The madness is marching its way across the country, but college basketball fans are a bit more fanatical in some cities than others.
College basketball is a big deal, and in some places draws a bigger crowd than an NBA team. For example, the most profitable team, the Louisville Cardinals, has a yearly revenue of nearly $48.6 million. But the sport is about much more than the money; it’s about the players and the entertainment value. Which cities provide the most exciting teams to root for?
To identify 2022′s best and worst cities for college basketball fans, WalletHub compared the 292 U.S. cities with at least one college (Division 1) team using nine relevant metrics that range from the number of teams per city to arena capacity and social-media engagement. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for fans.
The cities were ranked not only overall but also within these groupings:
- Large cities: More than 300,000 people
- Midsize cities: 100,000 to 300,000 people
- Small cities: Fewer than 100,000 people
WalletHub’s top five scores overall were:
- Durham, North Carolina (Duke University): 57.63
- Storrs, Connecticut (Unversity of Connecticut): 55.65
- Lexington, Kentucky (University of Kentucky): 54.14
- Lawrence , Kansas (University of Kansas): 53.42
- Los Angeles (University of California, Los Angeles): 53.31
You can check out the city where your school is using the interactive map below or on WalletHub’s website.
No Georgia city came close to those numbers. In fact, the state’s highest score was 23.32, earned by Statesboro (Georgia Southern University). That earned the city a rank of 163 overall and 96 among small cities.
Next was Atlanta (Georgia Tech and Georgia State University), with a score of 23.18. That placed the city at No. 168 overall and No. 30 among large cities.
Coming in third was Macon (Mercer and Middle Georgia State universities), with a score of 20.56, ranking it 219 overall and 59 among midsize cities.
Athens (University of Georgia) tallied a score of just 17.37, which ranked them No. 263 overall and No. 67 among midsize cities.
That left Kennesaw (Kennesaw State University), which scored just 16.58, putting it at No. 272 overall and No. 151 among small cities.
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