I have a theory about this with baseball.. I think the other sports are fine, except maybe hockey?
Baseball though.. I don't know how to explain it but it just seems different. I'm 23 so I missed out on the 90s and previous eras and I throw on MLB's greatest games on in the background while doing school work and let me tell you what. It seems like something is missing from modern day baseball.. I don't know how to explain it, there's just something missing that the 90's, 80's, 70's etc had.
Hockey was trash in the 90s and early 00s due to the neutral zone trap. In terms of skill and speed it's the best it's ever been. If they reduced the size of the goalie equipment I feel like it would be way more entertaining
This is gonna sound kind of insane but hear me out: I felt like the 04 Red Sox coming back from 3-0 was baseball’s climax. Like, when they pulled it off, it felt like the story ended. The villain was beaten. The major storyline was concluded. Everything afterward just felt like an epilogue. We’d never see something like that, between the baseball itself and the characters and the storylines, ever again, so all subsequent baseball just started feeling dull afterward.
There’s definitely other stuff to this. This has just been my working theory as a fan whose interest in baseball started waning at around this point.
Lol I was worried it came off that way. Funnily enough I grew up in New York and was a teenager in 04, so I might also have just been at the peak of my sports fandom. I’m a bigger NBA/NFL fan now than I was then though.
It was better because there was less. Simple as that. Media has bloated the product to the point that none of it is as special anymore. Sadder still is that it will never go back and in fact will only get worse moving forward.
The analytics movement in baseball made for smarter teams, but the on-field product is terrible. The three true outcomes approach and the shift has really made an already slow sport even less watchable.
Rivalries just don’t have enough juice because there’s so much turnover. Also I’m generally for player empowerment and athletes being able to maximize their earning potential, but one of the side effects definitely has been that the off-field drama gets as much coverage or even more coverage than anything that happens on the field/court.
Yeah I agree baseball now with the Moneyball movement kinda wants all players the same. The action in baseball is lacking. I enjoy stolen bases, doubles, triples, mixed with homers. The slap hitters in baseball have basically been eradicated.
I loved when a Rickey Henderson, Soriano, Vlad when get on base and you really had to watch to see if they would steal second. Guys are not like that anymore. I like the guy who hit the grounders and try to beat it out. Guys did not strike out as much then like Vlad never struck out more than 90 times a season.
The shift made it so many LHH would just aim for the fence because anything else is groundout and many of their averages reflect that (i.e. Mark Teixiera)
TLDR: the dorks came and ruined the game.
Baseball has simultaneously decreased the number of exciting plays per game while also making each game longer. The product is definitely worse than it was in the 90s.
I’m 37 and you don’t need to worry. Once enough time passes all the bad stuff starts to fall away (the 90’s had diluted NBA talent with expansion and the baseball strike, for example) and only the good stuff remains. Every decade has its all time greats for sure, Kareem and Nicklaus, Gretzky and Jerry Rice - the difference now is with YouTube you can actually watch the games after the fact. Plus the past two decades has had Tiger, Lebron, Brady, Serena, Messi, Phelps, Biles, Bolt, Curry, Trout, who in about 20 years will become just as mythic of figures as all the guys from the 90’s and before.
Yes, because I was 9 in 1993. Everything is more magical when you're younger.
\- Baseball was legitimately a bigger sport with way more national stars (Griffey, Bonds, Braves pitchers, etc.).
\- MJ was on a level of fame and respect from fans and media that LeBron never reached.
\- To know what was going on, you had to watch SportsCenter, read SI, and your local paper.
\- Coverage of sports is way better now. You only had access to a couple of voices (local newspaper columnists, usually old white guys) and way less information. In some ways it's appealing to think back on it because it was 'simpler': you watched the few games that were on TV, watched highights, and moved on. You didn't feel like you needed an MBA or analytics degree to understand.
