness, that frequently doesn’t make sense, but at least it’s got cool maps to play with.


Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?

Well, too bad because football season has started, and the crap that comes along with it is here too!

Don’t get me wrong; I love me some football. However, there are a few things I hate about football. Let’s discuss, shall we?

Why is it the big sponsors come up with the dumbest ad campaigns for football? Last year they started out with the stupid Coors Light Silver Bullet Love Train commercial. This ad was based on the first game of the season between the Raiders and the Patriots. The scenario: hot, baby - we need something to cool us off! Hey - here comes a train with beer on it and it’s got a snow storm behind it! I’m so excited I could high-five this Raider fan! Oh, no, wait - can’t do that! The best part is, they ran this commercial well into December. Not sure I want to cool down in Foxboro in December. Maybe then the Raider fan and Patriot fan can snuggle up under a blanket with some nice warm cocoa?

Then Diet Pepsi designed a campaign around a soda machine getting drafted and playing receiver for the Patriots. (Let me just insert right here, I am SO glad the Broncos didn’t win the Super Bowl last year. Have fun Steelers fans!) The machine was catching passes, smacking players on the butt with a towel, getting the fans to chant his name... "Machine’s got great hands!" "What hands?" HAHAHA - Kill me!!!

The announcers are complete idiots too - all of them from the studio to the sidelines. Stupid sideline reporters! Do these people add ANYTHING to the game? And it’s not just the women - Armen Keteyian is an idiot too! By the way, NOBODY is named Armen Keteyian! But these people try to get info out of coaches before and after half-time and the coaches must HATE it! "Leslie, tell us what Coach Shanahan had to say about his team coming into the second half." "Well, Dick, Coach Shanahan said that since his team is down, they need to score. Also, their defense has to play better and keep the other team out of the end zone. Back to you." What a revelation! I want to know what Coach Shanahan REALLY told Leslie! "Well, Dick, Coach Shanahan told me I look absolutely ridiculous in this hat and I should go back to watering plants in mental institutions. Back to you. Oh, and he told me my mouth is so big that it could provide section 8 housing for a family of seven and they would still have room for their 1984 Dodge Caravan with the peeling paint. Now back to you." While I’m on the sideline reporter thing, I heard this during the college bowl games last year: "Tell us what you know about Anderson’s groin, would ya Suzy?" Um, I don’t think I want to know what Suzy knows about Anderson’s groin!

The color commentators are complete morons as well. Dan Dierdorf is convinced that as soon as any player does something right he’s the "best player in the league at that position." "Do you see how the guard pulled and laid this block on the linebacker? That is very difficult for a guy his size and that is why he’s one of the best interior linemen in the league!" OK, then two plays later the same guy gets beat by a defensive tackle and his QB gets leveled. Oh wait - "This little sweep move by the defensive tackle here gave him a free shot at the quarterback. Moves like that make this guy the best defensive lineman in the NFL today." Guh!

It’s not like John Madden is any better. The whole BAM-POW crap is over and done. Now he’s analyzing nothing plays on his telestrator like something great just happened. "See this guard here? He’s going to-BAM-move straight ahead. And this tackle here is gonna-POW-plow forward too. Then the running back will-BANG-follow behind them and pick up a yard." Um, so? Go back to your bus, eat a 4-legged turkey and shut the hell up!

Don’t get me started on the play-by-play guys. I know there are MANY teams in the league, but these guys have no clue what’s going on and they are always missing player’s names, etc. And Dick Enberg feels the need to pull ridiculous facts about players from thin air as he’s making calls. "And the former 3rd place finisher in the 1992 12 and under tri-county chess tournament in Orlando Florida can now add a tipped pass to his resume - oh my!" WTF? "It’s a touchdown for a guy who grew up raking sand for the pro beach volleyball tour." SHUDDAP!

Then, when they send you to the studio for halftime highlights, Terry Bradshaw goes out and makes a complete ass out of himself. Actually, he doesn’t need to try to hard to do that. But you MUST listen to Shannon Sharpe do highlights - it’s AWESOME! In fact, because I love you, I have a quick 3-step lesson on how to impersonate Shannon Sharpe. Ready?

1) Use the Eddie Murphy dumb black guy voice. The slow, deep voice with the slight lisp.

2) Over annunciate every word with your mouth. You have to move and flap your lips a lot.

3) Speed it up!

(If you need an audio demonstration, give me a call!)

The showboating in football really bugs me too. Why can’t all players be professionals like Rod Smith? The guy scores a touchdown, turns around, tosses the ball to the referee, and then jogs off the field. Most of these guys dance and celebrate over nothing! A team can be down by 30 points with 4 minutes left in the game and some defensive back will make a tackle and then start celebrating. Hey, YOU’RE LOSING BY 30! Maybe if you made that tackle in the first half, this game would be a little closer and you’d have a reason to celebrate. Besides, all you did was your job. You are being paid to tackle, and now that you’ve actually accomplished your task, you feel the need to dance and act like a buffoon? What if this type of behavior spilled over into the business world? Every time a receptionist transferred a call, they’d have to go roar back at the phone, get down on one knee, and pound their chest with 2 fingers and point to the sky. Speaking of this action, has EVERY NFL player lost someone to a tragedy? How many dead buddies do they really have, or are they just paying tribute to ol’ grandmamma? All I know is the next time I complete anything for my boss, I’ll enter his office bobbing my head and I’ll throw whatever on his desk and exclaim, "Yeah, you TRIED!" Then maybe I’ll do a little shoveling action before I walk out.

OK, if that isn’t enough to get you ready for some football, maybe this little Broncos video will help: