For myself, Ripken breaking the record saved baseball in my heart. At least until pretty recently. Until that moment, you could’ve razed every ballpark to the ground and I wouldn’t have cared.
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Probably 1960’s or early 1970’s. Wikipedia says the biggest World Series TV rating was 1978 and 1980, both of them around 42-44 million American viewers. By comparison, the Super Bowl made it above 75 million American viewers during this time period.
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Way more parity in baseball than the NFL especially when it comes to championships. But facts don't matter to CP. 8 different champions in the last 9 years. In NFL, Brady and Mahomes have 6 of the 9 Super Bowl wins. In the NBA, LeBron and Curry have 6 of the 9 NBA Finals wins.

Royals have the same number of World Series wins in the last 40 years as the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Braves. Yankees haven't been to the World Series since 2009.
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In the NFL having a future HOF QB makes a huge difference. In the NFL, small market teams have generally been able to hang on to them after drafting them.

So you have parity in that sense. Young, Favre, Indy/Manning, Brady, KC/Mahomes but it can take years for the pendulum to swing.

In the NBA, the super stars have typically left for big markets as soon as they could. Although the last few years have bucked the trend of the big market teams dominanting somewhat.

The Yankees still have what, one in four or one in five of every World Series title? Bought with one of the highest payrolls.

I don't think the NFL dependence on having a top 5 QB to have much of a shot for winning the title is actually good for the league overall. Although obviously if that's how it's going to work, I'm thrilled to have Mahomes.
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Ironically that parity probably hurts the World Series' TV ratings.

Big teams/big brands making it every year such as the Yankees, Dodgers etc. would no doubt help increase TV ratings.
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Well yes, that is probably right.

I don't think it is anything like it was, but in the NBA, the biggest stars from the big market teams got more calls than the biggest stars from the small market teams.

The Sacramento Kings got robbed blind against the Lakers during a Kobe conference championship.

And that was the last time I took the NBA seriously.

Have no idea why anyone would support a small market team cannon fodder team.
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If you ask baseball blowhards, they'll insist we're still living like it's the 1950s, where every boy is handed a baseball glove out of the womb
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The strike year in the 90s is when I think it happened.

Looked it up, 94-95.
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Basketball was king in the 90's for what I remember.

I felt like the Greatest Show on Turf took the NFL to new heights. The 1999 St. Louis Rams changed everything.
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Basketball did seem like king for a while in the 90s.
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NBA basketball was incredible in the 80's. Lakeshow, Celtics, 76'ers and a bevy of teams that were folded in from the ABA with superstar talent.
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I always thought a football was bigger than a baseball....... :-)




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I do fear football will eventually go the way of baseball. As it pushes for more games. ect. It's a long way from being that watered down but they really should stop pushing longer seasons and work on a developmental spring type league or something. Put a higher quality product on the field not the same one but more tired and spread out.
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I turn on baseball if I want to listen to some background ambiance when I take a nap.
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I have to agree with many posters on here that MLB was way better pre strike.
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