What city is the best sports city? (City. Not state. U.S.only) | The Boneyard

What city is the best sports city? (City. Not state. U.S.only)

Jaydumo20

Jaydumo20

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Who cares if we discussed it before. Times change.

What defines great is up to you.

Fan engagement?

# of titles?

How much revenue each team gets?

Tradition?

Best live viewing experience?

Have at it.
 
I'm going to go with Los Angeles even though there are no l.a. teams i root for.
I lived there for 15 years and I complained about how many people "dont care" about sports there, but that's just because of the comingling of the entertainment industry and a giant, sprawling population.

There are giant swaths of people who are equally passionate about

the kings
The soccer teams
the Lakers/clippers

-Dodgers
-both football teams
-usc/ucla sports
- the northern trust open

Etc. Plus, relatively recent titles for many teams. (This answer may have been different when they didn't have a football team, USC football was down, UCLA sports were non-existent and the Dodgers were being sold. Dark days)
 
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I've lived in Boston, NY and SF, and average folks in the Bay Area were, by a good distance, much more invested in their local teams than folks here.

I was genuinely shocked by that, but those people lived and died with the Giants, A's, Niners and Dubs. It was part of the culture of everyone from immigrant tech bros to the Castro LGBTQ community.
 
In a very informal exercise, I narrow it down to 4 cities: LA, NY, Boston and Chicago. Best sports city would mean you're rooting hard and supporting them no matter where they are in the standings and when they're good? It's a better experience than everywhere else.

NHL - Award pts as follows: Boston (4), NY Rangers (3 - no credit for Islanders or Buffalo), Chicago (2) and LA (1)
Baseball - NY (4 Yanks and Mets), LA (3), Chicago (2 Sox and Cubbies) and Boston (1)
NBA - LA (4 Lakers alone take this, then add the Clips in), Boston (3), NY (2 Knicks and Brooklyn) and Chicago (1 - Irrelevant before/after MJ)
NFL - Toughest category. The Jets and Giants play in Jersey, Pats don't play in Boston. Rams fans stink. Chicago IS loyal to their awful team. I'm going to give Boston tops (4 - They do spread into CT, RI, NH, VT and ME), Chicago (3), NY (2) and LA (1).

Scores: Boston 12, NY 11, KA 9 and Chicago 8.
 
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Matrim55 said:
I've lived in Boston, NY and SF, and average folks in the Bay Area were, by a good distance, much more invested in their local teams than folks here.

I was genuinely shocked by that, but those people lived and died with the Giants, A's, Niners and Dubs. It was part of the culture of everyone from immigrant tech bros to the Castro LGBTQ community.
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Bizarre take. I lived in the Bay Area, most of the people don't follow sports at all. Giants games were empty unless they played the Dodgers before the new park. Niners were popular enough, but much of the population, heavily immigrant based, didn't even know anything about American football. The Warriors? Back in the 90s nobody even remembered they were there. Never heard anything about them in the paper or sports talk radio. The Sharks were new so were fairly popular.

Boston and NY most people know/follows every team. LA is miles ahead of the Bay Area.
 
Boston is the clear #1 if you like championship parades. It's called Title Town, USA for a reason. It doesn't even matter when you were born, if you are a Boston sports fan, you've seen a billion titles. Celtics from the 60's-80's and are a mainstay in the ECF now. Patriots from 2001-2018. Red Sox from 2004-2018. Bruins made 3 Stanley Cup finals in the 2010's.

LA has so many transplants. Every single time the Patriots, NYG, or NYJ play in LA the crowd is 60% away fans. And the rest of their fans are influencers who get paid to be there. I would easily have NY and Chicago over LA.
 
aburks41 said:
Boston is the clear #1 if you like championship parades.
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Boston doesn't get credit for the Pats, does it? They used to be the Boston Patriots but they changed it. They play in their namesake New England now.

I'm going with Philly. Rabid fans in the 4 major sports. Add the history from all the boxing and college basketball. They lose points for not having a WNBA team.
 
Waquoit said:
Boston doesn't get credit for the Pats, does it? They used to be the Boston Patriots but they changed it. They play in their namesake New England now.

I'm going with Philly. Rabid fans in the 4 major sports. Add the history from all the boxing and college basketball. They lose points for not having a WNBA team.
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I guess my knock on Philly (and admittedly I'm a Mets fan) is:

a) Their fans are absolute jerks. They're not "passionate". They use sports to destroy things and be super mean and inappropriate to everyone else. To me? That's not "best" sports city.
b) The Sixers and Flyers have been irrelevant for a long time and I can't say that's a loyal, super supportive and well known fan base.
 
Waquoit said:
Boston doesn't get credit for the Pats, does it? They used to be the Boston Patriots but they changed it. They play in their namesake New England now.

