Which North American cities host 4 or more major professional sports teams? If I sat and thought about this for 3 hours I’m sure I could come up with it, but with such a great resource as the SDMB, why bother?
For instance Chicago has the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Blackhawks & Bulls. They may even have a pro soccer team for all I remember, but I don’t think the Chicago Sting operate anymore.
Which other cities have four or more?
Chicago does have a pro soccer team – they’re called the Fire.
Detroit has the Tigers, Lions, Pistons, and Red Wings.
New York has the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Rangers, and Islanders.
Philadelphia is home to the Phillies, Eagles, 76ers and the Flyers. Don’t know if they have a soccer team.
Lots of cities have 4 pro sports (are we counting soccer?). LA has the dodgers, angles, lakers, clippers, mighty ducks and the kings. Denver has broncos, nuggets, rockies and avalance. Atlanta has braves, falcons, hawks and the thrash(?). As has been named Philly, NY and Detroit do as well. And Boston, Miami, Dallas,ummm Phoenix San Fran Bay area probably others. Houston will next year. And if you count soccer or “minor” leagues (still “pro” cause they get paid to play) you have dozens of more cities.
Dead0man
This is going to be a very very long list. The vast majority of major cities have a team in each of the 4 major sports. If you include soccer it most certainly creeps even higher.
Frankly, if you include soccer you’ll probably want to include the IHL and AFL (Arena football), they rival MLS in attendance consistently.
Cleveland Indians, Browns, Cavs and Crunch (soccer). Not to mention the Rockers, who are WNBA.
San Francisco does not, however, have four teams. It’s just a small coastal town.
There are so many right answers that I think MPSIMS is a better place for this thread than GQ, so I’ll move it.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Philadelphia, already mentioned a few times, is an interesting case because the four major teams all play within city limits, which is unusual (although probably not unique [Chicago?]).
And that’s kind of cool. But it’s also a source of goofy civic pride. “Build us a new stadium, or we might have to move somewhere else in the area. You know, the Dallas Cowboys make out just fine in Irving, Texas. You don’t want to be like the Dallas Cowboys, do you?”
Philadelphia also has pro minor league ice hockey, pro indoor soccer, pro indoor lacross and probably more, although I’m drifting farther and farther away from “major”.
NYC has the Mets, Yanks, Rangers, and Knicks, as well as 2 minor league baseball teams inside the limits.
Ah, but the misguided Philadelphia pride thing is that we have one team from each of the 4 major sports leagues playing within city limits. The NY NFL teams play in New Jersey.
Of course, Yankee stadium and MSG are a thousand times cooler than the Philadelphia sports complex on the outskirts of town, but we’ll never admit that.
I’ll confess that our pro women’s football team plays in Conshohocken.
The NFL teams are the Jets and Giants. I didn’t count them, the Devils, Nets, or Islanders. The Mets are baseball (NL), Yankees baseball (AL), Rangers NHL, and Knicks NBA. 4 teams.
Have you ever been to Dallas or Irving? Irving stadium is closer to downtown Dallas than many points in Dallas proper. As fas as I can tell, nobody wants to be like the cowboys.
Also, as of yet no one has mentioned Toronto as a 4 sport town. And yes, CFL does count.
Well, so does Atlanta for that matter. Turner Field, the Georgia Dome, and Philips Arena are all not just within the city limits, but right in downtown Atlanta. Even the Atlanta Beat, the women’s pro soccer team, plays at Georgia Tech, well within the city limits. The only pro team in town that doesn’t play within the city limits is our minor league (A-League) men’s soccer team, the Silverbacks (last I checked, most of their games were played at a high school stadium in DeKalb County).
I didn’t see Los Angles mentioned, they have the Lakers and Clippers in the NBA, Dodgers in baseball, and the Kings in hockey.
Some of it is a matter of definition. Do you count the New England Patriots as being in Boston, for instance? Certainly they draw their fan base from the Boston area, but it can be argued that they’re Foxboro, not Boston.
It’s the same with the New York area football teams. Their fans come from New York and they’re identified with the city, even though they play in New Jersey.
There are also cities that once had four teams, but no more. These include Minnesota (for a few years until the North Stars moved to Dallas), Pittsburgh (for a year or two when they had an ABA franchise), and St. Louis (when the Spirits were in the ABA).
The most “big four” franchises playing in a city at any one time was probably New York in the 70s, with the Mets, Yankees, Giants, Jets, Knick, Nets, Rangers, and Islanders (all with “New York” in their name). If you include “New Jersey,” that adds the Devils for a total of 9. LA is second with the Dodgers, Rams, Raiders, Kings, Lakers, & Clippers all playing at once.
New York has the most “big four” franchises overall (11, with 15 if you count Brooklyn and New Jersey):
Baseball
Dodgers*
Giants
Yankees
Mets
Brooklyn Tip-Tops (FL)*
Football
Giants
Titans/Jets
Yankees (AAFC & NFL)
Dodgers (NFL)*
Hockey
Americans
Rangers
Islanders
Devils*
Basketball
Knicks
Nets
- Never had “New York” as part of their name.
LA is second with the Dodgers, Angels, Rams, Chargers, Raiders, Lakers, Clippers, and Kings (all with “Los Angeles” in their name at one point).
If we’re going to count AAFC teams and ABA teams - and why shouldn’t we - then we should add the LA Dons football team and the LA Stars and Anaheim Amigos basketball teams.