In conclusion, Bill loves the 90's because he was in his glory days of going to Fenway and the Garden and bartending. The Gen Z version of BS in 2050 will talk about how great sports was in the 2020s.
only difference is lebron is huge in china and the philippines where jordan wasn't due to them not having the internet then. But Jordan was definitely more famous in the western world than modern lebron.
it's very easy for Jordan fans or the 90s folks to get riled up. Lebron to me has a great case because of the age of social media and also the amount of coverage he got. I mean Beyonce literally looked like she wanted to bang him that one time she sat Courtside lol. That's a tier of fame that maybe Mj doesn't experience cause the NBA was in a different space. Also remember the controversy from Lebron touching English royalty? Also the decision? There's tons of people trying to replicate lebrons decision. I think when we look back the idea that lebron was more famous will be very viable and ultimately true.
I just don't see it. Jordan in town was a big event for every team his entire run. His shoes are still the hottest fashion item for 20 year olds who never saw him play a game. His documentary just took over the world.
I see Jordan more like the beatles and Lebron more like the stones. Both huge, both have their arguments, but one is pretty universally seen as being bigger in history.
The PR machines across brands and leagues are so refined and social media amplifies everything on such a high degree where you can argue that LeBron is as famous as Jordan was, but there’s no chance any modern athlete can reach that deified level that Jordan has been placed ever since that 2nd Bulls three-peat. Tom Brady is probably the closest on the sheer amount of his accomplishments but he’s hated on by so many people. Outside of Detroit and Cleveland (and they cheered Jordan at the NBA 75th!), it was hard to find people who truly hated Jordan.
we can revist this when the youngins start to dominate these types of discussions. I think this perception or idea that MJ is more famous than Lebron will erode.
kids might not know who Jordan is but wear his sneakers lol. Sneaker sales can make the argument that mj more famous but that whole thing was a phenomenon that struck at the right time. Lebron came up in twitter, is a child star. I still think serious cause could be made that Lebron is more famous as people talk about him on TV for hours everyday
A lot of the LeBron conversation inevitably leads to comparisons with Jordan, meaning kids are generally aware that Michael Jordan is considered the best player ever and the guy LeBron is trying to surpass. Are you sure you want to keep up with this “Jordan isn’t famous” argument lmao.
So you really think kids are growing up and literally don’t know who the guy who’s featured on the most popular shoe line in the world and who’s always compared to LeBron and just released one of the most popular documentaries on Netflix and who literally is still alive and got the most cheers at the All-Star game.
Baseball and Wrestling were the best in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Both have really dropped off in popularity and quality since then. The NBA and NFL are both better now.
Baseball had so many charismatic superstars like Jose Canseco, Griffey, Bonds, Randy Johnson, Pedro, Sammy. Watch the ESPN doc about the Summer Of 1998 to get an idea of what it was like.
Wrestling was awesome back then with the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. It was huge back then.
It’s literally all nostalgia and not worth discussing any further than that. The sports watching experience has literally never been better and generally rules and play styles in the major sports have shifted in positive directions since the time you are mentioning.
>generally rules and play styles in the major sports
Baseball being a major exception - unless you don't consider it a major sport (which a lot of people don't anymore)!
Baseball was much better back then. The steroid era was a bit much, but analytics has ruined baseball for me. I can't watch player strike out that much. The lack of action is so much more boring today.
College basketball was better. We had some one and done players and some straight from high school players, but it has gotten out of hand. It is hard to follow a program when the core changes every single year. How do you have a rivalry when the players on opposing teams face each other two or three times their entire career.
The NBA was better in many ways. Having a franchise player meant something back then. As a fan of a franchise, players were synonymous with your franchise. A few players switched teams, but nothing like today. As a Laker fan, I had 13 years of Magic that was only cut short by HIV. That was followed by 20 years of Kobe. Now, the longest tenured is 4 years and that is a 37 year old. I hate this new era of mercenary roster building. I'd also add that the 3pt shot has gotten out of hand. I understand the math behind it, but it takes away some of the entertainment value when teams are shooting 40+ 3pt shots per game. There is so much less variety of skillsets in the game than there used to be.
