As you all may know I grew up out west in Phoenix. Although we are now officially the fifth biggest city in the country we're still situated at least 4 hours driving from Vegas and 5 hours driving from Los Angeles meaning we're basically in the middle of nowhere. Being in this aforementioned nowhere makes it difficult for your teams and your city to get any specific type of notoriety or respect from those on the East Coast (especially the northeast) where the center of sports reside including the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame. I used to complain that there was a major East Coast bias hanging over the heads of sports that resided west of Denver which basically looking back was a weak way to excuse western teams from sucking total balls. I've put more thought into it recently and realized that the bias isn't really relevant and have listed reasons why playing out west is better for athletes.
Playing in New York, Philly, or Boston leaves most players wanting to kill fans when their career is over
66% of America's population leaves on the eastern part of the country. This is obviously explained through European settling throughout most of the eastern seaboard and many of those people spreading toward the Midwest. This isn't a problem in itself. The problem lies in the fact that when you have so many people in more condensed areas, you've got more fans, more fans equal more coverage, and more coverage equals higher scrutiny. For the fans, that's great. For the player, it can begin to wear on them. Every mistake, every time they go to a club, every hit, dropped pass, touchdown, timeout, and travel is talked about until sports radio hosts are blue in the face. Out west, you don't have the same problem. Part of the reason is people simply just don't care enough about their teams out here to warrant four hours of discussion about why "Nomah Garciaparrah is a pussy!" We've got things to do out west. The sun shines 300 days out of the year so we go work on our yards, take our kids to the park, go play in a softball game, go for a jog, work on our cars, go to the beach (if you've got one), go hiking, go swimming, we just go do STUFF that doesn't involve watching sports on television (hence why this blog centers on more than just X's and O's). Northeasterners don't get out much so I have reason to believe their bodies are missing the hormone that urges them to go do stuff. It's a cold day in hell when Knicks basketball is more exciting than going outside.
In college sports, east coast bias is becoming less relevant and southern influence is becoming dominant
Recruiters for major college programs work very, very hard to make their campus, team, facilities, and traditions seem like their professional athlete card will be waiting inside their locker the first day of training camp. They give them a tour of the school, take them to a game, introduce them to some girls, and send them on their way. It's like a beautiful formula that allows schools to become legalized whores. The only difference is the time of year recruits come to the campus. Throughout the entire northern part of the country, including the western part, it's icier than the stare your friends give you when you beat them at Madden. Those schools have to bring their recruits up early in the fall so they don't have to chip them out of the snow like Lucy the cavewoman. Southern schools, from east to west, are completely able to bring recruits to their city any time of the year. Even in the Pac-10, a conference that stretches from near Canada to near Mexico, the teams in the lower portion of the conference are able to recruit southern California, a CRUCIAL area for recruiting, much easier because of the weather. Picture this, if you're a kid from San Diego who is going to play football and your choices are USC-sunny/SoCal, UCLA-sunny/SoCal, Cal-Bay Area/close to home, Arizona State-L.A. replica minus beaches/close to home, or Washington State-cold, far from home, long flight, unfamiliar area which schools might be in your running. Keep in mind that the powder blue wuss-jobs from UCLA are about as good as Washington State right now, but when you visit WAZU in August L.A. in February which one is going to stick out in your mind? The most recent and sunny one.
