Beasley Reece straddles the line in the NFL’s battle for Connecticut.

He played seven seasons for the Giants, but as sports director of WVIT-TV, he leads his sportscasts with the Patriots. Since Channel 30 is an NBC affiliate that carries AFC games, Reece said he is obligated to go with the P-men.

“This has always been Giants country,” Reece said. “But this year I get the feeling that the Patriots are closing in. On news value alone, you’d have to go with the Patriots.”

When the teams meet Saturday, much of Connecticut will be watching its two favorite teams; the Jets, who have guaranteed themselves the NFL’s worst record for the second consecutive year, are an out-of-sight, out-of- mind third.

Based on their records, the playoff-bound 10-5 Patriots should defeat the 6-9 Giants. All the other numbers — most important, television ratings and licensed apparel sales — suggest they have reached parity off the field as well.

Have you seen those Patriots Starter jackets or the No. 11 and No. 28 jerseys of Drew Bledsoe and Curtis Martin popping up in your neighborhood?

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Much of the credit for Connecticut’s fascination with the Patriots goes to coach Bill Parcells, who won Super Bowls with the Giants in 1986 and 1990, then inherited a 2-14 Patriots team in 1993. Two seasons later, the Patriots were in the playoffs — just as the Giants were sliding from an 11-5 playoff run to 9-7 to 5-11 last year.

If James Orthwein had sold the Patriots before the 1994 season to novelist Tom Clancy instead of Robert Kraft, the Patriots would be runaway favorites. Clancy and an investment group that included Paul Newman very nearly brought the franchise to Hartford, where a stadium package had been approved by the legislature.

Kraft is on the verge of striking a new stadium deal in downtown Boston that will end speculation the team is moving to Connecticut.

Nevertheless, the state is important to the Patriots. The team only began selling out at Foxboro Stadium two years ago, –and a significant number of season ticket holders — spokesman Don Lowery sets the figure between 3,850 and 5,500 of 55,000 — come from Connecticut.

And yet, aside from several dozen player appearances each season, the Patriots do nothing to market themselves in the state.

Ironically, it is the New York team that has an actual history in Connecticut.

The Giants played at Yale Bowl for five games in 1973 and seven more in 1974 — losing 11 of 12 — before moving to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

The truth is, the Giants have had such a suffocating grip on their immediate metropolitan market — New York and New Jersey — marketing hasn’t been necessary. With a 20- to 25-year waiting list for season tickets, selling the team hasn’t been a priority. In fact, the team’s marketing department wasn’t created until 1992.

“In one sense, I hate telling people that those folks who got season tickets this year went on the list in the early ’70s,” said Rusty Hawley, Giants vice president of marketing. “People wonder what we do all day.”

Hawley’s mission, as he puts it, is “franchising the franchise.” He oversees an active publications effort and the production of six TV programs.

“We’re trying to cultivate new Giants fans,” Hawley said. “But from the standpoint of a target audience, we’re not so specific at pinpointing states.”

In other words, the Giants — like the Patriots — don’t have anything to do with Connecticut.

Bottom-line numbers

Last Sunday, the Patriots-Cowboys game did huge numbers in the Hartford-New Haven market. Channel 30’s rating was 18.5 — the percentage of homes with televisions that were tuned in. That translates to a total of 169,404 homes.

The Giants, playing directly opposite the Patriots in an early game against the New Orleans Saints, did a 4.5, reaching a paltry 41,207 homes.

But don’t think for a minute that the Giants, even in this season of playing miserably, are four times less popular than the Patriots. Consider the Giants-Cowboys rating of Nov. 24: a season-high 18.6.

“That’s the Cowboys factor, more than anything,” said John Mason, director of programming and promotions for Fox’s WTIC, Channel 61. “There are a lot of people out there who like to see the Cowboys win. There’s another large group that loves to see them lose. Added up, it’s a big number.

“The two teams are actually fairly close. The bottom line is the Patriots are running a little ahead of the Giants.”

The numbers back up Mason.

With one regular season game left, the Giants’ average rating on Channel 61 is 9.7, down from last year’s 11.0.

The Patriots have carved out a 12.6 rating on Channel 30, up from 12.0 last year.

It is worth noting that ratings for non-Giants NFC games on Channel 61 have risen, to 10.1 from 9.6 a year ago. Conversely, Channel 30 has seen the ratings for non-Patriots AFC games fall to 9.8 from 10.3.

