Now if they'll do a map of European football.
June 9, 2009 9:28 PM   Subscribe

For baseball fans and/or map geeks: The United Countries of Baseball.

Technically a Pepsi Blue-ish ad, but not really that noticeable.
posted by zardoz (51 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Love the map, but refuse to believe there are that many Nat fans.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:31 PM on June 9, 2009 [2 favorites]


FAIL. That map is inaccurate. It includes all of Connecticut as part of 'Red Sox Nation.' Not so.

Quinnipiac Poll: Yanks More Popular Than Sox in Connecticut.
posted by ericb at 9:34 PM on June 9, 2009


This is what America is all about. If it weren't for America, this map would be all about cricket.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:34 PM on June 9, 2009


Seeing as how this is officially produced by Nike and MLB, I wonder how the gathered their data (or if they just pulled the border lines out of their ass).
posted by amuseDetachment at 9:42 PM on June 9, 2009


See also the CommonCensus maps.
posted by sien at 9:47 PM on June 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


That map is inaccurate.

Seconded. The Blue Jay grey patch should basically sprawl across the entire width of the top part of the map, in much the same way the vast pink blob of Canada generally crowns most maps of the lower 48.
posted by gompa at 10:10 PM on June 9, 2009


Ridiculous.

Any I've never met a New Mexican north of Socorro or east of Gallup who rooted for the Diamondbacks…Or for that matter who ever once went to Arizona by choice.

It is as unto a map of old, with dragons scattered there and anon across vast swaths of fanciful lands and perilous waters imaginatively portrayed, not a square inch of which the artist has travelled himself.
posted by koeselitz at 10:22 PM on June 9, 2009 [2 favorites]


Any
posted by koeselitz at 10:23 PM on June 9, 2009


And I'm pretty sure Jersey is Yankees territory as well. Mets-land seems to be mostly Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn, with some tendrils into Manhattan (old Giants fans & their descendants).
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 11:01 PM on June 9, 2009


Love the map, but refuse to believe there are that many Nat fans.

Ha! That's exactly what I thought when I saw this. Maybe after a few years... and a few championships, but that'll never happen.
posted by Drainage! at 11:06 PM on June 9, 2009


I dunno, I like the aesthetics of this map, even if the data isn't fully, uh, represented. That said, thanks for the CommonCensus links, slen. Very interesting.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:10 PM on June 9, 2009


According to Fox Sports and ESPN, half that map should be douchebag-Yankee-blue, and half the map should be Townie-RedSox-Red.

Fucking East Coast bias.
posted by mark242 at 11:15 PM on June 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


Ha, mark, sho' nuff - though I think it's as much fair-weather-fan-ism as East Coast bias.

Once upon a time, such a map would have been almost entirely Cardinal red, as they were both the southernmost and westernmost team for a very long time.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 11:32 PM on June 9, 2009


For baseball fans and/or map geeks

zardoz, you should probably work for a PR firm, because I don't give two fucks about football but, as a map nerd, I enjoyed this a lot. That is a pretty accurate demographic projection.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 12:56 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


mark242: Fucking East Coast bias.

Hear, hear. NATIONAL LEAGUE is the BEST LEAGUE, if only because the postseason is actually interesting here.
posted by koeselitz at 1:45 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


There are a lot more Cubs fans than Reds fans in Louisville.
posted by Roman Graves at 1:57 AM on June 10, 2009


FAIL. That map is inaccurate. It includes all of Connecticut as part of 'Red Sox Nation.' Not so.

Not only do I agree with the above statement, but I'd also like to point out that Vermont and parts of western Mass. have a large Yankee fanbase. It's these types of geographical innacuracies that lead people to say that they're "from Boston", but when pressed it usually turns out that they're not even from within the Rte. 128 belt. More like from the "nowth shoah" or "Wustah".

Makes me sick to my stomach.
posted by jsavimbi at 2:40 AM on June 10, 2009


The only country in baseball is RED SOX NATION. The rest of y'all are mere baseball fiefdoms.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:50 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Hear, hear. NATIONAL LEAGUE is the BEST LEAGUE, if only because the postseason is actually interesting here.

Here's where you're wrong. 2004's ALCS alone had more tension and interesting moments than the past 5 NL postseasons combined.

