America's Worst Cities To Be A Sports Fan

[Scurrilous]

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"What do sports fans spend the most time grousing about? Above all else, it's lousy teams or high ticket prices.

Woe is the fan forced to put up with both at once. Who wants to pay premium prices to sit in the stands and watch the losses mount? Fans in Miami know about that. Over the past year, the city's four major sports teams--the Dolphins, Marlins, Heat and Panthers--have combined to win just 40% of their games while fans have forked over money for tickets and accouterments at the seventh-highest rate among 29 major sports metros.

Throw in a $38,632 median household income for the greater Miami area, fifth-lowest of the 29 markets, along with a $292.50 price tag for a family of four to see a game, and the city's pro sports scene ranks as the worst deal in the country by our accounting. That's what happens when the NBA Heat and NFL Dolphins combine to go 16-82 during the 2007-08 season, more than offsetting the competitiveness of baseball's young Florida Marlins.

Lining up behind Miami for the booby prize are San Diego ($300 a game for a family of four; .425 combined winning percentage for the Chargers and Padres), Indianapolis (a lower-income market with middle-of-the-road ticket prices) and New York (second-highest prices in the country for teams that lose just over half their games, the Super Bowl champion Giants not withstanding).

The best deals? You'll find those in Detroit (only No. 17 in costs for a .612 winning percentage for its four teams, including the Stanley Cup champion Red Wings), Houston (third-cheapest prices for a .565 winning percentage), and the Bay Area (so-so teams, but a high-income market with the ninth-lowest costs)."

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[trumad]

1. I think its a income per capita thing

[BOSSHOG]

2. Slightly Off topic but KILN, MISSISSIPPI

hometown of Bret Favre. The one stoplight town now has to clean up all the Green Bay graffiti and replace it with Jet graffiti. There must be a cost factor there.

[LisaM]

3. I nominate Seattle - no hockey, and now no NBA

and now apparently some law that you have to put fan transit bids out to a private company means there will no longer be any public transportation to Seahawks' games (Seahawks turned down the private bid but the public buses somehow now can't provide the transportation. I think this will get reversed, though).

[MrCoffee]

4. But we're getting MLS next year

[LisaM]

5. Yeah, with the ugliest uniform I've ever seen

I know, I know, they all have corporate logos on them, but couldn't we at least have a self-respecting beer company? They have the X-Box logo on them, fer crissakes.

[Auggie]

6. America's most frustrating city has got to be...

CLEVELAND!!!

[Captain Hilts]

8. Have you heard of a guy named 'LeBron'?

[HughBeaumont]

9. No rings in 44 years. Only three times to a championship.

The last time Cleveland won anything, all four Beatles, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were still alive. My 61 year old dad was halfway in his senior year in high school and Barack Obama was 3 years old.

And unless Mo Williams does a good 18-20 a night, it's going to be 45 . . . and if LeBron does bolt for the STILL going to be shit-sorry for years Knicks or Nets, we may just hang it up.

People view him as the last chance this city has. This city's sports teams, if not suffering from just plain old bad luck, are plagued with GMs and owners that always seem to possess the worst decision making skills and have questionable judgement in talent assessment. A LeBron doesn't strike twice in a lifetime for mid-market teams. It just doesn't happen.

[nomorenomore08]

7. What about the north side of Chicago (Cubs territory)?

A freakin' CENTURY since their last World Series title! I'm in Northern California myself, but one of the saddest things I've ever seen was the final game of the 2003 NLCS, Cubs vs. Marlins, when the Cubs lost and they showed a very elderly woman, decked out in Cubs gear, crying her eyes out.