If you take TV ratings as a measure of popularity, football is of interest to a lot more people than baseball. Even a regular season NFL game will draw higher ratings than baseball play-off games. It seems like football fans will watch just about any game whereas baseball fans tend be interested in the one team that they follow. I know that for myself I will watch the baseball play-offs when the Cardinals are playing, however I often have no interest if they are not.
It seems like there are a lot more general football fans than there are general baseball fans. Now football people will say this is because football is a lot more interesting game than baseball. Still I think there is another reason that I don't remember hearing anyone talk about. That reason is that football has always been very friendly to gambling whereas baseball dating back to the Blacksox Scandal is not.
I remember as a child seeing odds-maker Jimmy the Greek talking about that days football games on the official NFL pregame show. I have never seen anything like that before a baseball game. Point spreads and other info of interest to gamblers as long been an integral part of football pregame shows. And while not everyone who watches a football game makes a bet I do believe that the gambling aspect has done much to increase the general interest in football. Baseball has never cultivated the gambling angle and possibly that is one of the reasons that it remains a game that is most tied to its local fans.