Now, if you want to talk pennant races, I'll grant you that, because it seems like a different NL team each year pulls a post-season showing out of their collective asses, while a relative few AL teams always rise to the top.
posted by explosion at 4:26 AM on June 10, 2009


The Nationals' real area is very patchy, but it really is pretty big. The problem is that most of that land is in eastern NC, and it's mostly swamps and such.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 4:33 AM on June 10, 2009


Do the colors mean anything? I can sort of see a Red Sox-Cubs alliance, but Yankees-Tigers or Yankees-Indians? No way.

jsavimbi, your rendering of a Boston accent leaves much to be desired. Nobody says "nowth" unless you're using Pinyin or something.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:35 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


It's too bad this map doesn't update in real-time. If it did, the Marlins and Rays sections would be...

*checks current standings*

...non-existent.

Ba-zing.

[NOT FLORIDA TEAM-IST, JUST FLORIDA FAN-IST]
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:10 AM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


The Blue Jay grey patch should basically sprawl across the entire width of the top part of the map.

As an expat Canadian, I vehemently oppose that, in much the same way I always hated the way the Toronto Blue Jays were shoved down the throats of the whole country* as "Canada's Team", even during the years that Les Expos were still around and being ignored.

I'm not connected enough to be sure, but I imagine being owned by the country's biggest cable TV provider (later) didn't help with this problem, either.

*including the 90% of Canada that really hates Toronto.
posted by rokusan at 5:34 AM on June 10, 2009


I can sort of see a Red Sox-Cubs alliance.

Historically, this was known as the Alliance of Interminable Pain and Misery, though the Red Sox broke the alliance recently. A new truce between the Cubs and Indians might be more appropriate.
posted by rokusan at 5:35 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


I find this map to be highly offensive.

I think I've talked about my great-grandfather on here before. I wear his hat on occasion. He had three tv's in his Southern Indiana living room. Two small black and whites and a big color console. This was just in case the Reds, Cubs, and Cards all had a game on the same day. The big color job though, that was devoted to Cubs' games exclusively. He claimed he didn't want to wear out the tube on anything else and watched everything else on the black and white models.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:40 AM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


This map's been around a while, and I'd like to see it updated...the Yankees' territory extends farther down into PA/NJ than is shown here, and I'd like to see how last year's World Series affected the Rays' territory. And, as said above, there's no way that many people like the Nationals.

Are you trying to tell me that people in Georgia care about the Marlins? People in Miami barely care about the Marlins.

What I've really love to see is all the Pepsi Blue taken out of this and have a knowledgeable baseball person actually crunch the numbers and reprint the map, maybe one for each team with heat mapping for where the most fans are, because I know there are plenty of Phillies' fans in Florida.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 5:55 AM on June 10, 2009


On second viewing, the Common Census map is close, but not perfect.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 5:56 AM on June 10, 2009


Wait. The Nats are popular outside the 4 blocks or so surrounding the park?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:37 AM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


the cubs\tiger border seems pretty accurate to me - i never met any cubs fans in battle creek, but there's quite a few in kalamazoo and even more on the lakeshore
posted by pyramid termite at 6:49 AM on June 10, 2009


And I'm pretty sure Jersey is Yankees territory as well.
Trenton and South is Phillies territory. North of Trenton is Yankees. CommonCensus has this right.
posted by qldaddy at 6:53 AM on June 10, 2009


I would like to see a map back when TBS used to show all the Braves games...because they would almost certainly have the biggest blob. This was also before ESPN--and, in turn, fairweather, office-cooler baseball fans--became Yankees/Red Sox obsessed.
posted by jckll at 7:24 AM on June 10, 2009


The Nats are popular outside the 4 blocks or so surrounding the park?

Actually,area surrounding the park pretty much loathes the Nats. The only place you are going to find "fans" are in the wealthy white areas of the DC metro (NW, NoVA, Montgomery County...).
posted by Pollomacho at 7:26 AM on June 10, 2009


What? Montana, Oregon, and Idaho are surely entirely Mariner country.
posted by xmutex at 7:40 AM on June 10, 2009


People are wondering where this map came from. It's from this web page; they ask you to enter your zip code and favorite team, so the people making the map at least have actual data. Whether they're using it, and how exactly they're using it, is another question. There's also some commentary about it at strange maps, which is where I first saw this map a couple years ago.

And I'm pretty sure Jersey is Yankees territory as well. Mets-land seems to be mostly Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn, with some tendrils into Manhattan (old Giants fans & their descendants).

