With the College Football Playoff selection committee to release its final Top 25 ranking on Dec. 2 and the North American sports industry expected to pull in nearly $69.3 billion this year, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s Best Sports Cities as well as accompanying videos.
To determine the cities where the game is always on regardless of season, WalletHub compared 419 small to large cities across the five largest sports in the U.S.: football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer.
Best Large Sports Cities Best Midsize Sports Cities Best Small Sports Cities
1 Boston, MA 1 Cincinnati, OH 1 Chapel Hill, NC
2 Los Angeles, CA 2 Green Bay, WI 2 East Lansing, MI
3 New York, NY 3 Buffalo, NY 3 West Point, NY
4 Pittsburgh, PA 4 Salt Lake City, UT 4 Princeton, NJ
5 Chicago, IL 5 Glendale, AZ 5 State College, PA
6 Philadelphia, PA 6 Orlando, FL 6 Clemson, SC
7 Washington, DC 7 Durham, NC 7 Tuscaloosa, AL
8 Atlanta, GA 8 Ann Arbor, MI 8 Morgantown, WV
9 Oakland, CA 9 South Bend, IN 9 Cullowhee, NC
10 Dallas, TX 10 New Haven, CT 10 Hanover, NH
Best vs. Worst
- Cookeville, Tennessee, has the lowest minimum season-ticket prices for a college football (FBS and FCS) game, $36, which is 31.9 times lower than in South Bend, Indiana, the city with the highest at $1,150.
- New Orleans has the lowest average ticket price for an NBA game, $30.20, which is 3.2 times lower than in New York, the city with the highest at $97.77.
- NHL fans in Pittsburgh are 28.3 times friendlier and more engaged than their New York counterparts.
- Dallas has the highest NFL team popularity-index, whereas Los Angeles has the lowest.
- Phoenix has the lowest average MLB ticket price, $19.65, which is 2.9 times lower than in Boston, the city with the highest at $56.97.
- Atlanta has the highest attendance rate for MLS games, 113.41 percent, which is 2.8 times higher than in Minneapolis, the city with the lowest at 40.43 percent.