What kind of "Sports Town" is your city?

[DelayedPenalty]

Ann Arbor is obviously a U of M town. Football on top, basketball second, hockey third, everything else after that. What gets seriously overshadowed here is the USA Hockey National Development team that plays in the USHL.

Detroit is sort of hard to pin down, but I think Dan said it best on the first page; whoever is doing well is who Detroit supports. I don't hear much about the Pistons now that their championship era is over. The Tigers sort of always hover around the headlines, Lions too despite their lack of success. Red Wings I'd probably put 3rd, despite their continued success. They haven't had any down years to "revitalize" interest in the team when they do well the next season.

1. Lions

2. Tigers

3. Red Wings

4. Pistons

[The_Admiral]

You guys have the best organization in hockey and it's third at best behind a football team that amounts to the Raiders + Browns without the tradition or the Al Davis cult of personality. Hockey is doomed forever in America. I hate everyone.

[charger77]

You guys have the best organization in hockey and it's third at best behind a football team that amounts to the Raiders + Browns without the tradition or the Al Davis cult of personality. Hockey is doomed forever in America. I hate everyone.

Delayed Penalty is pretty spot on in his analysis.

[Gary]

You guys have the best organization in hockey and it's third at best behind a football team that amounts to the Raiders + Browns without the tradition or the Al Davis cult of personality. Hockey is doomed forever in America. I hate everyone.

If I had it my way, Tigers would be #1. But only in my head

[B-Rich]

Yeah this is pretty much right. It is definitely a football town. I really think Tulane needs to build a stadium of its own for football (unless Tad Gormley or Pan-Am hold 15,000) because the Superdome with only 15,000 fans in it is a very lonely place.

I poked around online, and it appears Tad Gormley holds around 25000, but would need significant renovations.

Tulane has played a home game or two or three at Tad Gormley over the last 5 years or so, but it's not the answer. Gormley is a high school football/track stadium, very basic, dating back to the WPA era. It's not set up for Division One college sports. And despite its nice tailgating-friendly surroundings of the live oak groves of City Park, it's miles from the Tulane campus-- the same problem with the Superdome.

In a perfect world, Tulane would build a 25-30,000 seat on-campus stadium. Problem is, there is little if any room on campus, especially after they used what little space they had for their nice new Turchin Baseball Stadium. And being hemmed in by the local urban street grid and residential neighborhoods, there's little chance of campus expansion. I've heard talk of putting a stadium on "The Fly", a riverfront park just on the other side of Audubon Park from Tulane, but not sure if that would work.

(Josh, we need to get together for lunch sometime to discuss sports logos, sports, local history, architecture and the local job market (my firm has an architecture section w/ Tulane alums), and your "problems" with Seaside. )

/end tangent

[Sport]

Since I've been out in Indiana, it's kinda hard to get a read on the Colts. But to piggyback off what sizemorematters said, if the sports fans in this city are anything like the so-called "Butler fans" who suddenly popped up out of the woodwork around here now that the program is on the rise, then perhaps sports fans here are just about as fickle as most any other fairweather town...though I will say this: Peyton Manning's been spoiling these daggone Hoosiers. I keep asking people what they'll do once Peyton Manning retires...I have yet to get a straight answer. Beyond all that, this is Indiana, where as far as I can tell, basketball reigns supreme. (And for good reason.)

Yeah, I mean, high school basketball teams'll still draw entire towns to games in the tournament. It's pretty fun, actually.

6. Columbus Blue Jackets

7. Ohio State basketball

Jackets ahead of OSU basketball? That's a little surprising

My logic being that when OSU basketball isn't doing well, nobody cares about them and in early season games against tiny schools nobody cares. When the Blue Jackets aren't doing well (which is pretty much always) there's still a large contingent of people who support them. Columbus is very fairweather when it comes to the OSU basketball team. Also, people were a lot more excited for the Blue Jackets' playoff appearance than they were for Ohio State's 1 seed in the tournament this year.

Actual numbers (attendance, local TV ratings) may disprove me, but that's my perception, which may be skewed because of my intense interest in the hockey team and lack thereof with anything surrounding the sport of basketball.

[Rockstar Matt]

LA/OC is most definitely Lakers country.

Dodgers/Angels split up the baseball base. Kings/Ducks split up the hockey base. USC/UCLA split up the college base, but I'd say USC is definitely the more popular of the two. The Clippers don't take up a enough of an amount of the basketball base to compare to the other sports' splits.

When the Lakers had their couple down years between the Shaq and Pau eras, USC was at its most successful football-wise and was probably on top for a little bit, but at the end of the day, it's still Lakers country.

If/When LA gets a football team back and it doesn't suck, it might have the potential to rule the town. But I think the Lakers' longer history there and longer reach keeps them on top.

