Pro Sports In The South
The Footprint loves sports. However, it has long been dominated by two sports - college football and NASCAR. Those traditions remain strong as both of those sports have been energized by the massive growth in the South over the last few decades.
While ESPN and the rest of the country remain enraptured with the NFL, huge chunks of the Footprint ignore it. Major League Baseball has struggled beyond the Braves and the Cardinals. The NBA has many a troubled franchise within our area. This often has little to do with a lack of passion for football, baseball, and basketball. Instead, it has to do with the much longer and more important tradition that college sports represent.
However, Swampland Sports believes that pro sports are a gauge for many important things in the Footprint. Perhaps most important is our relation to our cities. Pro sports only exist in large urban areas. Our urban cores need to remain vibrant and healthy for the long term. In many cases, a state or region's overall indifference to their teams reflects a larger indifference to the city that have their name. Atlanta serves as perhaps the best example of this.
We have decided to roll all of these links together because they all touch upon the same subject in different ways. So please dig in starting with the first link, and explore through the rest at your leisure.
The Challenge Of Pro Sports in the South
In Defense of Bobby Petrino (and Arkansas)
The State of Baseball in the South
related tags
Urban,Coastal,
River,
New Orleans,
Nashville,
Miami,
Memphis,
Jacksonville,
Atlanta,
Texas,
Tennessee,
Oklahoma,
North Carolina,
Missouri,
Louisiana,
Georgia,
Florida,
Merchantry,
Sports,
Currently there are 4 comments. Leave one now!
