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2) Washington Capitals (they're the only DC area major league pro team that's any good right now)
GAP
3) Washington Nationals
4) University of Maryland basketball
5) Georgetown basketball
6) Washington Wizards
7) University of Maryland football
8) DC United
9) Virginia Tech football (out of area team)
10) Baltimore Orioles (out of area team)
11) George Mason basketball
Teams #3-#11 listed above are fairly close to one another, though there is a gap (albeit only a moderate one) between the top few teams and the bottom few teams.
As a non-DC area native, there are a few things that stick out to me about team coverage in this area:
1) As a Philadelphia sports fan, it's always surprising to me that George Mason basketball (CAA) gets more attention than George Washington basketball (Atlantic 10); in Philadelphia it is the exact opposite (and both Temple and St. Joe's basketball get covered and have many more fans than Drexel basketball does, though Drexel might have the same or slightly more fans than La Salle basketball right now, partly because the Explorers haven't made a non-conference postseason tournament since 1992).
2) The Deadskin...I mean Redskins are by far the most popular team in the DC area despite the fact they've been mediocre at best since 1993. No other DC area team seriously challenges their popularity, and no team will challenge their popularity unless that team is consistently excellent and wins at least a couple of league titles and the Redskins remain mediocre during the same period. Right now the Capitals have a chance of being that team, but they need success in the playoffs to make that possibility more realistic.
3) Soccer, though not necessarily DC United, has a fairly strong following in this area, probably because of the relatively large contingent of foreigners that live here.
4) The DC media tends to view college teams throughout Virginia as part of "their" area, even if those Virginia-based schools are nowhere near DC or are not major state schools (in terms of sports program profile) within Virginia. They give Virginia Tech football and to a somewhat lesser degree Virginia football almost the same level of coverage as Maryland football, even though College Park is inside the Beltway and Blacksburg and Charlottesville respectively are nowhere near DC. They also consider Old Dominion (located in Norfolk, approximately 200 miles from DC) in their regional college basketball rankings but not schools from Philadelphia (approximately 135 miles from DC). Earth to DC media - Hampton Roads, and even Richmond, are NOT close to Washington.
4) The Washington Nationals, IMO, are still struggling to gain a following. Though they have more fans and get more media coverage than the Baltimore Orioles, the Orioles still have a solid number of followers and get semi-decent media coverage.
5) The Orioles are distinctly more popular in the DC area than the Baltimore Ravens. This isn't surprising, considering the Orioles were DC's de facto team until the Nationals came along and the Ravens have only been in Baltimore since 1996 (and the Redskins were around a long time before that).
6) Despite playing Division I basketball, Howard University gets almost no coverage, and noticeably less than American University or even the U.S. Naval Academy (in nearby but outside the metro area Annapolis). To be fair, American and Navy have been better (much better in American's case) in recent years than Howard, but Howard University basketball might as well be invisible to the DC media.
7) Neither Georgetown nor Howard, both of which are largely uncompetitive Division I-AA football programs, get much coverage in football; both receive much less coverage than Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia, or Navy (not a total surprise mind you). As a basis of comparison, I think Georgetown and Howard receive considerably less coverage than Villanova and Penn in the Philadelphia area (though both Villanova and Penn are consistent league championship contenders in the CAA and Ivy League respectively).
8) If the Wizards were ever consistently solid, they'd probably move up to #2, still way behind the Redskins but ahead of all other teams.
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