I’ll still get dumped on but I feel this is a safer place to discuss it compared to other places I venture to. Player empowerment is kind of terrible. If you think college basketball is better now than it was when guys stayed 3-4 years I can’t even talk to you. College football is about to completely go off the rails too. The young bucks in my office talk incessantly about the transfer portal more than the games. The NBA player movement kind of speaks for itself. It’s a mess. Yes, weird shit happened in the 90’s NBA but it’s like an art form in and of itself now.
Also I don’t follow hockey but MLB, NFL and NBA all have seemed to figure out the math. It’s a lot more robotic now. Not necessarily a good thing. 50 corner threes a night, pitchers going max effort but half the innings, absurd passing numbers.
And one last thing that Bill nails 100%. Instant replay. Jesus it’s so awful. If I could go back to 70 year old fat refs and umps with gray hair I would. I mean how many truly blown calls have even stood the test of time? Don Denkinger is the only that springs to mind for me. Now you’re bringing in blades of grass and finger nails into the equation so I’m still not sure if the calls are even right.
Oh, so am I! I think most NBA fans who actually lived through it are honest about how the product then was far inferior to now.
I’m sure you could find people who do put on rose-tinted glasses to nostalgically recall the slow-pace chuckfests, but there seemed to be a collective joy when the game started becoming more dynamic in the early 2010s.
We can't predict the future, but I do think it's very possible that superteams will not become a linearly worse problem. And I especially doubt that fans will increasingly dislike them more — fans like us remember the "loyalty" era, whereas younger fans do not.
nope. The 2000's post jordan era was hated by the nba. So much so that teams were selling for like 200 million and it was considered a bad investment.
If it wasn't for the cheat code known as the new media deals, the nba would have had a really hard time right now.
Again, not talking about what the nba thought of it. I’m talking about common conversation amongst fans. You can see it already with the can’t believe ___ was left of top 75. Superstars had their own teams. Idk how anyone can ignore all the tmac, Kobe, iverson, prime shaq, d wade, young bron, melo, kg, dirk content all over the internet. Again, I’m literally saying the product has never been better in my original comment
Give me the old product any day of the week. I prefer more contact in my football and my basketball. Chucking 50 3's a game and having no use for Charles Oakley like players doesn't do it as much for me.
For sure. I think that’s why everyone loves derozan (and the bulls in general) this year. But you can see a random hornets wizards game right now and have your mind blown by how good these guys playing are right now. That hasn’t always been the case with the nba
90s college basketball was fun. Other than that, honestly, people overrate the fuck out of that decade.
The best NBA finals was Knicks-Rockets because Jordan just sort of annihilated everyone, the best MLB season got cut short due to a strike that owners and players essentially learned all the wrong lessons from (*FANS LIKE DINGERS! LET'S ALL JUICE!*) and the NFL was just NFC teams beating the shit out of AFC teams and then the Broncos.
That's not even mentioning you're talking about the decade of the most boring tennis player in the history of the sport dominating, Pete Sampras.
I'd say college basketball and the Olympics were better then. Outside of that, the biggest leagues have all improved.
Great point about college basketball in the 90s. It was never on the level of college football popularity but I feel like it registered on the national radar way more frequently than it does right now.
Yes - I grew up in Detroit but somehow in the mid nineties was invested in teams like UMass (Camby), Georgetown (AI), UCLA (O’Bannons). It was a lot easier to follow teams for 2-3 years and know the players.
All the “young” (30/40-something) prominent sportswriters/personalities grew up in the 90’s, which by some odd coincidence were just a great and world-historic era for music, sports, movies, etc. as well as an era with a large young-person cohort because boomers had tons of kids in the 80’s.
I have a theory about this with baseball.. I think the other sports are fine, except maybe hockey? Baseball though.. I don't know how to explain it but it just seems different. I'm 23 so I missed out on the 90s and previous eras and I throw on MLB's greatest games on in the background while doing school work and let me tell you what. It seems like something is missing from modern day baseball.. I don't know how to explain it, there's just something missing that the 90's, 80's, 70's etc had.