Come south of Exit 7 someday and say that. (Although some Phillies fans might be willing to negotiate a truce with Yankees fans based on the fact that we both don't like the Mets. I wouldn't, though, because like way too many people I went to college in Boston and therefore root for the Red Sox in the AL.)

Do the colors mean anything? I can sort of see a Red Sox-Cubs alliance, but Yankees-Tigers or Yankees-Indians? No way.

I think that the color for each team was chosen so that it was one of the major colors used by the team, and also so that teams which bordered each other wouldn't have the same color when possible.

The latter condition is broken where the Cardinals and Reds border each other, but they really didn't have a choice there.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:56 AM on June 10, 2009


jsavimbi, your rendering of a Boston accent leaves much to be desired.

And proudly so, as I don't have the accent. But I still take issue with outsiders trying to imitate it.
posted by jsavimbi at 8:01 AM on June 10, 2009


It's a good thing Nova Scotia is left off the map completely, otherwise it'd be a tartan-coloured combination of Jays, Red Sox, and Expos. Yes, there's still a delusional element here supporting the dead team (zero loyalty transfer to Washington) in protest against everything that was done to kill that franchise.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 8:04 AM on June 10, 2009


The Nationals' real area is very patchy, but it really is pretty big. The problem is that most of that land is in eastern NC, and it's mostly swamps and such.

Plus, NC seems to be Orioles and Braves country.
posted by NoMich at 8:27 AM on June 10, 2009


Ten things I think I thought I thunk:

1) The Red Sox owns Quebec and the Maritimes since the Expos left for D.C. and since they've been winning every year.

b) Most of Connecticut gets the YES network, because the Yankees bribe the cable companies more than NESN is willing to... but they're way more into the Red Sox than even Rhode Island, which is split 80%/20% Sawx/Yanks

III) The Braves own the South from Florida up to Virginia, and west to the Mississippi. The Cardinals own the rest. Virginia is split between the Braves and the Orioles, because one has a chance of winning, the other gets to play the Red Sox and Yankees all the time. The Nats fan base comprise mostly of confused tourists to D.C. and political hacks and journalists who came into baseball late in life.

10) Portland, Salt Lake City, New Orleans and Las Vegas need their own teams. It's long past time. Looking at population, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal do, too. I don't buy the "diluted talent" argument - the population has expanded more than the League has. The talent pool is deeper now, especially with so many developmental leagues.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:01 AM on June 10, 2009


Portland, Salt Lake City, New Orleans and Las Vegas need their own teams. Looking at population, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal do, too.

Portland might still get a team, but given that the Mariners pull something like 1/4 of their revenue from Oregon, they'll be challenged.

Salt Lake City is still too small for an MLB team.

New Orleans is already stretched thin sports entertainment-wise by the Saints and Hornets.

Las Vegas is very unlikely to get a team. They're losing population in the housing crash, they're mainly a tourist city, and most of the corporations that would support the team are in the gaming industry.

Vancouver would not only have to compete with the Mariners (while the Jays dominate Canada there's a sizable group of M's fans in the Van-Vic area), they'd also have to build a stadium, which they are loathe to do, especially on the back of the money being poured into the Winter Olympics.

Calgary lost their minor league team a few years ago and no one noticed. Really doubt they could support a team given the sparse population of Alberta. Maybe Edmonton, but even that's a bit of a push.

Montreal had a team, and say what you will about how badly the Expos were jerked around by MLB and the local government, the truth is that Montreal is La Ville des Habitants (ou Canadiens), and even when they were good they struggled to get people to come to the Big O.

I don't buy the "diluted talent" argument - the population has expanded more than the League has. The talent pool is deeper now, especially with so many developmental leagues.

But the number of kids playing baseball has been pretty level even as the population has risen -- basketball and football (and soccer, up to a point) are pulling them away. This is the reason for the World Baseball Classic (besides being a license to print money) -- a way to get international talent looking towards baseball and away from other sports.

I think in the next decade we'll see an expansion to 32 teams, but I think only Portland on your list is a viable candidate for expansion. Charlotte is probably the other likely candidate.
posted by dw at 10:10 AM on June 10, 2009


There should be much more overlap in Mets/Yankees territory and in Orioles/Nationals territory (and probably Cubs/ChiSox territory too but I don't know that part of the country as well).

