Get used to seeing more Americans sporting baseball fan gear this summer. If 2014’s any indication — Major League Baseball witnessed its seventh biggest attendance of all time this past September — we may see yet another record-breaking baseball season in 2015.
Americans can’t seem to get enough of it. Baseball is the second most followed sport in the U.S., claiming more than 52 million of the entire adult population. But baseball’s a much bigger seller beyond the snacks, tees, bats and mitts. There’s an entire segment of baseball’s market betting top dollar on their favorite teams. This past year alone, the public wagered $722 million on the sport.
With June 8 kicking off Major League Baseball’s first-year player draft and 2014’s record-topping MLB attendance boding well for the current baseball season, the leading personal finance website WalletHub took an in-depth look at 2015’s Best & Worst Cities for Baseball Fans.
In order to find the best cities to be a fan of your favorite American pastime, WalletHub crunched the numbers for 272 of the most populated U.S. cities across 11 key metrics. Some of the metrics in our data set include the performance level of each city’s teams, average ticket and minimum season ticket prices, stadium accessibility and more.
Best Cities for Baseball Fans | Worst Cities for Baseball Fans | ||||
1 | St. Louis, MO | 258 | Pine Bluff, AR | ||
2 | Pittsburgh, PA | 259 | New Rochelle, NY | ||
3 | Cincinnati, OH | 260 | New Haven, CT | ||
4 | Atlanta, GA | 261 | Greeley, CO | ||
5 | Cleveland, OH | 262 | Newark, NJ | ||
6 | Stanford, CA | 263 | Portland, OR | ||
7 | Cullowhee, NC | 264 | Stockton, CA | ||
8 | Anaheim, CA | T-265 | Colorado Springs, CO | ||
9 | Oakland, CA | T-265 | West Hartford, CT | ||
10 | Minneapolis, MN | 267 | Teaneck, NJ | ||
11 | Kansas City, MO | 268 | Evanston, IL | ||
12 | Chapel Hill, NC | 269 | Fort Wayne, IN | ||
13 | Detroit, MI | 270 | Jersey City, NJ | ||
14 | San Francisco, CA | 271 | San Jose, CA | ||
15 | Arlington, TX | 272 | Providence, RI |
Key Stats
- The performance level of the college baseball team(s) is six times higher in Charlottesville, Va., than in Old Westbury, N.Y.
- The average ticket price for an MLB game is three times higher in Boston than in San Diego.
- The number of sports bars per capita is 38 times higher in Morgantown, W.Va., than in Evanston, Ill.
- The attendance rate for MLB games is three times higher in San Francisco than in Cleveland.