Thanks to everyone who responded on my blog and Grant’s to my column rating the Bay Area sports teams. I upset Sharks fans by keeping the Sharks out of my rankings. No offense intended. It’s just that I don’t cover the Sharks and I felt it would be dishonest for me to rank them — I don’t know them that well. Having said that, I’ll give it a shot so people don’t feel I’m ducking the issue. After thinking about this for 24 hours, my highly unofficial ranking of local teams goes this way:
49ers
Giants
Raiders
Sharks
Warriors
A’s
I want to point out one thing. Although many people were irritated when I left out the Sharks, no one — as far as I could tell — complained that I put the A’s dead last. So, we seem to agree on that.
Mark M
now THAT’s much better
February 13th, 2012 10:02 am
Neal
ok Good job, I would put the Sharks third because the management,players, record, fans are full committed to the team, the Raiders are a dysfunctional group and it rots from the top although they might be improving this year.
February 13th, 2012 10:06 am
Dennis
I just don’t see the Sharks being more important than the Warriors only because basketball has more importance to the Bay Area. If the Warriors decided to move out of the Bay Area there would be a tremendous uproar. If the Sharks decided to relocate I doubt anybody would notice this side of some season ticket holders in San Jose.
I guess it is all in how you define “importance”.
February 13th, 2012 10:21 am
Jim Bancroft
I’m not sure I’d put the Sharks above the Warriors. Using your “NFL comes first” default logic –which is correct– the NBA trumps the NHL.
Yes, it’s the Warriors, one of the worst run teams in the past 20 years, and the Sharks have done quite nicely for most of their existence. But hockey is a niche sport, especially in the Bay Area.
Recall the absolute frenzy here when the Warriors showed signs of life in the 2007 playoffs. We can extrapolate that a veritable Mount St Helens of support is bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for a decent team to come along before molten hot Warriors love bursts forth. (That day may be long in coming if the W’s make a habit of cutting players like Jeremy Lin.)
February 13th, 2012 10:41 am
J Canseco
Great signing by the A’s today.
February 13th, 2012 11:39 am
Capts
If any of the teams on the list, besides the Sharks, were winning on a regular basis, the Sharks would be dead last. The Sharks have been winning for a while, yet there is no buzz for the team until the playoffs.
February 13th, 2012 11:42 am
jason
If we’re including south bay sports teams then we need to revise our lists. Here’s mine with the south bay teams…
.
. 49ers
. Giants
. Raiders
. Warriors
. Sharks.
. Sabercats
. San Jose Giants (class A)
. Oakland A’s (class sub-A)
February 13th, 2012 11:53 am
Tiburon Dave
Ok…we all appear to agree the A’s have chosen a course of irrelevancy and that they exist on contractual charity from MLB…
Then they go out and commit $36 million of other peoples money to a guy who’s never had a major league at bat?
And now they want Manny?
My head is spinning and I need either Lowell or EB to explain this to me…
February 13th, 2012 12:35 pm
RC
what’s Billy Beane doing signing that Cuban prospect?
Think I’m lost, I will feel better when we trade said prospect for draft picks, and also trade off Coco Crisp along with Suzuki and Jemille weeks then all’s right with the world.
February 13th, 2012 12:35 pm
KauaiRobert
I’d feel safe in saying that most sports fans nationwide put hockey fairly low on their list of importance.
.
I know more people who watch tennis than hockey and the NHL which of course, is based in the U.S., is actually more popular in Canada!
.
The Sharks have a loyal following in the BA but it’s a small one compared to the other (important)sports.
.
They should be ranked 6th on your list.
.
.
.
-ALOHA-
February 13th, 2012 12:53 pm
Ponstad
Stanford women’s basketball is #1, not even close.
February 13th, 2012 2:06 pm
Stan
It was a good post on Grants blog I thought I would repeat it here: Hockey must be dead last in importance. Its not just you Lowell,but Poole and Radnich have said they know nothing about Hockey. Can you imagine a career in sports if you had no knowledge of either baseball,basketball,or football?..unthinkable. And I’m sure plenty of other local sports hosts and writers have no interest in Hockey..and make a good living still.
What does that say about that “sport” ?
February 13th, 2012 2:26 pm
chris
all I know is if Hue Jackson was still the coach of the Raiders, Lowell would have the Silver and Black last on that list……….taking a shower before the post game presser and then putting on a pinstripe suit so you look like you’re in the mafia always puts you in last place according to Lowell.
February 13th, 2012 4:53 pm
B-Rad
You’re constantly criticized for not covering certain sports or teams, or for
covering sports some readers don’t like.
You’ve recently covered golf in which I have no interest. Out of curiosity, I
went to the AT&T leaderboard and I’ve heard of 5 of the 145 players. I don’t
like hockey either. In my lifetime I’ve watched maybe 30 minutes of it, and
half of that was when they had some kind of funny line following the puck
around on TV so you could actually see it.
I’m not trying to be funny when I say that if I had to watch a 2 hour hockey
game (or however long one takes) I would get exactly the same amount of
pleasure as sitting in a dentist’s chair for the same amount of time. Surely
there must be some writers in the Bay Area covering the Sharks, why not
just enjoy you for writing what you do?
It occurs to me that if I were a sports writer for the PD and my editor
ordered me to cover some sport that I didn’t care about on a consistent
basis, to quote Rick Nelson: “I’d rather drive a truck”.
February 14th, 2012 2:16 pm
slamdunk
I actually agree with the ranking of the bay area teams. I am not into hockey much, but at least Doug Wilson always tries to field a competitive team, the coach seems to know what he is doing, and they make trades to try and improve, plus the Sharks get good support. The Warriors get more press because of the popularity of basketball, and they get fan support they don’t really deserve, but they have always had poor management that draft and trade the wrong players, so the team is always stuck in poor to mediocre status. Have to agree that the A’s are an embarrassment for their fans, as they are always stuck in rebuilding mode, they need to move asap.
February 21st, 2012 6:15 pm