CLEVELAND, Ohio – Boston is the place to be for avid sports fans, according to a recent personal-finance website’s analysis of more than 300 American cities.
The three-year-old site uses a variety of data in its methodology to calculate “best of” and “worst of” lists. For this one, it combined previous rankings in five sports – football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer.
The rankings cover 341 cities – large, midsize and small. They do not take into account an attachment to history or emotional connections to the past (read: Clevelanders’ respect for the 1964 Browns, remembrances of the 1990s Indians teams, or pain from Decision Day 2010).
Boston tops the overall list, followed by Denver and a surprise at No. 3: East Lansing, Michigan. Pittsburgh is No. 4, and Washington, D.C. rounds out the top five.
Where Cleveland stands
Cleveland ranks 19th overall and 14th among large cities. Here are the city’s rankings broken down by sport:
Football – 24th.
Basketball – 19th.
Baseball – 5th.
Hockey – 350th.
Soccer – 149th.
WalletHub’s methodology weighs each sport with a different amount of emphasis, so overall rankings are not an average (for instance, football is given the most weight while soccer receives the least). The site also says “If a particular sport was not represented at the NCAA and/or professional level, a rank of 350 was attributed by default.”
That last point seems odd. Cleveland has an AHL team – minor-league but professional – yet received a 350 in the hockey category. Syracuse, New York, has Class AAA baseball and an AHL team, yet received the bottom-dwelling scores for both sports.
“Rankings are always tough,” Dr. Charles Campisi, assistant professor of sports management at Baldwin Wallace University who provided additional commentary for WalletHub’s rankings but is not employed by the site. “I think you should separate professional cities and minor-league cities and college towns. Sometimes they overlap, but if you’re talking Columbus they have Blue Jackets and the Crew, but Ohio State runs that city.”
Campisi said it’s tough to compare cities like Chapel Hill and Charlotte, North Carolina.
“The allegiances for alma maters can run way deeper than for professional teams,” he said.
Campisi has overall positive feelings about Cleveland’s rankings, which he broke down a bit:
“I think they should be up there in football,” he said. “Cincinnati is extremely surprising as a top 10 football city. … In terms of baseball I think Cleveland – I don’t know if the support is always there – but the ballpark is great. Every one who comes through as a visitor comments on how great the park is. I would say it’s a great city for baseball.
“From basketball I don’t think that’s (19) too bad,” he said. “The atmosphere by the ballpark and the arena is great; there’s so much to do. You have good fans here.”
When it comes to football fans, he said, “A lot of issues the NFL teams have is with diehard fans – they might be overly aggressive to opposing fans. From a fans’ perspective are you going to want to go in to that environment? Some are more welcoming than others. You’re talking Dawg Pound, you’re talking Black Hole with the (Oakland) Raiders – not the best for opposing teams but great and fun.”
Ohio rankings
Cleveland was the highest ranked Ohio city. The others:
21 – Cincinnati.
24 – Bowling Green.
26 – Columbus.
55 – Oxford.
74 – Athens.
102 – Kent.
111 – Akron.
141 – Toledo.
173 – Dayton.
266 – Youngstown.
Best cities by sport
Football: Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Basketball: Storrs, Connecticut.
Baseball: St. Louis.
Hockey: Pittsburgh.
Soccer: Salt Lake City.
For the record, the city ranking last on the overall list is Hackensack, New Jersey.
For the complete list and details on the methodology, click here.
