According to thisAustin, El Paso and Fort Worth are all bigger than several cities with one or more major league sports teams, including Milwaukee, Boston, Seattle and Atlanta. Now I know that a city's limits don't define it's catchment area, nor is size everything when it comes to handing out franchises, nevertheless it seems a bit odd. Texas is, after all, a sports-hot state. At least I certainly haven't heard of any teams doing badly at the box office, even the Dallas Stars. Also it's not just that these cities don't have major league teams, their names never even come up when a new one is discussed. Is their some territorial agreement in place that freezes them out, or what?
-
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
I think these are the more relevant numbers.
Fort Worth is part of the Dallas market.
Austin is pretty big but is probably considered too close to the bigger cities of Houston and San Antonio to get a major league team, plus any pro team in Austin would have to compete for attention with UT which would be hard. San Antonio has an NBA team and is sometimes mentioned as a possible NFL site, but would probably be blocked by Houston and Dallas.
El Paso is bigger than I thought, but it's total metro area only makes it 68th on the list of metro areas.
The logic is a bit different for the NFL than the other sports. Because its only once a week on a Sunday and it's so conducive to TV and because there is revenue sharing and a salary cap, the NFL can aspire to build a fanbase over a broad area. So the Packers can get all of Wisconsin and even beyond, the Saints can try for the whole Gulf Region and Jacksonville can try for all of the northern half of Florida (that's not working very well, BTW).
That doesn't work as well for baseball, basketball or hockey where you need to bring in people every night. By that logic, Milwaukee probably shouldn't have a major league baseball team, but of course the commissioner is their owner and he got the city to build them a new park. They also probably shouldn't have an NBA team but the NBA doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the demographics either, moving a team from Seattle to Oklahoma city, from Charlotte to New Orleans, and having teams in Salt Lake City and Sacramento. -
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Las Vegas seems to be the most obvious one. But two things are big hurdles--the heat, for outdoor sports, and the gambling. I think most leagues would be very wary of putting a team in Vegas with the gambling issue.
Long Beach is bigger than Miami, but is in the shadow of Los Angeles, so it will never have its own major sports franchise. Long Beach is also the largest city in the US without its own television station.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Yes that's a much better list. Some cities seem surprisingly under-represented, if not ignored, there as well though. Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Sacramento, and Portland which I had no idea was so large (and probably should have.)Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Sacramento and Portland are both really good NBA cities. I want to see Portland in MLS, and I know a lot of Portlanders (?) want to see MLB there.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Williamsburg is close to Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Suffolk, Virginia Beach), so I know a little about that situation. They have made some weak efforts to get an NHL team and I think they tried to get the Expos when it looked like DC wouldn't put a deal together, but it never got very far.
Even if you count all of the parts of the greater Hampton Roads area, it would still be a pretty marginal major sports market so the only way it could lure a team there is by putting together a very sweet publicly financed arena/stadium deal, and the various municipalities that make up Hampton Roads area probably could never come together on something like that.
It's very much of a no-there-there sort of place. Norfolk is ostensibly the urban center but it's a bit of a dump and the rest of the region doesn't seem to care. It's a fairly transient area since so much of the economy is based on the military.
Also, that area is traditionally Redskins territory and the Capitals, Wizards, Nationals and Orioles have tried to make it part of their fanbase. I imagine the Washington teams would object to any major pro team there.
Besides, the Norfolk Admirals (AHL) and the Norfolk Tides (AAA baseball) are fairly well supported and I think the fans down there are pretty content with that.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Reed, great stuff. You're on fire of late. Maybe I'll have to start pulling for more undefeated Penn State and Pittsburgh Steelers.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
The old school ABA Virginia Squires played in Hampton Roads (in Norfolk, at the Scope, and at the Hampton Coliseum), but they also played in a number of other locations in the state, including Richmond.
As Reed illustrates, the demographics of the area are not very attractive to modern US sports franchises.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
UA, your knowlege of everything is beyond encyclopedic, it's wikipedic.
During college I attended several Admirals hockey games at the Scope. They were in the ECHL at the time. I've never been to the Hampton Coliseum but I drove past it a few times. I don't know if that had any regular sports tennant. Hampton U basketball, perhaps.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Age has its benefits. I've actually seen the Virginia Squires live.
I'm pretty sure that the ACC basketball tournament was sometimes played at the Scope in the 70s. It always surprised me that someone one would name an arena after a mouthwash.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Question: When the San Antonio Riders folded after 1 or 2 seasons of the World League, was that more because fans didn't like the idea of an international league very much? It's just that if a WL football team folded there, then surely the prospects for other sports may not be good?
The absence of more (top-flight) teams in Portland always mystified me, too. I know they've got the Winterhawks in the WHL, but I thought they'd really go for an NHL team there, too. Maybe any struggling team from more Southerly climes might get relocated there one day?Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
A lot of the WFL clubs folded because of issues with the local ownership group and the league itself, rather than a genuine lack of interest. San Antonio had a USFL team as well (though I can't recall their name), and periodically features in suggestions as to future expansion. I think that they suffer somewhat from the fact that Texas already has multiple NFL teams, and the local television market is not huge.
Portland is frequently mentioned as a possible addition to major league baseball (the minor league Beavers have generally been quite popular throughout their very long history) and is a great soccer/football city that should be in MLS. It has also grown significantly in the last decade or so, which makes it more viable. One thing that tends to hurt its chances, however, is the generally progressive political climate, which makes it unlikely that rapacious owners will be able to blackmail the city/county into gifting them facilities costing hundreds of millions, etc. There is also a sense that Portland lacks the critical mass of corporate fat cats willing to spend six figure sums on luxury boxes, which are the current El Dorado of most North American sports franchises.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
By the way - another even more general question:
Has anyone bothered trying to get the message across to kids over there (particularly in deprived areas) that soccer is a sport where you don't have to be an anatomical freak or spend hundreds of dollars on equipment in order to be successful at it and thus possibly make a pretty good living out of it?
Surely such a combination should have such kids clamouring to find the kind of (financial) success they see their European and South American counterparts achieving?Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
People try, but it is a difficult message to make stick, largely because the tradition of soccer in the US in my lifetime has very much been that of a suburban, middle class sport.
It's also impossible to underestimate how important television exposure is to forming kids' ideas of what sports are cool and/or potentially lucrative. Soccer/football probably gets less than 1% of the air time on ESPN or FoxSports that any of basketball, football or baseball do, and that makes it hard to convince athletically talented kids that it is a real option.Comment
-
Least franchised U.S. sports cities.
Portland lacks the critical mass of corporate fat cats willing to spend six figure sums on luxury boxes, which are the current El Dorado of most North American sports franchises.
I hadn't thought of that. For a city it's size it is (or was) close to being a company town. I suppose Nike might feel that supporting local sports franchises would compromise their market (though Reebok's money behind Bolton doesn't seem to have hurt them.) I'd love it if Portland were in MLS, though a triumvirate of Seattle, Vancouver and Portland seems unlikely and, for obvious reasons, I'd take the first two cities over them. Even better, an NHL revival of the Portland Rosebuds would be brilliant.Comment
Comment