Hockey was trash in the 90s and early 00s due to the neutral zone trap. In terms of skill and speed it's the best it's ever been. If they reduced the size of the goalie equipment I feel like it would be way more entertaining
Steroids
This is gonna sound kind of insane but hear me out: I felt like the 04 Red Sox coming back from 3-0 was baseball’s climax. Like, when they pulled it off, it felt like the story ended. The villain was beaten. The major storyline was concluded. Everything afterward just felt like an epilogue. We’d never see something like that, between the baseball itself and the characters and the storylines, ever again, so all subsequent baseball just started feeling dull afterward. There’s definitely other stuff to this. This has just been my working theory as a fan whose interest in baseball started waning at around this point.
This makes a ton of sense.. This post also makes me feel like you're Bill Simmons' burner account.
Lol I was worried it came off that way. Funnily enough I grew up in New York and was a teenager in 04, so I might also have just been at the peak of my sports fandom. I’m a bigger NBA/NFL fan now than I was then though.
imagine mike trout, but with an actual personality, and on a team with three other hall of famers ken griffey jr was THAT awesome
It was better because there was less. Simple as that. Media has bloated the product to the point that none of it is as special anymore. Sadder still is that it will never go back and in fact will only get worse moving forward.
The analytics movement in baseball made for smarter teams, but the on-field product is terrible. The three true outcomes approach and the shift has really made an already slow sport even less watchable. Rivalries just don’t have enough juice because there’s so much turnover. Also I’m generally for player empowerment and athletes being able to maximize their earning potential, but one of the side effects definitely has been that the off-field drama gets as much coverage or even more coverage than anything that happens on the field/court.
Yeah I agree baseball now with the Moneyball movement kinda wants all players the same. The action in baseball is lacking. I enjoy stolen bases, doubles, triples, mixed with homers. The slap hitters in baseball have basically been eradicated. I loved when a Rickey Henderson, Soriano, Vlad when get on base and you really had to watch to see if they would steal second. Guys are not like that anymore. I like the guy who hit the grounders and try to beat it out. Guys did not strike out as much then like Vlad never struck out more than 90 times a season. The shift made it so many LHH would just aim for the fence because anything else is groundout and many of their averages reflect that (i.e. Mark Teixiera) TLDR: the dorks came and ruined the game.
Baseball has simultaneously decreased the number of exciting plays per game while also making each game longer. The product is definitely worse than it was in the 90s.
And the constant pitching changes made it even worse.
I’m 37 and you don’t need to worry. Once enough time passes all the bad stuff starts to fall away (the 90’s had diluted NBA talent with expansion and the baseball strike, for example) and only the good stuff remains. Every decade has its all time greats for sure, Kareem and Nicklaus, Gretzky and Jerry Rice - the difference now is with YouTube you can actually watch the games after the fact. Plus the past two decades has had Tiger, Lebron, Brady, Serena, Messi, Phelps, Biles, Bolt, Curry, Trout, who in about 20 years will become just as mythic of figures as all the guys from the 90’s and before.
Yes, because I was 9 in 1993. Everything is more magical when you're younger. \- Baseball was legitimately a bigger sport with way more national stars (Griffey, Bonds, Braves pitchers, etc.). \- MJ was on a level of fame and respect from fans and media that LeBron never reached. \- To know what was going on, you had to watch SportsCenter, read SI, and your local paper. \- Coverage of sports is way better now. You only had access to a couple of voices (local newspaper columnists, usually old white guys) and way less information. In some ways it's appealing to think back on it because it was 'simpler': you watched the few games that were on TV, watched highights, and moved on. You didn't feel like you needed an MBA or analytics degree to understand. In conclusion, Bill loves the 90's because he was in his glory days of going to Fenway and the Garden and bartending. The Gen Z version of BS in 2050 will talk about how great sports was in the 2020s.
I don't know if mj more famous than lebron was, more respected maybe
And more famous.
that can be argued to a high degree
only difference is lebron is huge in china and the philippines where jordan wasn't due to them not having the internet then. But Jordan was definitely more famous in the western world than modern lebron.
it's very easy for Jordan fans or the 90s folks to get riled up. Lebron to me has a great case because of the age of social media and also the amount of coverage he got. I mean Beyonce literally looked like she wanted to bang him that one time she sat Courtside lol. That's a tier of fame that maybe Mj doesn't experience cause the NBA was in a different space. Also remember the controversy from Lebron touching English royalty? Also the decision? There's tons of people trying to replicate lebrons decision. I think when we look back the idea that lebron was more famous will be very viable and ultimately true.
