When people are asked to name the New York area sports teams, they typically answer in a familiar order: Yanks before Mets, Rangers before Islanders, soon they will say Knicks before Nets, and it is always Giants before Jets. A lot of this has to do with history. The former teams have been around longer.  They have been all been around for almost 100 years, at least 70. It is easy to understand why some of the younger teams would develop little brother syndrome.

Fans of the latter teams will deny it. Nobody stomps their feet more than Mets fans. They want to be completely separate from the Yankees and never compared. Unfortunately, for the Mets, they try to spend money similar to the Yanks and don’t have the same success rate. Last year two new stadiums opened in the Bronx and Queens. The Yanks did grab headlines for the new Yankees Stadium becoming the Coors Field of the East coast, but people marveled at the House the Boss Built anyway, even if some of the sight-lines were terrible. Citi Field for the Mets was an afterthought. The biggest story about it was the fact that it contained very little of the Mets almost 50 year history. It was difficult to even spot Mets colors within the stadium. Go ahead and blame media bias if you must, but the perception of the Mets as second class citizens in their own city has a lot to do with them.

The Rangers have the heart of the city. They play in Madison Square Garden in Midtown, that in itself is the heart of NYC. Even though the Islanders were at one time one of the most dominant teams in sports history, they never could replace the Rangers. Their 4 straight Stanley Cup victories pale in comparison to Mark Messier lifting the Cup and the Curse in 1994. If the Islanders ever make another run, there will be a bandwagon that fills up quickly, but it won’t sustain once the ride is over.

The Knicks may be the most overrated franchise in all of sports. They have won only 2 titles since 1946, with their last title coming a year before Richard Nixon resigned from office. Regardless, even in LeBron James heads to the Nets franchise this summer, and when they eventually move to Brooklyn, it will only be a matter of time before the Knicks regain top billing. Heck, even if the Nets and Knicks met in the playoffs, the town would be pulling for the team in Manhattan. Even though the Nets play in Jersey now, there are still more Knicks fans even living in the Garden State. Though the Knicks have been a team of futility for so many years, they still remain a flagship team of the league and the NYC area.

Finally that brings us to the Giants and the Jets. The Jets want to be top dog. They want it bad. Their head coach was the perfect hire to to bring bravado and headlines. However, it took until the final weeks of the season until the Jets took away the back-pages from the Giants. When the Giants suck, they are news. When the Jets suck, well, they are the Jets. The media really tried to get into the Jets playoff run this year, they really did. But not enough of the area cared. When the Giants were bounced from the playoffs a year ago by Philadelphia, the area seemed gloomy. When the Jets were knocked out of the AFC Championship Game, it was more of a “eh, so what?” I mean that’s the Jets fans way. They are fat, obnoxious, boisterous unkempt fans, and if you point out to them the ugly slothful nature of their life, while you hand them a napkin to wipe the dried mustard from the corner of their mouth they respond with, “eh, so what?” Not saying the Giants fans are perfect, but they come off like it thanks to the Jets disgusting nature. Giants fans never had to avoid Gate D when leaving a game.

It doesn’t just extend from the fans and the coach. It reaches all the way to ownership. The Mara family has owned the Giants since 1925. From Tim to his son Wellington to his son John, the team has never left the family. They are much like the Rooney family with the Steelers. They exude a level of class that much ownership doesn’t.  They rarely put themselves in front of the media.  They realize the team is bigger than them. For all the stomping of the feet over PSLs for the new stadium, there are many stories of the Mara family giving season tickets away years before. Players current and former rarely criticize ownership for how they handle things. The ones that have, are typically players of questionable character. Then you have Woody Johnson as the Jets Owner. Let’s get over the fact that his name is Woody. There have been countless stories about the Jets treatment of players during contract situations, and their lack of loyalty. Most recently the team got rid of team leader Thomas Jones. A player that is much more productive than the aging Hall of Famer they just signed in LaDanian Tomlinson. And now you have the owner stomping his feet like a two-year-old over the league offices decision to have a coin toss without their presence to decide who gets to host the first game in the Giants and Jets new stadium. He has even gone as far as to question the integrity of Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office:

“When the issue of which team would be hosting the first regular season game could not be resolved on the merits, I suggested a coin toss as the fairest way to resolve this issue. The League rejected that idea. Then, I was told on Friday that a coin toss had taken place at the League office and that the Jets had lost. We rejected a process in which neither team was present. The League departed from our time-honored tradition and declined the opportunity to set the matter straight with a transparent process.”

Last week on their website the Jets claimed that the coin-toss was going to happen when the league offices didn’t confirm nor did they deny it. So which is it? Woody seems disingenuous with his claims and appears to come off as a sore loser. It is understandable to be upset that the Giants are the prime attraction in a stadium that you helped pay half the bill for. But even if the league was a little shady in their handling of the process to decide who plays first on Sept 12, 2010, isn’t it the way people want it to be? The Jets aren’t the featured team in the New Meadowlands Stadium, even if it is half theirs. People will still call it Giants Stadium, even once it has an official name. Why? Because the Giants are THE New York (NJ) team. Big Brother always gets the attention. There is a reason why their NY is slightly higher than the Jets.

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