America runs on sports. There’s nothing like tailgating in the crisp fall air ahead of a football game, making the most of the cold winter with some ice hockey, getting great value with a promo at an NJ sportsbook or soaking up summer with beer and baseball. But which city is the most sports-obsessed in the nation? We decided to find out.
We looked at 50 cities in America: the 30 most populous along with 20 other cities that are home to professional NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB teams. We then analyzed related to professional sports teams such as “Chicago Bears,” “Yankees score,” and “Lakers tickets” to figure out where the biggest sports fanatics in America live.
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Most Sports-Obsessed Cities in America
The best city to be a sports fan is out West. Salt Lake City does the most searching for sports on Google compared to every other city. Every month on average, fans are searching more than half a million times about everything from scores, to tickets, and teams. The top searched team is close to home: pro basketball team Utah Jazz.
Green Bay ranked the second most sports-obsessed city. Although, we were shocked to find out people there aren’t searching the most for the Green Bay Packers, but the Milwaukee Brewers! Maybe it’s because they’re already going to games in person at Lambeau Field and don’t need to Google the score of the game.
Another Midwest city, St. Louis, ranked 3rd, Orlando ranked 4th, and Pittsburgh ranked 5th for its over-the-top love of sports.
Overall, the most-searched sports team in 18 out of the 50 cities were NFL teams. NBA teams were the favorites in 14 cities, and 11 searched for MLB teams the most. Only a few cities broke the mold.
Austin was the only city searching the most for a Major League Soccer team: Austin FC! Meanwhile, Louisville’s top searched team was the minor league team the Louisville Bats.
Sports aren’t for everyone, and some cities are not as obsessed with who won last night’s game or which player made the game-winning throw. The least sports-obsessed city in the nation is New York City. Maybe it’s because the city has so much else going on, but people are not eagerly looking up details about the latest pro sports games.
The other least sports-obsessed cities include Columbus (2nd), El Paso (3rd), San Antonio (4th), Austin (5th).
Most Popular Professional Sports Team by State
Americans are split almost evenly between their love of the NFL and the MLB. When looking at the top searched professional sports teams by state, 21 states searched the most for NFL teams compared to 19 searching for MLB teams. Only one state’s favorite team was from the NHL. That was Nevada, which repeatedly searched for the Vegas Golden Knights.
Down South, the Atlanta Braves are three different states’ favorite teams: Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. On the East Coast, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont all love the Boston Red Sox, but Massachusetts favorite team was actually the Boston Celtics! Out West, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming all search the most for the Denver Broncos.
America’s Favorite Sports Teams
Looking at Google search data, it appears football should be listed as America’s favorite sport. The sports team people search the most about are the Dallas Cowboys followed by the Green Bay Packers. The third most popular pro sports team is the Miami Heat, along with the Atlanta Braves (4th), and Buffalo Bills (5th).
In a survey of 1,000 Americans, we asked them to give their opinion about all the fan bases of these pro sports teams. Americans agreed that fans of the Dallas Cowboys are the most obsessed sports fans in the nation. Boston Red Sox fans ranked second followed by the New York Yankees (3rd), Los Angeles Lakers (4th), and Green Bay Packers (5th).
Sports fans that Americans feel are the least-obsessed or more fair-weather than anything else are the San Diego Padres (1st), Oakland Athletics (2nd), Portland Trail Blazers (3rd), Minnesota Timberwolves (4th), and Seattle Mariners (5th).
In America, sports play a big part of the culture. People want to have a good team to root for and get behind. While some cities are more obsessed with day-to-day game play than others, we have to agree that a little bit of healthy competition across the U.S. is good for everyone. So, whether you’re a football fan, baseball fan, or up and coming sports fan, find a team to cheer for and have fun!
Methodology
For this report, we analyzed Google search volume of 26,933 terms related to NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, minor league baseball and minor league hockey teams such as “Yankees tickets,” “Bears game today,” and “Boston Bruins schedule” over the period of August 2020 to August 2022.
Total search volume during this period was then calculated per capita and visualized per 100,000 to determine which cities were searching the most for sports-related phrases on Google. We examined 50 cities including every city that is home to a professional sports team along with the 30 most populous in America.
For this report, we also analyzed the most disproportionately popular Google search terms to determine each city and state’s favorite sports team. We compared each city and state’s search results to the national average in order to determine which search term has a higher search volume when compared to the national average. This method of analysis allows us to even the playing field between smaller states and cities with lower populations or a lower search volume (such as Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, etc.) and states with a large population with higher search volume (California, Texas, Florida, etc.).
In September 2022, we also surveyed 1,046 people about their favorite NFL team and other NFL fan bases. 49% were female, 49% male, 1% nonbinary, and 1% transgender. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 80. The average age was 38.
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