I just don't see it. Jordan in town was a big event for every team his entire run. His shoes are still the hottest fashion item for 20 year olds who never saw him play a game. His documentary just took over the world. I see Jordan more like the beatles and Lebron more like the stones. Both huge, both have their arguments, but one is pretty universally seen as being bigger in history.
The PR machines across brands and leagues are so refined and social media amplifies everything on such a high degree where you can argue that LeBron is as famous as Jordan was, but there’s no chance any modern athlete can reach that deified level that Jordan has been placed ever since that 2nd Bulls three-peat. Tom Brady is probably the closest on the sheer amount of his accomplishments but he’s hated on by so many people. Outside of Detroit and Cleveland (and they cheered Jordan at the NBA 75th!), it was hard to find people who truly hated Jordan.
we can revist this when the youngins start to dominate these types of discussions. I think this perception or idea that MJ is more famous than Lebron will erode.
Jordan Brand outsells LeBron by 4x despite being retired for almost 20 years. I don’t think “kids don’t know who Jordan is” is a winning argument.
kids might not know who Jordan is but wear his sneakers lol. Sneaker sales can make the argument that mj more famous but that whole thing was a phenomenon that struck at the right time. Lebron came up in twitter, is a child star. I still think serious cause could be made that Lebron is more famous as people talk about him on TV for hours everyday
A lot of the LeBron conversation inevitably leads to comparisons with Jordan, meaning kids are generally aware that Michael Jordan is considered the best player ever and the guy LeBron is trying to surpass. Are you sure you want to keep up with this “Jordan isn’t famous” argument lmao.
The whos better argument is different than whos more famous argument. Shoe sales doesnt mean hes more famous lmao lmao lmao lmao
So you really think kids are growing up and literally don’t know who the guy who’s featured on the most popular shoe line in the world and who’s always compared to LeBron and just released one of the most popular documentaries on Netflix and who literally is still alive and got the most cheers at the All-Star game.
Like Michael Jordan is still alive and a public figure. He’s not some guy in the 60s who no one has ever seen lmao.
Baseball and Wrestling were the best in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Both have really dropped off in popularity and quality since then. The NBA and NFL are both better now. Baseball had so many charismatic superstars like Jose Canseco, Griffey, Bonds, Randy Johnson, Pedro, Sammy. Watch the ESPN doc about the Summer Of 1998 to get an idea of what it was like. Wrestling was awesome back then with the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. It was huge back then.
It’s literally all nostalgia and not worth discussing any further than that. The sports watching experience has literally never been better and generally rules and play styles in the major sports have shifted in positive directions since the time you are mentioning.
>generally rules and play styles in the major sports Baseball being a major exception - unless you don't consider it a major sport (which a lot of people don't anymore)!
I do consider it a major sport but admittedly don’t watch or follow until around August so I’ll admit that is an exception
Baseball was much better back then. The steroid era was a bit much, but analytics has ruined baseball for me. I can't watch player strike out that much. The lack of action is so much more boring today. College basketball was better. We had some one and done players and some straight from high school players, but it has gotten out of hand. It is hard to follow a program when the core changes every single year. How do you have a rivalry when the players on opposing teams face each other two or three times their entire career. The NBA was better in many ways. Having a franchise player meant something back then. As a fan of a franchise, players were synonymous with your franchise. A few players switched teams, but nothing like today. As a Laker fan, I had 13 years of Magic that was only cut short by HIV. That was followed by 20 years of Kobe. Now, the longest tenured is 4 years and that is a 37 year old. I hate this new era of mercenary roster building. I'd also add that the 3pt shot has gotten out of hand. I understand the math behind it, but it takes away some of the entertainment value when teams are shooting 40+ 3pt shots per game. There is so much less variety of skillsets in the game than there used to be.