"Girls Girls Girls Girls Girls...."-Jay-Z
Let's face it. Girls in cold weather cities tend to be horribly ugly. It's not totally their fault. I went to college in a very cold weather Arizona city (snowed several feet a year) and often found it impossible to stay in shape. Now that I've moved back home to Phoenix I'm able to go for a jog virtually any time I want. And I'm a guy which means I'm allowed to carry some extra baggage, but the inability to hide behind large clothes florces me outside. Girls on the other hand, don't have the same luxury. Their pressure comes from girls who are crackhead thin and they think for some reason men are looking in their direction (newsflash, if you like really thin girls without curves then you officially fall into the "To Catch a Predator" territory in my mind). When it's cold as hell outside, you don't want to do anything. You want to grab some Jack in the Box, stay in, and watch The Family Guy until the weather passes. Plus, when you do go outside you have to wear long pants and sweatshirts, not exactly "come hither" attire. When it's sunny out, you have more of the urge to work out and stay fit and college girls are no different. At Arizona State, LSU, USC, Texas, Arizona, and San Diego State the women are BEAUTIFUL. There was in fact a website called palmwalk.com that showed girls walking down the palm-tree lined streets at Arizona State and you were able to judge how hot they were (needless to say they shut it down, ASU is lucky there's porn to turn to or else people would revolt). You don't see maizeandblue.com showing any hot girls simply because where it's cold the hot girls are not. You have corn-fed, plain, frumpy looking girls where it's cold and when you're a 19 year old basketball recruit, you've got two things on your mind, sex and basketba...sex. Hot girls can make a difference. The only way cold weather schools win out is the girls there have to "out-whore" everybody else, but hey, I'm not hating.
Let's talk about population...
It's undeniable that the population shifts have definitely headed out west due to what's called the "brain drain" (highly intelligent and employable individuals moving from where they grew up to other places). Looking at the census website I found that Phoenix, San Diego, and Las Vegas, three southwestern cities grew respective 33%, 10%, and 84% while three eastern cities Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston grew -4.3%, 4%, and 2.6% respectively. This signals one thing, people are moving where it's warm. I have this theory that people visit San Diego, part in Las Vegas, and live in Phoenix while people are too mad in Philly, too loud in Chicago, and too hateful in Boston. As a pro or a college athlete the decision seems clear as to where you want to play if you have the choice. Places growing slowly or shrinking in size have little to offer athletes. Plus, many of the smart, successful people are taking control of their quality of life. This is because smart, successful people earn more money. Smart, successful people tend to be better looking. Smart, successful people have outside interests other than sports. This boils down to the fact smart, successful people will ultimately spend more on your team, you'll be surrounded by 10s at every club, you won't be grilled by the media with them asking what you had for lunch, and you can lead as much of a normal life as possible before retirement. Oh yeah, there's the whole sunny weather, no hurricane, tornado, or flood thing too that draws people. Give it 15 more years and the sports landscape will change. The powers in every sport (look at basketball folks) will shift west. Tell Sully, Rooney, and Mike their obsession with the Pats won't keep playahs around foreveah!!
Cha-Ching
Marketing for athletes has reached almost an absurd level to where there are some guys that are less athletes and more celebrities (Beckham, MJ, A-Rod, LeBron) than anyone else. I'm not upset by this, if someone offered me $1 million to tattoo Joe's Crab Shack on my forehead I would ask where to sign before he finished his sentence. Nonetheless, it's important for athletes to be in a situation where their income from outside of sports, something that can end with an injury, is significant enough for them to have a massive income. Part of this comes from playing in cities that allow for marketers to reach people more easily. 15 years ago that may have made a big difference, but now, with NBA League Pass, ESPN Full Court, MLB Extra Innings, ESPN, YouTube, MySpace, ESPN the Magazine, ESPN2, FSN, the NFL Network, NBATV, Field Pass, and our good old friend the internet in general athletes can get an incredible amount of exposure no matter WHERE they play. This can be significant for players if they have a choice between playing in Boston or Dallas. If an athlete doesn't have to deal with the same media, insane fans, scrutiny, criticism, or expectations, but can earn the same in endorsements and salary, he'll sign the contract so fast he'll burn a whole in the paper. For example, look at LeBron. He grew up in Akron, OH and plays for the hapless Cavaliers now without ever playing a minute of college ball and is one of the most marketed athletes in the world. Another example is Peyton Manning who plays in cold as hell Indianapolis, but we see his commercial with the fake mustache three times a day. This is all because the networks have found a way to bring the sports to you instead of the other way around meaning we can see a player like LeBron even if you've never been within 100 miles of Ohio. I can just hear LeBron saying, "Get my wheelbarrow so I can bring in this week's paycheck."
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