Definitely agree with the top one. While Dodgers/Angels and Kings/Ducks might spilt up the base in the OC, but in LA and the surrounding country is most definitely Dodgers and Kings. But, in LA and LA country it's like this:

1. Lakers. And no one is even close

2. Dodgers

3. NFL (to a lesser extent, Raiders)

4. USC/UCLA (Both football and basketball)

5. Clippers

6. Kings

7. Angels

8. Ducks

9. NASCAR (Yes, surprising, but true)

10. Galaxy

11. Everything else.

[bigbean24]

In the Twin Cities its mainly Baseball right now just because the Twins are usually good and because of Target Field. The Vikings are one of those teams where you got the die hards and you got the people who only care if they are winning. Minnesota is the state of hockey and the Wild did have a sellout streak going but they are now not so popular. High school hockey is very popular. Ever since K.G. left the Wolves it let the air out of the bag and the fact that they suck doesnt help either. The MN Swarm have became kind of popular and no one gives two poops about the Lynx or the minor league soccer team here. I think one thing that also helps these teams is that we have a big market(not population); you have all of Minnesota plus some of Wisconsin,Iowa,North Dakota and South Dakota it can really add up.

http://files.singaporesoxfan.com/uploaded_images/mlb_640-775312.gif

This isnt the best but I found it to be interesting.

[rainmaker17]

Austin, Texas

1. Texas Longhorns football (by an Atlantic Ocean-wide margin over the rest)

2. A pretty even split between the Cowboys and the Texans

3. San Antonio Spurs

4. Another even split between the Rangers and Astros

5. High school football

6. UT basketball

7. UT baseball

[winghaz]

North Dakota is, believe it or not, a basketball state. Especially small-town high school hoops, known as Class B basketball. The state Class B boys basketball tournament is by far the biggest tourney in the state, and the state Class B girls event is also big. The passions for basketball in these small towns rival the hoops hysteria in Indiana.

I know, a lot of you would think of North Dakota as a hockey state because of Fighting Sioux hockey. But there are only two college hockey teams in the state, and one of them is a junior college team in Bottineau, N.D. Also, while high school hockey has grown in interest across the state, the eastern part has dominated the sport.

Football is also huge here, and is the most-watched sport at North Dakota State University.

[camly]

In Boston, we are a football city. But with the excitement of the Bruins, everybody is watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In my specific town, we are basketball crazed at the youth level.

[The_Admiral]

There's an old Shaughnessy piece from like 1990 where he talks about how the Red Sox are all things to all people, the Celtics are for "the winners in life," the Bruins are for loudmouthed blue-collar racists, and the Patriots are for no one. It's fun to read his utter disregard for the Patriots, which consists of "we in New England are not familiar with this strange 'Footed Ball' oft played amongst the southerners."

[JQK]

My current locale, Wilkes-Barre, PA, is a hockey town.

A Penguins hockey town.

Sigh...

[Don]

My current locale, Wilkes-Barre, PA, is a hockey town.

A Penguins hockey town.

Sigh...

Time to move my friend.

[Brian in Boston]

There's an old Shaughnessy piece from like 1990 where he talks about how the Red Sox are all things to all people, the Celtics are for "the winners in life," the Bruins are for loudmouthed blue-collar racists, and the Patriots are for no one. It's fun to read his utter disregard for the Patriots, which consists of "we in New England are not familiar with this strange 'Footed Ball' oft played amongst the southerners."

Sounds similar to a piece Leigh Montville penned in the mid-to-late-80s for the Boston Globe Magazine Sunday supplement.

Montville described the Red Sox as being more akin to a religion than a sport in New England, with the team's then-"cursed" history being perfectly suited to the region's Puritan origins, i.e. "the sins of the father shall be revisited upon his sons".

The Bruins were the "Lunchpail A.C.", a franchise whose largely blue-collar fan-base remained unwaveringly loyal regardless of on-ice success... so long as they felt the Bs were turning-in hard-nosed, leave-it-all-on-the-ice efforts.

The Celtics were a team whose fans were the epitome of the "Go-go '80s": nouveau riche yuppies who packed the Garden to the rafters during the "Larry Bird Era". Montville found this particularly ironic given the fact that during the Celtics' run of 11 championships in 13 seasons, the team - like many in the NBA at that time - wasn't exactly turning fans away at the turnstiles.

Finally, Montville described the Billy Sullivan-owned Patriots as, "Fifty pounds of stupid in a five-pound bag."

[The_Admiral]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/1990/04/15/who_are_the_boston_fans/?page=full

Here it is.

I'm glad Bill Simmons looks down on the "blue-collar" Bruins fans. It exempts them from the awful "HOW WE SUFFER IN OUR PURITAN COLONY" narratives that the other three get.

[Brave-Bird 08]

Atlanta is tough to determine, I'd say that it's a baseball and basketball town mainly.

no way in h-e-double hockey sticks.

Atlanta is football first, baseball second, basketball third.

[Sport]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/1990/04/15/who_are_the_boston_fans/?page=full

Here it is.

I'm glad Bill Simmons looks down on the "blue-collar" Bruins fans. It exempts them from the awful "HOW WE SUFFER IN OUR PURITAN COLONY" narratives that the other three get.

LOL, carphone. I love how that used to be a status symbol. That was a good read.

[FamousAtticus]

Orlando, FL: An absolutely horrible sports town. The town/city is a melting pot of out-of-towners bringing in their love of different cities sports teams. For instance, if you attend a Magic game and they are playing either the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, Bulls or Heat you would think you were watching the game at their own arenas. The Magic only tend to have a large backing when the playoffs come around, before that only the diehard fans talk about the team, the lower bowl sections of the Amway Center are full of business men/women trying their best to wine & dine and entertain their potential business partners which creates a cricket like atmosphere during games...it's sad. Other than that, the city is big into college football (UF, FSU & UCF).

Orlando's sports grade: D+