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Location: livin' the good life on America's favorite island
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Cleveland, OH
1. Browns-still a football town regardless how pathetic they are. Town would catch on fire if they ever made SB.
2. Cavs-this is the year to win it all and Lebron signs extended contract. If he leaves the town will explode. Could be first championship for CLE since 1964.
3. Indians-they used to be no. 2 but since setting world record most sellouts in a row the passion has gone and owners aren't willing to spend money.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
1. Boston Red Sox
2. New England Patriots
3. Boston Celtics
4. Boston Bruins
Huge drop off (Boston supports its four teams like few other cities, but really is not a college sports town. Maybe it's because there are soooooo many schools in the area, but none of them really stick. BC should probably be a lot more popular than they are.)
5. Boston hockey (Beanpot schools - Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, Northeastern, plus a good chunk of Hockey East fans)
6. Boston College football
7. New England Revolution (MLS)
8. Boston College basketball
I guess I'll do Milwaukee since no one else has. I put the breaks where I think the there's a significant drop in support.
MILWAUKEE
1. Packers
2. Brewers
3. Local College Hoops (Marquette, UW and UWM in that order)
4. UW Football
5. Cubs (mainly Illinois transplants and old Braves fans who refused to embrace the Crew)
6. Bucks
7. UW Hockey
8. Milwaukee Admirals (only supported by hardcore puckheads who can't make it to Chicago for the Hawks or Madison for the Badgers)
9. Milwaukee Wave (Indoor soccer team that's survived for 25 years by selling ticket packages to youth soccer leagues)
10.Arsenal
11.Manchester United
Texans football
Longhorns/Aggies (mainly football)
Rockets
Dynamo soccer
Everything else. That would be a mosh pit of Rice U, U of Houston (mainly football right now), Aeros hockey, Tx Southern U, Prairie View A&M (football = nice), Houston Baptist U (games only on the intrawebz) and I guess well within reach and probably on the previous list is LSU.
Football is king here. Everything else is semantics. Houston stinks at supporting its own sports (lots to do besides watching crummy UH basketball), but the city is constantly changing and other than Coogs football, nothing even remotely on the major scene here is on an upswing.
Probably the only major metro area (in the US) where I'd say hockey is the dominant sport. Not neccesarily at the pro level, but at the college and high school level, hockey trumps everything else. Twenty years ago, the North Stars were probably the most popular team in the area, but since they got moved to Dallas, the NHL has took a huge plunge. Despite the Wild selling out every game in their decade of existence, they still don't have as big a following as the Stars had. For every person you see wearing Wild gear, you see just as many wearing North Stars stuff even though they haven't been around for 15 years.
High School hockey games easily fill 4,000 seat arenas for the big metro schools and the state tournament which plays in front of 19,000 fans at the Xcel Energy Center is sold out multiple years in advance. The Gophers also fill up Mariucci Arena routinely and other WCHA College Hockey Teams from around the state are also really popular (St. Cloud State Huskies, U of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, Bemidji State Beavers, U of North Dakota Fighting Sioux, Wisconsin Badgers, Mankato State Mavericks).
I'd rate the teams as follows:
1)Vikings
1)Twins
3)Wild
4)U of M Gopher Hockey
5)U of M Gopher Football
6)High School Hockey
7)Green Bay Packers
8)Other WCHA Hockey Teams
9)U of M Gopher Men's Basketball
10)Timberwolves
The Twins have an extremelly passionate fan base that travels as well as any other MLB team fanbase I've seen. I showed up at Wrigley last year to watch the Twins play the Cubs and found 60% of the stadium to be Twins fans. I've had similar experiences at Kansas City, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and the Southside of Chicago.
The Vikings recieve the most coverage and are the most watched, although I'd say they have the most fair-weather fans. The Packers also (unfortunately) have a huge following, enough so that the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press cover them a bit as well. I'd say about 25-30% of the NFL fans here root for the Packers. Much more so in the eastern suburbs like Woodbury and Stillwater than in the North and West Metro.
Gophers Basketball and Football has some passionate fans, although it is still pretty small compared to Gopher Hockey.
I think that about it. We might have an NBA team too but I don't think anyone really cares.
College football is king here. SEC rules. You get looked at like you're crazy if there is a college team you like that isn't one of the below. (You get looked at with sympathy and like you're a little crazy if you're a Vandy fan.)
The Charleston area is a very passionate sports area, as most of the people care about and follow sports. College and high school sports are very popular.
1. College football: everything revolves around Clemson and South Carolina. This is the biggest rivalry in the area, and the newspaper covers them like two professional teams. Even though we're 1:45 from one school and over 4 hours to the other, they have huge popularity, way more than anyone else.
Almost everyone, even people who don't care about them the rest of the year, watches their rivalry game at the end of the season. Almost every Southern and Big Ten team has a fan base, with Georgia and Ohio State the biggest ones.
2. High school football: Huge here. There's about 30 games here every Friday night, and they draw about 2,500/game average, with stadiums of over 10,000. All three local stations carry 15-30 minute high school highlight shows every week during the season, and cover nearly every game.
3. Recruiting/spring football: Just as big for football. There's entire radio shows devoted just to this, and they talk about the best players like they are gods. They follow their every move.
4a. College baseball: Not very popular most other places, but here, the biggest spring sport. There's four local schools here, and every game gets highlights shown during local news. End of season games fill a 5,000 seat stadium.
4b. College basketball: Big here, but not as much depth as college baseball. You have College of Charleston, The Citadel, South Carolina, Clemson, and Charleston Southern, but Duke and UNC have almost as many fans as C of C and the Citadel.
6. Minor league baseball: Riverdogs are the local team here, and they have some of the best attendance in the minors for a city this size. Most fans just come to see the entertainment.
7. Minor league hockey: The Stingrays are our team here, in the ECHL, and they are probably the most successful team in the league, with 3 championships. Back when they started (1993-94), they drew 8,000-9,000/game, and were probably up at 3 or 4.
8. Minor league soccer: The Battery are another very popular team, getting less attendance a game, but still do a great job marketing, as an English Premier League team (Bolton) is coming here this summer.
9. Other high school sports: Baseball and basketball are most popular around here, but our newspaper does a decent job covering all of them. The local TV news even shows girls' soccer and softball highlights.
10. MLB: Braves are most popular for the locals, but the transplants like several different teams (Indians, Reds, Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles). Two players (Matt Wieters and Justin Smoak) from one high school (Stratford) are in the majors, and that's all they talk about on local news. Brett Gardner is from our area, along with several minor leaguers which the local media talks about all the time.
11. NFL- You'd think it was more popular, but they only really talk about the Panthers during the season and when major off-season news happens. There are almost as many Steelers and Browns fans here as Panthers fans.
Below this, sports get a lot less popular.
12. NHL- Lots of Penguins and Sabres fans, more than any other team because that's where a lot of the transplants are from, and a few Hurricanes fans. I've seen 3 Atlanta fans in my whole time in town.
13. NBA- Even less popular than NHL. Only fans you see are for the popular teams (Lakers, Celtics, Magic, Cavs). Bobcats have grown a small following.
Everything else is too small to mention, except maybe club swimming. Our city league has 2,600 swimmers and 24 teams, and the city meets every year bring about 3,000 people. They even show highlights on the local news (of swimming).
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