Y so sensitive about the East Coast bias thing?

[capncrunch]

I am a Seahawks fan who lives on the East Coast. I live in Redskins country now, but previously Eagles and before than Giants and before that Browns. I am not a young guy okay. I jumped on the Seahawks bandwagon in 2005 and haven't been able to jump off. I tried, but I'm hooked. Now it finally seems to be paying dividends. Ignoring previous years and just focusing on this season, the Seahawks get a lot of media attention from what I see. I see Tate and Sherman on tv quite a bit. Everybody knows about Beast Mode. Pete Carroll is one of the best known coaches in the NFL. Thinking back a few years; it was Holmgren, Alexander and Hasselbeck.

There are 32 teams. I hear a lot about the 49ers in the media. I think I've seen that Harbaugh tv commerical a dozen times now. The team that has gotten the most media attention in my lifetime is definitely the Dallas Cowboys. The Bears and the Packers seem to get a hell of a lot. Do you consider Dallas, Chicago and Green Bay as the East Coast? The Saints are one of the most discussed team this year. I drove from there this summer. Holy ****. That is not the East Coast. The most ignored teams in the NFL are probably the Bills, Browns. A couple of years ago I would've said the Falcons. I talked to a friend of mine aobut ten years ago, a Giants fan who moved from Jersey to Atlanta. I said I never hear about the Falcons. He said nobody gives a crap about them. The local news coverage spends more time on the U of G Bulldogs.

I'm hearing and seeing a lot of media attention for the Oregon Ducks this year and also Stanford. Well, okay also Penn State but let's not go there. Russel Wilson is a fairly big story this year. More so in the past 5 weeks as he has improved. Kurt Warner ranked him in his top 5 quarterrback list last week on NFL Network. Jon Gruden can't shut up about him. It's almost embarassing. The NFL predictor/pundits mention the Seahawks heavily in their recent playoff predictions. The Seahawks are changing in a way that is starting to get them attention. Pete Carroll is good for the Seahawks as a coach, but also does some brash and exciting things. The big dudes in the secondary is a popular story, the resurrection of players and the surprise draft picks doing great. I predict from here forward in to next season the Seahawks will get more attention than 16 of 32 teams at least. Give it time, the Eagles and Jets will start to fade in the background a bit as they start to lost ten games a piece.

 

[RichNhansom]

The media fluff doesn't bother me when we get overlooked though I do get irritated when we get insulted by so called experts that obviously and blatantly haven't done any research. If they are uninformed and actual experts, they would be much better off playing it safe rather than hyping the the old Seahawks suck mantra. They lose credibility when they do that. A few weeks ago the conversation came up on Mike and Mike about teams with a shot at making the playoffs and when they got to Seattle they literally laughed and then moved on. Now for the last couple of weeks they are talking about our dominant defense and running game and putting us on a pedestal. It just makes them sound like they have no clue and are simply being told how to promote their opinions.

The biggest problem I have with east coast bias is the real things that come from it like the results of a Superbowl before the game is even played. Does anyone believe we would get a fair game against the Giants in an east coats venue if we met them in the Superbowl this year?

Another real thing that is happening is the travel adjustment. Over an 8 day period we will travel over 5000 miles and play back to back 10AM games. East coast teams not only get a pass when they are scheduled against west coast teams but the west coast teams that already travel normally three times as far each year are forced to travel additional miles (like last year we were forced to travel to Pittsburgh) so that those poor east coast teams don't have to. Add in it is much more difficult to play three hours earlier then three hours later and that east coast bias is creating an unfair advantage to the preferred teams.

You wanna promote your east coast teams that is fine but when it is creating actual advantages to the degree of winning or losing Superbowl's or creating a situation that makes it much more difficult for a west coast team to even get to the Superbowl, then it is more than just a bias issue and should be looked at as such.

Common sense would tell you that if your going to flex anyone's schedule it would be the teams already traveling close to 30,000 miles in a season and not the teams that travel closer to 8000 all year. It would also tell you that you should flex west coast team start times to the afternoon venue when traveling east but we don't see that we see what should be the opposite of common sense and when you are discussing seeding in the playoffs that one or two games a year that west coast teams lose because of it again affects where those playoff games are played and again assists the east coast bias. Those are the things that get under my skin.

 

[Steve2222]

Once we win a Super Bowl will start becoming relevant on the National scale. Look at the Saints. It took a Hurricane (I mean no disrespect by that) and a Super Bowl to make them become relevant. Before 2005 was NO every talked about? No. Now they're one of the most overhyped teams in the league.

Once we get a Super Bowl, we'll gather a ton of bandwagon fans thus making our National popularity heightened. Factor in we're going the Oregon Ducks route of flashy jerseys, that will attract many more bandwagoners.

It is nice though, when you're outside of the NW, and you see somebody walking down the street with Seahawk gear, you know they're a true fan. If a Cowboy fan saw another dude wearing a Cowboy hat down the street, it'd be like whatever.

 

[Twisted]

Two words: Storied Franchise.

In other words: http://seahawks.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=56766

oh yea for sure, I'm not suggesting what the NFL or Networks do is right or wrong, its their league and their network to do with as they please, I'm just saying it is a bias, for whatever reason folks just aren't down with the northwest and or the Seahawks when it comes to the majority of NFL content..

its not ratings, success or anything else, its about favoritism and its never bothered me.

I'll be honest though its a horrible business model in any event, the idea would be to build your market share spreading it around the country, lets face it the majority of potential fans that live in Jacksonville fl aren't going to covet the niners no matter how much you sensationalize them or how much exposure they get as a team, they just don't watch football. thats more of an NBA model, more games more players moving around.

the Idea model would be to have each team in the league in the playoffs at least once every 3-4 years and keep it spread around, its counter productive as a business model to always have the same teams in the playoffs year in and year out..

winning teams build a fan base, and they do that by winning not with hype and exposure.

you have 32 teams, 12 teams make the playoffs each season, potentially each team could have a playoff appearance every 3-4 years

what happens at that point is each team gains a larger fan base year after year, MORE fans are waking up on Sunday to watch their teams, specially those that cant afford season tickets or cant make it to games, with more people waking up to watch their team they ultimately get more involved with the NFL and end up watching more football period, they watch every game they can each week.

some teams have horrible fan bases because they never win, so you end up with potential fans just giving up and moving on to something else, 7 of 10 just give up, they don't move on to another regions team because they get exposure and hype, if SF wins the superbowl Jacksonville fans wont jump on the bus simply because.

the NFL and Networks would behoove themselves if they made the game as competitive as possible for each team.

 

[The Radish]

Being discussed here.


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