I'm going with Philly. Rabid fans in the 4 major sports. Add the history from all the boxing and college basketball. They lose points for not having a WNBA team.
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If Boston doesn’t get credit for the Pats then New Jersey gets the credit for the Giants/Jets lol
 
Deepster said:
I guess my knock on Philly (and admittedly I'm a Mets fan) is:

a) Their fans are absolute jerks. They're not "passionate".
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I think you can be both. One day we're approaching a bar at the Philly airport on a Sunday afternoon. We get there as the bartender in an Eagles jersey is yelling at the the screen the way JC used to yell at Antric Klaiber. He then whips around and smiles, "Whaddya havin"?
 
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aburks41 said:
Boston is the clear #1 if you like championship parades. It's called Title Town, USA for a reason. It doesn't even matter when you were born, if you are a Boston sports fan, you've seen a billion titles. Celtics from the 60's-80's and are a mainstay in the ECF now. Patriots from 2001-2018. Red Sox from 2004-2018. Bruins made 3 Stanley Cup finals in the 2010's.

LA has so many transplants. Every single time the Patriots, NYG, or NYJ play in LA the crowd is 60% away fans. And the rest of their fans are influencers who get paid to be there. I would easily have NY and Chicago over LA.
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You are correct. The NFL isn't as solid in LA as the other markets. No team compares to the Yankees country wide. But the Lakers and Dodgers equal the Sox and the Celtics in terms of fan base and general success, (no more than 1 title difference between the two, if you count early 20th century for the sox).

Also, if you consider college sports, which i think we should, LA beats the other 3 largely.

But even though i said LA, I could easily have said Boston, for the very reasons you gave. I almost did.
 
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UConnTrumbull said:
If Boston doesn’t get credit for the Pats then New Jersey gets the credit for the Giants/Jets lol
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Nah, their stadium is practically part of the metroplex. Foxborough is two counties away from Boston.
 
Waquoit said:
I think you can be both. One day we're approaching a bar at the Philly airport on a Sunday afternoon. We get there as the bartender in an Eagles jersey is yelling at the the screen the way JC used to yell at Antric Klaiber. He then whips around and smiles, "Whaddya havin"?
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Not sure I agree with that. I worked in Philly for a week a month over a 3 year period and was clearly told not to ever wear any Mets gear. For my own physical safety.

Man charged with vomiting on girl at Phils game

PHILADELPHIA -- A New Jersey man is facing charges after police say he intentionally vomited on an 11-year-old girl and her father in the stands during a Philadelphia Phillies game.

Matthew Clemmens, 21, of Cherry Hill, N.J., was charged with assault, reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and related offenses for the incident at Wednesday night's Phillies-Nationals game. He was being held Friday on $36,000 bail.

Police say Clemmens made himself vomit on an off-duty police captain and one of his daughters after Clemmens' companion was kicked out of Citizens Bank Park for unruly behavior, which included cursing, spitting and spilling beer by Clemmens and a friend.
 
Matrim55 said:
I've lived in Boston, NY and SF, and average folks in the Bay Area were, by a good distance, much more invested in their local teams than folks here.

I was genuinely shocked by that, but those people lived and died with the Giants, A's, Niners and Dubs. It was part of the culture of everyone from immigrant tech bros to the Castro LGBTQ community.
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That's interesting because I always hear that sports fans out west and the south typically aren't as invested in their teams as the Northeast markets. I've only lived in Boston and Connecticut so I don't have the perspective you have.
 
I'll be a homer and say Boston. The investment in the local teams and the success are tough to beat.

My 23 year old son has seen 13 parades for the big 4 professional teams here in Boston. None of my teams I rooted for growing up won a championship until I was almost 22 when the Giants won Super Bowl XXI. I kind of rooted for the Knicks but I wasn't really following them much when they won the 2 championships in the early 1970s so I don't really count those.
 
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I'm going to give two different answers.

I think New York has the best breadth of knowledge across all sports. IMO, it's a market that not only cares about its pro teams, but a ton of people have rooting interests across numerous college conferences, and is pretty conversant on sports like tennis, golf, boxing, and others. Other sports markets tend to be more provincial, in my experience.

Pittsburgh is a pretty decent place now, but for decades it had nothing going for it except sports - even when its teams were horrible. That became supercharged with the 70s Steelers and 90s Penguins. Pittsburgh went from a baseball town (Pirates, Grays, Crawfords) to a three-sport town, emphasis on football. I've only lived in East Coast cities, but Pittsburgh was the first place where I encountered people wearing jerseys to funerals and christenings. I've been to Mets and Yankees playoff games (WS in Yankee case), but the Cueto wildcard game was by far the most engaged crowd I've ever experienced first hand at any sporting contest. If the Pirates were more routinely decent, I think Pittsburgh would be an easy call for best sports city - which includes Pitt and (annoyingly) Penn State sports, which puts them ahead of Boston, which doesn't give a crap about college sports other than the Frozen Four.
 
