Sports Town Index
Best pro football town? It’s Pittsburgh
Photo by Eric Petor | Flickr
The Steelers Nation is one of the most-widely recognized examples of rabid team loyalty in all of sports. So it should come as little surprise that the city the Steelers have called home for 81 years claims the ranking as the best pro football sports town among the PittsburghTODAY benchmark cities when franchise support, on-field performance and history are the measures.
But it is not a runaway – close on Pittsburgh’s heels is Baltimore, where the Steelers’ fiercest on-field rival resides.
The Sports Town Index: Pro Football Edition ranks 15 PittsburghTODAY benchmark cities as pro football sports towns based on data reflecting the performance of franchises and how well cities have supported them over the breadth of their history with the sport.
Performance data used to calculate a city’s overall score as a pro football sports town include winning percentage, National Football League championships and the total most valuable player awards won. Measures of community support include the number of current franchises, the total years each franchise has operated in a city and how many have left or gone out of business. (For more on the methodology visit: http://pittsburghtoday.org/best-sports-town-index.html).
Like all indices, our Sports Town Index is subjective and its methods are ripe for debate, despite the care taken in constructing it.
And before anyone cries foul over Pittsburgh rising to the top of an index designed by a Pittsburgh-based indicators project, consider this: When we apply the same methodology to pro baseball, football, basketball and hockey data to determine the overall best sports town, Boston is the hands-down winner and Pittsburgh comes in a respectable, but distant fourth.
Solid all around
Pittsburgh excels in the categories that influence the pro football Sports Town Index the most. The Steelers franchise has survived more than eight decades. Only the Lions of Detroit have been around longer. The Steelers’ six championships allow Pittsburgh to join Baltimore and Cleveland as the benchmark cities with the most.
The Steelers’ overall .521 winning percentage is remarkable considering the franchise spent much of the first half of its life as lovable losers. But it is only sixth best among ranked cities.
What more than compensates for that middling score – and gives Pittsburgh an edge over half of its competitors – is the fact it has never lost a pro football franchise to another town or financial misfortune. And by doing so, it avoids the harsh punishment the Sports Index methodology reserves for cities where franchises bolt or fail.
Neck and neck
Baltimore’s NFL Colts and Ravens have won as many championships as Pittsburgh, have a higher total winning percentage and have collected twice as many most valuable player awards.
But Baltimore hasn’t supported pro football nearly as long as its southwestern Pennsylvania rival. And the five points docked for the Colts walking out on Baltimore for the greener (artificial) pastures of Indianapolis in 1984 drops the city into second place in the pro football Sports Town rankings.
Two relatively recent pro football cities, Denver and Indianapolis, take third and fourth place, respectively, largely on the strength of their teams’ on-field performances. Close behind are Minnesota, Cleveland and Boston.
It’s the misfortune of having lost multiple franchises that keeps Cleveland and Boston from rising higher in the rankings despite having fielded teams that stand tall among the most accomplished in the game.
Cleveland has supported franchises for as long as Pittsburgh, has a higher winning percentage than Pittsburgh and has won as many championships as Pittsburgh. But the city is on its fourth franchise, having lost the Bulldogs, Rams and the original Browns. Each of those departed franchises, however, won championships – something no other benchmark city can boast.
Boston also supported a Bulldogs franchise, and a Boston Yanks and a Boston Braves franchise before settling in with the Patriots. But even the successes the city has enjoyed during the Tom Brady-Spy Gate-Inflate Gate era can’t mend the damage of losing so many franchises.
Historic woes
Philadelphia shows that even supporting a franchise for more than 80 years doesn’t amount to much in the Sports Town Index when the franchise is a loser over the long haul. Despite winning three championships, the Eagles post an overall losing record, which keeps the city down.
Detroit, whose Lions have four championship rings, is ranked even lower thanks to one of the poorest winning percentages and having lost the NFL Panthers and Wolverines franchises.
Cincinnati and St. Louis are less experienced than Detroit in supporting NFL franchises and even less accomplished on the field. Cincinnati is still looking for its first championship. St. Louis has one, the Rams in 2000.
St. Louis also has the lowest winning percentage of the cities. And it’s a revolving door, having lost the Gunners, All Stars and Cardinals. That lethal combination dooms St. Louis to last place in the pro football Sports Town Index. And it’s not looking up for the city along the Mississippi. The Rams are widely considered the most likely NFL franchise to relocate in the near future.
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