I’ve read, from Browns fans living in Indy, that it’s a very fair weather, not very passionate, sports town. That their fans don’t know the crazy passion that Browns, Steelers, and Philly (for example) fans know. And that probably sounds about right. At least half the NFL fanbases probably aren’t very hardcore.
I’ve been to Victory Field and it is a beautiful place to see a game, however, according to my 2006 Baseball America Directory (I don’t have the 2007 edition yet) in 2005 Indy ranked behind Pawtucket, Buffalo and Louisville in International League attendance. Indy’s total attendance was also less than Albuquerque, Memphis, Sacramento and Round Rock (TX) (The suburban Austin TX team Astorian referred to above.)
I would also posit that New York City is a basketball city masquerading as a baseball one. I’d love to hear New Yorkers’ take on that.
To say Wigan is a Rugby League town is a bit of an understatement. Edinburgh is definitely a football (soccer) city, with Hibs and Hearts.
OT: All my life people have given me crap for being a Philly fan despite growing up in New Jersey. The Flyers play 20 minutes from childhood home, and yet I’m supposed to be a Devil’s fan. Never!
In New York, we have at least two of everthing, right down to the more obscure sports like opera. We also have a huge percentage of immigrants from every corner of the world, as well as transplants from all around the U.S.
As such, depending on how you look at New York is either an everything or nothing sports town.
DC. Native David Aldridge changed my mind on this in 2001 when he wrote this piece for ESPN when DC Hosted the NBA All-Star game… my friends and I have discussed it a few times since and I think we ultimately disagree but it is very close to being true – closer than at first glance it seems
*If you gain one thing from being in D.C. this weekend, if one fact penetrates your dome, know this. D.C. is not a football town. It’s a Redskins town. Big difference. There’s no tradition of high school football here. No college football scene. No tailgating or big bands or Script Ohio. None of it. Football begins when the 'Skins start camp in July and it ends whenever they end.
This is a hoops town. Always has been. Always will be.*
Then Aldridge goes down to talk about how Basketball permeates every level including High School and especially College, and that made us re-think. of us as a “football town”
N.B. no says this isn’t a Redskins town first, second and third.
I’m in a college town, so we have a number of different sports available to us. Football has to be the most popular, though. On a home football game day, everyone is at least aware of it, and most of the town is at the game, along with an extra 40 or 50,000 extra people. The basketball team has done well the last couple of years, but it still doesn’t generate the excitement that football does.
Plus, the football fans have the Steelers to cheer for just up the road in Pittsburgh.
Toronto’s minor league hockey teams have historically been brutally run and, for the most part, wildly unpredictable. It’s worth noting that although love of the Leafs runs strong throughout southern Ontario, OHL teams in other midsized cities do very well.
The city is a major league sports town, with big time sports competing for headlines in the same paper. Toronto isn’t a good town for minor league hockey for the same reason the New York Yankees didn’t put their AAA team in the Bronx; there’s just too much competition.
That’s not to say there isn’t some truth to the notion that Toronto has a not of Leaf-sbut-not-hockey fans, but the idea that Toronto isn’t a hockey town is asinine, and is based largely on the unspoken assumption that
- “hockey” means only “NHL hockey,” and
- Being intersted in the Leafs and not the OHL somehow means you don’t like hockey, which is, obviously, ridiculous. If you aren’t interested in hockey, you wouldn’t watch the Leafs, either.
The waiting lists for ice time for hockey teams in Toronto are as long as both your arms. Toronto’s minor hockey league is one of the biggest amateur sports organizations in the WORLD. The place is absolutely nutty about hockey.
Disclaimer: I am not a Leafs fan.
I still disagree. I think the love (or whatever it is you guys are feeling these days) for the Knicks is a pretty strong undercurrent. I think New York would go bonkers if the Knicks won.
Oh? Good - then you can stop self-appointing yourselves “Hockeytown.”
I also happen to live in D.C, Monsieur nuggets
We’ve turned to the antionals for two reasons:
- Baseball is back so who wouldn’t love them?
- The Redskins have never really had a good year.
It’s all about the Big Orange here in Knoxville, TN. Football, Pat Summitt, mens basketball… anything else is a distant second.