Deepster said:
In a very informal exercise, I narrow it down to 4 cities: LA, NY, Boston and Chicago. Best sports city would mean you're rooting hard and supporting them no matter where they are in the standings and when they're good? It's a better experience than everywhere else.

NHL - Award pts as follows: Boston (4), NY Rangers (3 - no credit for Islanders or Buffalo), Chicago (2) and LA (1)
Baseball - NY (4 Yanks and Mets), LA (3), Chicago (2 Sox and Cubbies) and Boston (1)
NBA - LA (4 Lakers alone take this, then add the Clips in), Boston (3), NY (2 Knicks and Brooklyn) and Chicago (1 - Irrelevant before/after MJ)
NFL - Toughest category. The Jets and Giants play in Jersey, Pats don't play in Boston. Rams fans stink. Chicago IS loyal to their awful team. I'm going to give Boston tops (4 - They do spread into CT, RI, NH, VT and ME), Chicago (3), NY (2) and LA (1).

Scores: Boston 12, NY 11, KA 9 and Chicago 8.
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White sox baseball over the red sox is CRAZY
 
Waquoit said:
Of course, but they're not in the city of Boston. Or very near the city. And the team uses the Providence airport is all I'm saying.
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If the Pats only had the 70K fans that fit in the arena AND no one was willing to attend from more than 20 miles away, then the location of the stadium could 100% define the fanbase. This is not the case for the Pats or any sports teams in various cities where average fan travel to stadiums are just as long as travel from Boston to Gillette. Similar to any product, market penetration should define whether a city or team owns a town, and clearly Boston & the Pats are intensely tied.
 
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Don't sleep on St. Louis, MO.

  • Baseball: Cardinals fans are everywhere a St. Louis is such an old town that many went there for work, and many moved away later, etc. Plus they have some titles. Plus: Horsnby, Musial, Gibson, Brock, Boyer, even Berra is from there.
  • Hockey - the Blues hey (20) Nineteen!
  • MLS Soccer - St. Louis city SC
  • College - St. Louis U - occasionally makes things interesting in the NCAA tourney; University of Missouri

And who can forget Sportsman's Park?

More historic than modern for sports, but has a big following.
 
Dogdeacon said:
If the Pats only had the 70K fans that fit in the arena AND no one was willing to attend from more than 20 miles away, then the location of the stadium could 100% define the fanbase. This is not the case for the Pats or any sports teams in various cities where average fan travel to stadiums are just as long as travel from Boston to Gillette. Similar to any product, market penetration should define whether a city or team owns a town, and clearly Boston & the Pats are intensely tied.
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I know you aren't replying to me. But I'll chime in. You are correct if you look at it that way. Hard to argue.
But the Pats wisely changed their name to New England because they are one of a few teams that have a diaspora fan base. The Denver Broncos, the Braves, Red Sox, for example all have a multi-state fan base because of a lack of centralized pro sports team in the surrounding states. Boston is the hub, as is Denver, or Atlanta because you aren't going to put the stadium near Burlington VT, or Billings, Montana. This is a unique phenomenon that applies to only a few teams. (Notre Dame being the most unique spread out Diaspora in the country- Irish Catholics)
 
bjc42 said:
White sox baseball over the red sox is CRAZY
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I never said that.

The Cubs are equal to the Sox, in my opinion. Old destination type stadium in a neighborhood. Similar loser "woe is me" mentality for decades and decades. Huge part of the local culture. Oh, and Chicago also has the White Sox that have been around since 1901.
 
Dogdeacon said:
If the Pats only had the 70K fans that fit in the arena AND no one was willing to attend from more than 20 miles away, then the location of the stadium could 100% define the fanbase. This is not the case for the Pats or any sports teams in various cities where average fan travel to stadiums are just as long as travel from Boston to Gillette. Similar to any product, market penetration should define whether a city or team owns a town, and clearly Boston & the Pats are intensely tied.
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But you can't count fans from New Hampshire and Maine when you argue if BOSTON is the best sports city.
 
I feel like this is defined less by championships and more by the passion of the fans. In what city is everyone a fan of their team(s) and the vibe of the city dovetails with the vibe of the team(s)?

I feel like this actually rules out the biggest cities like NYC and LA, where the people living there often have a lot more going on, often come from elsewhere, and whose mood often don't necessarily depend on their teams' fortunes.

By gut feeling, I'm getting more like that second tier of city -- Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh for a bit smaller feel.

Among the largest cities, the Bay Area (San Francisco if you must) or Chicago.
 
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