There is a common love for sports shared by many of the students here at Elder High School, but what level of sports is most enjoyable to watch? More specifically, which is better: collegiate or professional sports?

I asked around the school to discover whether students preferred college baseball or the MLB, college basketball or the NBA, and college football or the NFL.

I talked with sophomore Michael Keehan about his preferred level of baseball to watch. After quite a bit of hesitation, Keehan concluded that the MLB is better than college baseball.

“The MLB playoffs are just better than the College World Series,”  said Keehan. Obviously, this was a tough decision for Keehan, so I went to junior Michael Connolly to get his opinion on the matter. Connolly didn’t hesitate in saying that college baseball is “way” better than the MLB. Connolly also said that “college baseball is way more exciting and more unpredictable” than the MLB.

Although Keehan and Connolly disagreed in their opinions, the majority of students that I asked said that they prefer the MLB over College Baseball. This was fairly expected; the MLB is America’s pastime, and college baseball just is not that popular among the general public.

Next, I gaged the students’ opinions on college basketball compared to the NBA. Almost every student I asked, with the exception of Joe Weber, said that they prefer college basketball over the NBA. Why do so many students prefer collegiate over professional basketball? March Madness, that’s why.

Virtually every student I asked incorporated March Madness into their answer, and when I asked Willard Cluxton why he likes college basketball more than the NBA, he plainly said “nothing beats March Madness.” Similarly, when I asked Keehan why he prefers college over the NBA, he also said the NCAA Tournament is simply better than the NBA Playoffs.

The majority of students’ answers came down to which postseason was better, and nothing is better than March Madness.

Finally, I asked football fans across the school whether they preferred college football or the NFL. I asked fantasy football enthusiast Aidan Corey for his preference, and he said “there are so many games between ranked teams that it decreases the value of the game, but you don’t usually see more than ten games in an NFL season between two elite teams.”

Other students disagree with Aidan’s point, and I personally think that the amount of highly-ranked matchups makes college football more fun.

Joseph Catania prefers college football over the NFL for a few reasons. “I feel like college players care more, and they play like they have something to lose,” said Catania. He also said that “the NFL players already have their money, so they don’t really care.”

All in all, I discovered that many students prefer college football and basketball over the NFL and NBA, but the MLB remains more popular than college baseball. The students have spoken: college sports are better than professional sports.