All you need to know about sports you can learn from the Pro Stars cartoon:Originally Posted by JT Red127
Hockey exists. Wayne Gretzky.
Basketball exists. Michael Jordan.
Baseball and football were encompassed by a single character who has slipped into irrelevance despite being the god of Tecmo Super Bowl: Bo Jackson.
We devoured that cereal despite it being Lucky Charms without marshmallows, but it was kind of prescient in looking at the eventual “downfalls” of sports like baseball and gridiron football that we’re seeing nowadays, at least in terms of what we see nowaday in Toronto.
The Raptors didn’t exist back then, but basketball for this specific generation was always a thing. People played it, it was cheap, plenty of people had basketball nets in their driveways (something I actually don’t see very often in the city), NBA Jam was huge, Jordan, the Bulls, etc.
Baseball was big too, but you could never find enough people to actually play, and you see it today with less kids out with bats and gloves and the diamonds being used for beer league or corporate softball events if at all.
You may see someone throw a football, but how often do you see a group of kids playing gridiron outdoors? Even in Toronto, the most I ever hear about the NFL is super bowl commercials or whether someone likes/dislikes the Patriots. That’s about it.
In the early days the “no one cares about the Raptors” crowd was mostly the older generation who were never into basketball. It wasn’t kids buying tickets to go to the game. Those kids grew up and now basketball is more relevant in the city.
As time goes on, a lot of the sports that benefited from a North American boomer economy and stay at home TV watching lifestyle will suffer to figure out another way of presenting themselves to younger generations — the Raptors are a good example.
I don’t know a single person my age who likes NFL beyond watching the Super Bowl superficially for commercials or an equally superficial love/hatred for the Patriots. For baseball, I know a couple of people who are really into it, but in general it’s people who remember the Jays double and get in on the hype when they’re doing well — not people who follow the league, or watch all the games.
The whole Argos/TFC thing was at least relevant, because you have the “young” “urban” “international sport” team with bad traditional media numbers versus a team doing better traditional media numbers in a relatively irrelevant league in a sport that is on the decline whose audience is older and more suburban or rural.
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