Originally Posted by
WagonCircler
This is just stupid. The popularity, or lack of, is affected by many things--regionalism for hockey, pace of the game for baseball, but the farm system has zero bearing on each sport's popularity.
Sports are popular or not mainly due to how well suited they are for TV. Football is the perfect TV sport. Hockey, while it should improve thanks to wide availability of bigger screens over the past few years, suffers from the size of the puck, the three period (with long break--basically amounting to a double halftime show) and other factors, like regional traditions.
The average fan, who doesn't post obsessively on message boards, neither thinks about or cares about how teams are put together, especially enough to affect the popularity of a given sport.
Baseball is a totally different sports for prospects than football. There's WAY more development needed to get players to Major League status, and the draft is basically a crap shoot.
You're talking out of your ass.