That is a quote from Russell from 1932 written before desegregation, white flight, and the explosion of the suburbs so the differences between urban and rural l

That is a quote from Russell from 1932 written before desegregation, white flight, and the explosion of the suburbs so the differences between urban and rural life was far more stark than it is today. The big networks like NBC and CBS were born just a few years before and it took them until WWII IIRC to really penetrate into all the rural areas of the US (in the 1930 census only 40% of households owned a radio, mostly as a sign of middle class wealth in urban areas). Sports teams could only be supported by relatively high densities of people because television wasn't yet a major source of revenue. Today's equivalent would be smartphones, which are definitely harder to use the further out you are from civilization (I've got no reception 40 minutes from DT San Diego!)