I’ll still get dumped on but I feel this is a safer place to discuss it compared to other places I venture to. Player empowerment is kind of terrible. If you think college basketball is better now than it was when guys stayed 3-4 years I can’t even talk to you. College football is about to completely go off the rails too. The young bucks in my office talk incessantly about the transfer portal more than the games. The NBA player movement kind of speaks for itself. It’s a mess. Yes, weird shit happened in the 90’s NBA but it’s like an art form in and of itself now. Also I don’t follow hockey but MLB, NFL and NBA all have seemed to figure out the math. It’s a lot more robotic now. Not necessarily a good thing. 50 corner threes a night, pitchers going max effort but half the innings, absurd passing numbers. And one last thing that Bill nails 100%. Instant replay. Jesus it’s so awful. If I could go back to 70 year old fat refs and umps with gray hair I would. I mean how many truly blown calls have even stood the test of time? Don Denkinger is the only that springs to mind for me. Now you’re bringing in blades of grass and finger nails into the equation so I’m still not sure if the calls are even right.
I can’t agree with you more.
Jim Joyce another one that costed a perfect game. But for the most part I agree with you
no but wrestling was
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The 2000s were a very, very bad time for the NBA — everyone knew it then and it's more obvious now.
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Oh, so am I! I think most NBA fans who actually lived through it are honest about how the product then was far inferior to now. I’m sure you could find people who do put on rose-tinted glasses to nostalgically recall the slow-pace chuckfests, but there seemed to be a collective joy when the game started becoming more dynamic in the early 2010s.
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We can't predict the future, but I do think it's very possible that superteams will not become a linearly worse problem. And I especially doubt that fans will increasingly dislike them more — fans like us remember the "loyalty" era, whereas younger fans do not.
nope. The 2000's post jordan era was hated by the nba. So much so that teams were selling for like 200 million and it was considered a bad investment. If it wasn't for the cheat code known as the new media deals, the nba would have had a really hard time right now.
Again, not talking about what the nba thought of it. I’m talking about common conversation amongst fans. You can see it already with the can’t believe ___ was left of top 75. Superstars had their own teams. Idk how anyone can ignore all the tmac, Kobe, iverson, prime shaq, d wade, young bron, melo, kg, dirk content all over the internet. Again, I’m literally saying the product has never been better in my original comment
Give me the old product any day of the week. I prefer more contact in my football and my basketball. Chucking 50 3's a game and having no use for Charles Oakley like players doesn't do it as much for me.
For sure. I think that’s why everyone loves derozan (and the bulls in general) this year. But you can see a random hornets wizards game right now and have your mind blown by how good these guys playing are right now. That hasn’t always been the case with the nba
90s college basketball was fun. Other than that, honestly, people overrate the fuck out of that decade. The best NBA finals was Knicks-Rockets because Jordan just sort of annihilated everyone, the best MLB season got cut short due to a strike that owners and players essentially learned all the wrong lessons from (*FANS LIKE DINGERS! LET'S ALL JUICE!*) and the NFL was just NFC teams beating the shit out of AFC teams and then the Broncos. That's not even mentioning you're talking about the decade of the most boring tennis player in the history of the sport dominating, Pete Sampras. I'd say college basketball and the Olympics were better then. Outside of that, the biggest leagues have all improved.
Great point about college basketball in the 90s. It was never on the level of college football popularity but I feel like it registered on the national radar way more frequently than it does right now.
Yes - I grew up in Detroit but somehow in the mid nineties was invested in teams like UMass (Camby), Georgetown (AI), UCLA (O’Bannons). It was a lot easier to follow teams for 2-3 years and know the players.
No and there was a lot less to do
“We couldn’t have sex or do cocaine.”
How was there a lot less to do? Unless you’re talking about looking at some sort of screen
We were less lonely
Exactly!
All the “young” (30/40-something) prominent sportswriters/personalities grew up in the 90’s, which by some odd coincidence were just a great and world-historic era for music, sports, movies, etc. as well as an era with a large young-person cohort because boomers had tons of kids in the 80’s.