Pittsburgh ranks as top city for football fans
It’s at least one thing Pittsburghers can hold over New England: Our football fans are the best.
In WalletHub’s 2020 edition of its annual survey of Best & Worst Cities for Football Fans, the home of the Black and Gold is unmatched.
Out of 245 U.S. cities, Pittsburgh — with a score of 63.11 — topped all others. Boston came in second with a score of 56.16.
The top 10 rounded out with Dallas, Green Bay, New York, New Orleans, Miami, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Oakland.
How did WalletHub come up with their scores? The personal finance website compared cities with least one college or professional football team across 21 key metrics. They considered things such as number of teams, average ticket prices and fan friendliness. Each entry was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 being the most favorable conditions for football fans.
Pittsburgh was tops among NFL cities and No. 14 among college cities.
Pittsburgh tied with Green Bay for No. 1 when it comes to fan engagement and landed at No. 4 for most accessible NFL stadiums.
Pittsburgh’s AFC North rivals weren’t so fortunate: Baltimore came in at No. 19, Cincinnati landed in the 22nd slot and Cleveland ranked 28th.
WalletHub also broke the cities down into three size categories. Pittsburgh topped the list of major cities — those with more than 300,000 people. Green Bay topped midsize cities (with 100,000-300,000), while Tuscaloosa, Ala., was highest among small cities (less than 100,000).
While State College ranked at 35 in the overall list, it landed as the fifth best city among college football fans. Among small towns, State College was No. 3.
The worst city for football fans? Brookville, N.Y.
Chris Pastrick is a TribLive digital producer. An Allegheny County native, he began working for the Valley News Dispatch in 1993 and joined the Trib in 1997. He can be reached at cpastrick@triblive.com.
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