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I ask because I'm constantly being told that all cities are like Kansas City by people in KC. In KC, you can't not see a college sports logo where ever you look on cars, on people on buildings. It's everywhere, all the time. People wear college clothing to pro games, to the malls etc. It's like a large portion of the population has to wear their favorite team when they go out in public. A large portion of the cars have some sort of college logo license plate or decal on them. Most cubes in offices are decorated with college stuff.
Here in the DC area, I don't see it. I don't see logos on cars, or people very often at all. In office cubicles, there is very little compared to KC.
What I see in DC is NFL, a lot of NFL, not just the Redskins and Ravens, but from all kinds of teams all over most of the eastern half of the US. I see more Nats logos, hats etc than college. NHL too.
I am a personally a fan of pro sports while I have almost no interest in college sports. This seems to be much more common here as well.
I'm not saying that there are no college fans in DC, that would be silly. There are tons, But they are far outnumbered by fans of pro sports or people that don't care about sports period.
Am I crazy in thinking this??
So what is your city like?
Pro or College? What is the percentage of fans that you think are interested in either and do you have a lot of fans that follow one but not the other?
I know back in Atlanta we were mostly into College sports, there seemed to be more of a love for the game at the college level, however I do love the Falcons baby.
I think here is generally apathetic (or I just haven't observed it) but there is a tendency to support Big Ten college teams. I follow the Big Ten closely but not the NFL at all. Whereas, my hometown just 45 minutes away is much bigger on the NFL (mostly Packers/Bears).
Here in Boston, we're way into college sports. Definitely a college sports town.
kidding. I can't think of many other cities that are more heavily "pro" sports vs. college sports. Kind of funny for a town with so many colleges. Aside from hockey (and BC football or basketball if they're doing well), no one really pays any attention to college sports. I know a number of people from areas where college sports are bigger who find it maddening.
Personally, I prefer the talent level of the pros much better. It seems that there's less parity in most college sports too (i.e. one or two teams that are clearly much better than the others). I know people love to say, "well its better because they're just playing for the passion of playing." B.S... Most (at the highest level) of them are playing to audition for the pros where they can make tons of money. Many of them are getting compensated in other ways (as evidenced by the "scandals" every year). I just don't subscribe to the whole "purity" of college sports thing. I'm certainly not under the impression that pro sports are any more pristine, but no one is claiming they are.
It helps to have hosted a college championship for the past 60+ years though.
Omaha's college hockey team also is in the top 5 in average attendance. The college basketball team averages about 15,000 a game, a university with only about 8,000 students mind you.
There are obviously a ton of Husker fans here as well. On Saturdays when the Huskers have a home game I-80 is gridlocked, the worst traffic this area ever sees.
Omaha also is where the 4 largest crowds to ever watch a college volleyball match in the country's history happened.
I agree with you that DC is a pro town (mostly the Skins, with a strong following for other NFL teams as well). The Caps have a small but dedicated fan base. Wizards and Nats both seem to struggle a little to gain support.
Atlanta is definitely a college town. I think of it as the capital of the SEC, with huge Georgia bulldogs base, plus a lot of Auburn fans and a pretty good representation of the other SEC teams plus Georgia Tech. The Braves have pretty good support. Falcons seem to go up and down and the Hawks seem to struggle. Obviously NHL recently left, so there were some issues there.
Others I know about: Austin and Raleigh are def. college sports towns. Chicago seemed like a pro town.
In general, I think Southern (especially southeastern) cities tend to trend toward college and most of the rest of the country trends pro. There are exceptions, of course.
Question: can anyone tell me which way Houston goes?
I'd say in general that the state of Michigan is evenly split between college and pro sports, maybe leaning towards college if I had to pick one. I'm in the Lansing area (which having a Big Ten University in its backyard makes it biased towards college sports,) but I think metro Detroit is a little more evenly split.
philly has a lot of colleges obviously and a rich college sports history. the palestra is basically the mecca of college basketball and big 5 basketball is of course huge. college basketball i would say is much bigger in philly than college football, but franklin field is a historic sports field in its own right and although penn state is not in philly, so many alum live in and around the city that there are tons of people wearing penn state crap all the time.
that being said. the popularity of college sports in philadelphia DOES NOT EVEN COME CLOSE to the popularity of the pro teams. The eagles and phillies are HUGE. the flyers and sixers don't enjoy the enormous fan bases that the eagles and phillies do but they have devoted fans and even the sixers in an awful year like last year, get more press than the college teams in the city.
in my experience pro sports are always way bigger in cities than collage sports.
college sports are biggest in rural areas where there aren't any pro teams around to cheer for.
side note: am I the only one who finds it dumb how people cheer for a college they didn't go to?
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