Large Market or Small?

[Gryphon]

Originally posted by EyeH8Philly from a sports forum:

I ran across something that, although not football related, made me think about the snafu over the Saints wanting to move to San Antonio. Good old Taglia Boo Boo says that San Antonio is too small to support a football team but according to the latest "soft" census, San Antonio is now larger than Dallas.

The 10 largest cities in the U.S., based on population estimates for July 1, 2005:
1. New York, 8,143,197
2. Los Angeles, 3,844,829
3. Chicago, 2,842,518
4. Houston, 2,016,582
5. Philadelphia, 1,463,281
6. Phoenix, 1,461,575
7. San Antonio, 1,256,509
8. San Diego, 1,255,540
9. Dallas, 1,213,825
10. San Jose, Calif., 912,332
Other Texas cities in the top 25:
16. Austin, 690,252
19. Fort Worth, 624,067
21. El Paso, 598,590

Now, while I do not endorse the Saints forcing the issue (to be quite honest I don't give a rat's *** about New Orleans or the Saints), it is just odd that one of the top 10 cities in the US (population wise) is being told that they cannot have a team because they are too small. Looks to me that 28 other teams have smaller markets that San Antonio would...Just an opinion.

 

[TRUTH87]

Saints just seems like one of those teams , that have ''no fans''. Not a team that wins regularly, poor history. no superbowls, i mean...wut would make you go for the saints? I doubt a new city works. Saints are the NO SAINTS...

 

[lspain1]

Gryphon

Your list is a poor one. To gather an accurate picture of NFL market size, you must look at somehing called DMA's (Designated Television Market Areas). For example, the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg/Sarasota DMA contains 10 counties and has a total population of 3.9 million. It ranks #12 in the USA.

When you compare the San Antonio DMA to others in the country it ranks out close to Jacksonville and would represent the smallest in the country to have an NFL franchise. Add to this the fact that the fan base in San Antonio would have to wooed away from the Cowboys, it looks a lot worse than moving a team to say...LA (the #2 DMA in the US).

 

[trickblue]

You have to understand Gryph... SA has a large market, but it is SOLID Cowboys country...

The population doesn't matter... fans aren't going to change their loyalty normally... they will stick with Dallas...

Also consider this... although SA is a large market, it is among the lowest cities in wages paid, so the typical fan can't afford to go to the game...

Couple low wages with Cowboys loyalty and you don't get the numbers the NFL wants to see...

 

[JackMagist]

You have to understand Gryph... SA has a large market, but it is SOLID Cowboys country...

The population doesn't matter... fans aren't going to change their loyalty normally... they will stick with Dallas...

Also consider this... although SA is a large market, it is among the lowest cities in wages paid, so the typical fan can't afford to go to the game...

Couple low wages with Cowboys loyalty and you don't get the numbers the NFL wants to see...

Another problem with SA (as lspain1 was explaining) is that there are very few suburbs around the city. Dallas for instance is completely surrounded by suburbs two, three or even more layers deep in some directions. San Antonio has NO suburbs on it's southern side and very few to the west; only along I35 to the northeast does it have suburbs more than one layer deep and they are not very large suburbs. Add to that the lack of wages paid in the city in general and you see the problem. However, I doubt that the situation in SA would be any worse than NO except for the fact that it is solid Cowboys fan country.

 

[THUMPER]

Gryphon

Your list is a poor one. To gather an accurate picture of NFL market size, you must look at somehing called DMA's (Designated Television Market Areas). For example, the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg/Sarasota DMA contains 10 counties and has a total population of 3.9 million. It ranks #12 in the USA.

When you compare the San Antonio DMA to others in the country it ranks out close to Jacksonville and would represent the smallest in the country to have an NFL franchise. Add to this the fact that the fan base in San Antonio would have to wooed away from the Cowboys, it looks a lot worse than moving a team to say...LA (the #2 DMA in the US).

What he said :signmast:

 

[DWelch1775]

I don't really care where they move or if they move at all but they need to do something because they suck.

 

[Hostile]

Forget moving the Saints or giving LA a team they won't support anyway. After Dallas gets a Super Bowl in their new stadium just make all of them in LA. That way LA gets football with all the glitz and glitter they love for the Super Bowl, and the Saints don't take any of our territory, not that they could dent it much.

 

[the kid 05]

Forget moving the Saints or giving LA a team they won't support anyway. After Dallas gets a Super Bowl in their new stadium just make all of them in LA. That way LA gets football with all the glitz and glitter they love for the Super Bowl, and the Saints don't take any of our territory, not that they could dent it much.

i dunno they might sell out a game or two due to Mr. Bush.....

 

[Hostile]

i dunno they might sell out a game or two due to Mr. Bush.....

2 sellouts, wow. The Cardinals would be envious.

 

[MC KAos]

well i think it would work better if they were to be the san antonio saints, but they built the stadium in say...san marcos, that way the austin population(along with all the suburbs in between such as kyle and new braunfels) can support the team, you forget that altough san antonio is a small media market, they support teams quite well, the spurs are beloved here by everyone and get a lot of local support. as far as the cowboys support here, that is true, but there are two points to be made....

1)there are lots of cowboys fans that would probably support the saints as their second favorite team b/c of locality and a lot of soft cowboys fans that would switch alliances
2)there are a lot of people that dont care about the NFL that support the team, and also a lot of college students that move into the area (UTSA, UT austin, Texas state, etc.) that being here, would support the local team, as i see them doin with the spurs.

the big IF in that is that the spurs are a GREAT team, while the saints just plain BLOW, but i think it could work out, and even though i would NEVER stop loving the cowboys as my favorite NFL team, i would defenetly support the saints as long as they werent playin the cowboys or the titans(as long as vince young is there)