Sports Business Journal ranked the top 50 cities in the U.S. for the best opportunity and environment to conduct sports business. Feedback from industry insiders about stability, market size, fandom, impact and culture also informed our report.
It came up in a conversation among Sports Business Journal editors one day last summer: “What’s the best city for sports business? Can we measure that somehow? What does that even mean? How would you even do that?”
We crunched the numbers for seven months, analyzing nearly half a million bits of data across 377 markets that are the home of at least one professional or Division I college athletic program, or a permanent event. We created an algorithm that took into account quantitative and qualitative data, as well as interviews and sentiment analysis from nearly 100 industry veterans. We learned a lot about what makes a city a great (and not so great) place for sports business.
DALLAS IS NO. 1
In the end, the data, the industry and even rival markets agree: Dallas is clearly the star.
The market’s sports business footprint, which includes Arlington, Fort Worth, Frisco and various U.S. Census-designated suburbs, is growing by the day. Dallas boasts world-class venues, progressive team owners, and a lower cost of living than most of its big-market peers.
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