Overall, more fans in Connecticut probably follow the Giants when Fairfield County, which receives signals from the New York affiliates, is factored in.

Rich Coppola, the lead sports anchor for Channel 61, said he does not feel obligated to lead his sportscasts with the house choice.

“I’ve gone with the Patriots a number of times,” he said. “We’ve sent Bob Rumbold to Foxboro more times than Giants Stadium for his `Front Row’ segment of Sunday night’s `Sports Ticket.’

“Week in and week out, the Patriots have been the bigger story.”

Local retailers will tell you the same thing.

“It comes down to winning,” said Nick Haluga, manager of the Sports Authority near Buckland Hills Mall. “The Patriots are winning and the stuff is moving — jackets, hats, sweat shirts, pillows, ornaments for the Christmas tree — if they can put a Patriots logo on it, we can sell it.”

Haluga said he didn’t have numbers to substantiate his impression, but believed Patriots merchandise was easily outselling Giants gear.

A manager at Dick’s, another sporting goods store in Manchester, said the Patriots outsold the Giants, 3-1.

In April 1996, Clark, Martire and Bartolomeo Inc., conducted a readership survey for The Courant. Twenty-eight percent were “very interested” in the Patriots, as opposed to 25 percent for the Giants.

The line of demarcation

As far as Connecticut, the Patriots have been in their no-huddle, two-minute-drill mode since they were born 27 seasons ago in the American Football League.

That’s because the Giants have been in business for the flip side of that number — 72 seasons.

Like so many baby boomers in the state, WTIC radio and WVIT sportscaster Joe D’Ambrosio was weaned on the Giants. Growing up in Hartford D’Ambrosio, 43, learned about punctuality on Sunday afternoons.

“Dinner had to be on the table by 12:30,” said D’Ambrosio, “because me and my dad had to be ready for the Giants kickoff at 2.

“Even with the Patriots’ success, I don’t think it’s changed that much. Both teams went to the Super Bowl in the mid-’80s. The Patriots were hideous and got destroyed by the Bears. When the Giants won their two Super Bowls, you would have thought it was the Hartford Giants.”

Much of the Giants’ hold on Connecticut over the years can be traced to broadcasts emanating from Hartford’s Channel 3. Before Fox won the NFC contract from the NFL three years ago, CBS was the home of the Giants.

Because the games in New York were blacked out, many fans flocked to Connecticut to outdistance the television blackout rule.

“It became a minor cottage industry,” said Brian Murphy, publisher of the Sports Marketing Letter. “One motel in Milford . . . hired a high school marching band and gave patrons a halftime show.”

Murphy, who grew up and still lives in Fairfield County, draws the line between Giants and Patriots fans roughly through Middletown.

“Connecticut is a funny state,” he said, “because of the civil war that has been going on for so long. You’re caught between New York and Boston. You either root for the Yankees or the Red Sox.

The Giants have been a little down lately. I’m still a Giants fan — I just don’t watch the games.”

There are reasons

Coppola, who grew up in East Haven rooting for the Yankees, has an intriguing theory about Connecticut’s divided NFL loyalty.

“For a lot of reasons,” he said, “I think some people are pulling for both the Giants and the Patriots.

“In the early ’60s you could never, ever think about rooting for the Red Sox. But when the Mets won the 1986 World Series I don’t think Yankees fans were too unhappy about it.”

In football, Coppola suggests, it might be the same phenomenon. Consider Parcells’ move to New England, along with former Giants such as kick returner Dave Meggett and nine of Parcells’ Giants assistant coaches. Also, the Patriots are not a bitter NFC East rival as are the Cowboys and Redskins. And the Giants have been pathetic in some critical moments this season.

Last Sunday, when the Giants-Saints game went head-to-head against the Patriots-Cowboys, more than half the homes watching TV in the Hartford- New Haven area were tuned to NFL football.

Reece, though he wears an NBC blazer on Sundays, still has his long-term money on the Giants.

“This is the Land of Steady Habits,” he said. “I still believe — and this is not a biased opinion because I played for the Giants — if the Giants and the Patriots were both 10-5, the Giants would rule again.

“I think the majority of the fans would reach back to the historical past. They’d be Giants fans again.”