The city of Toronto takes another hit from the online magazine Grantland, now terming T.O. the worst sports city in the world. Earlier this summer in a Grantland article, Toronto was only the worst sports city in North America. Progress?
Here’s your drive home lineups
On FAN 590 tonight
Bob McCown’s co-host from 5 to 7 is Stephen Brunt
400 – Callers
500 – Nick Kypreos, Sportsnet hockey analyst
540 Dr. Joel Aronowitz Former Chief of Plastic Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre
6 Matt Bonner – VP of the Executive Board of the NBAPA, San Antonio Spurs
620 Bill “Spaceman” Lee – on Ozzie Guillen, The Sox collapse, and John Lackey being a bad person
640 Stephen Marche Grantland.com / Esquire in studio – on why Toronto is the worst sports city in the world
On TSN Radio 1050
James Cybulski’s co-host is Bob Mackowycz
430 – James Duthie
515 – Bob McKenzie
530 – Bob Ryan, columnist, Boston Globe
600 – Aaron Ward
630 – Countdown to Faceoff with Darren Dreger, Jonas Siegel, Matthew Lombardi, Scott MacArthur, Jamie McLennan, Brent Wallace and Cody Franson
Tonight on Sportsline:
TBA
No kidding! Paying ridiculous prices for lousy play in multiple sports, not to mention idolizing players who are bad at…well, playing sports (Domi, John Macdonald, Tucker, J Williams, etc etc) while turning up noses at the legacy of stars like Sundin, Delgado, L Murphy, etc has always made me wonder about the general aptitude of the fans of the local teams. And please don’t blame Peddie/MLSEL.
and Grantland is important because …. ?
Here’s the Grantland Magazine link with the T.O. story for anyone interested.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7023368/worst-sports-city-world
Depends on your perspective I guess. If I was an owner, Toronto would seem like a pretty damn good place to own a sports team.
If I was MLSE or Rogers, I would love Toronto !!! The leafs can put a shitty team on the ice for decades and the building is full, and Rogers can play to 1/3 full houses with a bottom third payroll and still make money because of their vertical integration. A great place to own, but still a shitty place to be a fan.
Further to my fave poster Chef Mike in Burlington (my hometown too!) the local squads generally have an unfailingly supportive media that ALWAYS sees the glass half-full, with a few obvious exceptions. Just read the glowing reports coming out of Leaf training camp world, where full page columns on prospective #6 defencemen never include the line, “not that any of this really matters…”. I dare anyone to find a discouraging word printed about AA and his team the Toronto NextYears. If you support his plan, please do NOT look at the OBP of Lind, Arencibia, Rasmus, and Thames, nor the records of all those up and coming hurlers…just don’t. Anyways, it’s been a fun ride these last 10 years or so. To Burkie, and AA: Don’t change a thing!
Well in terms of support, market potential … that kind of stuff … Toronto probably stacks up as a really good sports city. Potentially a great one (ie how things were in the early 90s). Leafs draw great, Raptors draw fine, Jays not great – but no playoffs in 20 years so at least there’s an excuse.
But when it comes to on field performance? Yeah, I can’t argue. What a wasteland. Seriously. I can’t think of another major North American city with three teams in situations as frustrating as ours are. The Jays are promising right now, but have had a mediocre 18 years in a division where you have to be great. Raps have accomplished next to nothing in their history. We all know about the Leafs. It’s nuts.
RJ – I think the optimism around the future of the Blue Jays has to do with the fact that in 2009 the Jays had something like the 26th ranked farm system in baseball. Now, Keith Law of ESPN has them at #2.
I agree on Lind, I don’t think they should stick with him. Arencibia will likely be replaced in a year or two by D’arnaud. Rasmus has had an excellent OBP in his time in St. Louis.
Also, when it comes to AA, I’ve read/heard more negative comments regarding him in Toronto than in US national coverage. Blair has written a couple pretty negative columns lately. McCown has talked about how he’s soured on them. Meanwhile, Jon Heyman, Ken Rosenthal and Jonah Keri have all stopped just short of calling AA a genius. Keri, of Grantland, refers to him as the ‘silent ninja’.
@ Daniel
Agreed.
McCown and the Toronto sports media jock-sniffing “personalities” < Intelligent MLB national media.
Toronto has the worst sports media in North America, but it's only below average as a sports city.
I think no matter where you live the media is gonna have a backlash against a GM after the honeymoon period even when the national media still loves the guy. While it does seem the media here has soured on AA a bit I bet a good offseason will change that around 🙂
BTW the FAN needs to stop inviting Bill Lee for interviews the guy is incoherent at best.
The only thing I don’t understand is the worship of the middling white guy (Matt Bonner, John McDonald, Darcy Tucker, Tie Domi, etc.) along with the snubbing of most stars.
Other than that, it’s a decent sports city considering the teams we have been subjected to over the last 15-18 years.
So, is ESPN and Grantland wrong?? Sadly, no…let’s be objective here and look at pure facts.
-Toronto is one of the biggest sports market in North America behind New York, Chicago and L.A…
-In it’s major sports (MLB, NHL, MLS, NBA) there has not been a finals appearance in early 2 decades.
-The Jays spending on payroll averages 19th or 20th out of 30 teams over the past decade.
– Blue Jay payroll spending rarely exceeds the TV contract and revenue sharing money provided by MLB.
-In its most popular sport, they haven’t played for a championship since they last won it nearly 50 years ago.
-In its most popular sport, the Leafs have the highest average ticket price in their league despite years of failure.
-2 of it’s teams (albeit younger teams) have never made it past the first round of their respective playoffs.
….those are sports team realities in Toronto. You can dislike it, but the reality is that Grantland is correct.
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