Missoula Loves Football… Or Maybe Not, According To A Study
Football.... football.... football!
America's most popular sport is gearing up for the biggest extravaganza in our nation's sporting landscape: The Super Bowl. It's this Sunday between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Fransisco 49ers. Or if you're like me it's the Who Cares and the Who Cares.
Regardless, I still love me some football. WalletHub tried to quantify how much cities across the U.S. love football. The financial website dove into the stats ahead of Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday.
To determine the best places for enjoying America's favorite sport, WalletHub compared more than 240 U.S. cities with at least one college or professional football team based on 21 key metrics. -WH
WalletHub ranked cities out of 100 points. 75 points dedicated to NFL metrics (Number of NFL Championship Wins, Franchise Value, NFL Fan Engagement, Stadium Size and Average Ticket Price to name a few) and 25 points allocated towards college football presence (Number of College Football Teams, Performance of College Football Teams, Stadium Capacity, etc.)
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Missoula and Bozeman made the list
The home of the University of Montana checked in ahead of the Montana State University city. Missoula was ranked 65 while Bozeman checked in at 92.
Both cities are, obviously, docked by no NFL teams, but some of the other NFL-less cities listed above seem ridiculous to me. For instance, how is Kingston, Rhode Island (#60) a better football town than Missoula? Kingston has two schools, I recognize that point, but you can't tell me the University of Rhode Island and Brown Football have stronger fan bases than Montana. Or Ypsilanti, Michigan (#68) and Eastern Michigan University?
Other findings
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dallas, Texas and Green Bay, Wisconsin were the top three cities on the list. No coincidence all three harbor an iconic NFL franchise.
The bottom three were Easton, Massachusetts, Valparaiso, Indiana and Bloomington, Indiana. If anyone can name which school is located in Easton, MA I will be very impressed. Valparaiso has Valpo State and Bloomington has the Hoosiers.
Easton has the UMass Minutemen. Apparently, Eastonians don't care for football.