I lived in SE Connecticut growing up and it was definitely split btw. Mets & Yankees. The Orioles were popular in east Virginia when I lived there and now even have a farm team in Norfolk.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 10:54 AM on June 10, 2009


There was a study by a sports economist (I think I saw it right here in the blue) that showed that baseball was the hardest major sport to support. IIRC, according to his calculations, the ONLY US/Canada market that could support a new MLB team that did not already have one was Riverside, CA. I don't think you'll see MLB expand any more because of that, not because of diluting the talent pool.
posted by Mcable at 11:44 AM on June 10, 2009


Also: Roman Graves is right, Louisville seems a Cubs town. And I seem to know a lot of Chelsea fans, too.
posted by Mcable at 11:52 AM on June 10, 2009


Rhode Island, which is split 80%/20% Sawx/Yanks

WHUT? Where in RI have you been? The whole city of Providence shuts down if the Sox are playing and there was RIOTING. in the STREETS. when they won the World Series. I've seen people with Yankees hats get hassled on the bus.

In all honesty, having lived in Providence and Boston, the Providence fans are truly more... vocal... in their support of Red Sox Nation.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:59 PM on June 10, 2009


The Blue Jay grey patch should basically sprawl across the entire width of the top part of the map.

Yeah, no. Ontario is Blue Jays territory, the Maritimes are most definitely Red Sox territory, and the rest of Canada is a beautiful shade of who gives a shit?

The problem with the Prairies is that they're just too invested in hockey and football to really care enough. That said, Winnipeg might have the capacity for it, what with the death of the Jets and all; I think Regina would be the great fit for a scrappy underdog sort of franchise, though.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:12 PM on June 10, 2009


Also: It's probably about time they put some teams in the Caribbean.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:21 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


I think I've talked about my great-grandfather on here before. I wear his hat on occasion. He had three tv's in his Southern Indiana living room. Two small black and whites and a big color console. This was just in case the Reds, Cubs, and Cards all had a game on the same day. The big color job though, that was devoted to Cubs' games exclusively. He claimed he didn't want to wear out the tube on anything else and watched everything else on the black and white models.

Reminds me of my father, who got basic cable in the late 80s simply because the neighbor said you'd get WGN and therefore Cubs games. The Cubs portion of the map should definitely be much larger. And there's actually a very good reason for that. It used to be that the AM stations could broadcast much farther than they can now. And WGN, based out of Chicago, was a powerful radio station that broadcast all of the Cubs games. So you had a lot of people - specifically, a lot of farmers - listening to Cubs games on the AM radios. Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin. I tend to view Cubs as rural, though the stereotype of the affluent BoBo has taken hold in the last ten years or so.

Anyway, go Cubbies.
posted by billysumday at 4:03 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


True, billysumday. I grew up in Arkansas, which is indeed Cardinals country (convenient for my dad who grew up in St. Louis), but we also got WGN all the way down there, at least part of the day. My hometown has, for some reason I still don't understand, a connection with Chicago and a lot of transplants. Saw more Cubs games than Cardinals games.
posted by zardoz at 5:02 PM on June 10, 2009


WHUT? Where in RI have you been?

Rhode Island. My whole life. I'm actually in Providence now, and here it's closer to 70%/30%, only offset by Aquidneck Island and Bristol County's near-100% Sox loyalty. I remember when Sikar's was a Yankees bar (and the only decent place to have a cigar in town), and when ScoreFM broadcast Yankees games nightly (until they lost the rights when the Yankees doubled their rates).

At dinner tonight, there were four guys with Yankees hats, none wearing Sox hats. (East Side, up on North Main.)

It's probably about time they put some teams in the Caribbean.

At the very least, Mexico City.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:40 PM on June 10, 2009


When I was a kid in Tulsa, you could get no fewer than six teams at any one time on cable:
Cubs (WGN)
Braves (WTBS)
Rangers (HSE)
Astros (HSE)
Cardinals (local TV)
Royals (local TV)

That said, Tulsa -- and all of Northeastern Oklahoma -- is Cardinals country. Before the A's moved to KC the Cards and the Browns were the only teams between St Louis and the West Coast. And the Oilers were a Cards farm team for a couple decades.
posted by dw at 12:48 AM on June 11, 2009


At dinner tonight, there were four guys with Yankees hats, none wearing Sox hats.

We have our hats.

We don't wear them at dinner.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:21 PM on June 11, 2009


*wishes the Red Sox Nation would secede already*

I still root for the Expos from time to time. I have made the mistake of cheering for the Royals for the last time, though. The minute I do, they plummet into the basement.
posted by Eideteker at 3:54 PM on June 11, 2009


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