Best Baseball Cities

What does it take to be a true baseball fan? Mostly a lot of patience and sometimes a lot of money, depending on how closely you want to follow the sport. In this slow-paced ballgame, hits and home runs are less frequent than strikes and misses. Yet baseball claims the title of Americans’ third most popular sport, after football and basketball. While the sport naturally suffered last year during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, fans have been filling the stands once again this year.

Fans are willing to pay top dollar to see a game, too, especially during the highly anticipated World Series that kicks off every October. Of course, tickets are kinder to the wallet during the regular season. But to see Game 1 of the 117th World Series on Oct. 26, for instance, the cheapest seat at Minute Maid Park in Houston would cost $707, according to TicketIQ. For a ticket at Truist Park, the damage would range from a starting price of $1,489 all the way to a whopping $6,447, as of Oct. 25. That doesn’t leave much room for peanuts and cracker jacks. And that’s not mentioning the hundreds of millions of dollars wagered by the betting market every year.

But it’s more fun, not to mention cheaper, to love on baseball in certain parts of America, so which cities would fans consider a home run? WalletHub crunched the numbers to find out, comparing 332 of the largest U.S. cities with at least one professional or college baseball team, grouped by division. In each city, we looked at 31 key indicators of baseball fan-friendliness. They range from performance level of team(s) to average ticket price per game to stadium accessibility.

Make sure to also check out WalletHub's 2021 World Series Facts – Astros vs. Braves infographic for fun and interesting stats about the matchup.

Main Findings

Best Baseball Cities

Note: With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the table above depict the relative rank of that city, where a rank of 1 represents the best conditions for that metric category.

Ranking by City Size

Ask the Experts

As baseball grows in popularity in the U.S. and abroad, so will the challenges for those in the industry. For insight into those issues, advice on enjoying the ballgame and more, we asked a panel of experts to weigh in with their thoughts on the following key questions:

1. What are the biggest issues facing MLB today?
2. How has fantasy sports affected fans’ enjoyment of MLB?
3. Who are your picks to win the World Series, MVP and Cy Young Awards?
4. What is the best way to enjoy a baseball game on a budget?
5. What impact did the pandemic have on the baseball industry in the past year?

Ask the Experts

Ricky Hazel
Associate Director of Athletics for Communications, Licensing & Branding – Stetson University Athletics
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Marc A. Ouellette
OCT – Assistant Professor, Learning Games Initiative Research Fellow, Department of English – Old Dominion University
Read More

Richard Megraw
Associate Professor, Department of American Studies, College of Arts & Sciences – University of Alabama
Read More

Charles David Kupfer
Associate Professor, American Studies/History, School of Humanities – Penn State Harrisburg, Pennsylvania State University
Read More

Abraham J. Wyner
Professor of Statistics and Data Science; Director of Undergraduate Program in Statistics and Data Science; Faculty Lead of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative – Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania
Read More

Robert Elias
Dean's Scholar; Chair, Legal Studies Program; Department of Politics – University of San Francisco
Read More

Methodology

In order to determine the best cities for baseball fans, WalletHub compared 332 of the most populated U.S. cities based on 31 key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for baseball fans. For our sample, we chose cities with at least one Major League Baseball (MLB), Minor League Baseball (MiLB) or college baseball (NCAA) team.

We then grouped the cities by division and assigned weights to each divisional category according to its popularity among fans. Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.

For the ranking by city size, we grouped and ranked the cities based on the following population-size guidelines:

• Large cities: More than 300,000 people
• Midsize cities: 100,000 to 300,000 people
• Small cities: Fewer than 100,000 people

Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the MiLB and NCAA schedules for the 2019-2020 season, for some metrics we considered the values up to the 2018-2019 season. This helps to ensure a level comparison field among the teams.

MLB – Total Points = 70

• Number of Teams: Full Weight (~7.00 Points)
• Performance Level of Team(s): Triple Weight (~21.00 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing the number of wins by the total number of games played. The past three seasons’ average was used for this calculation.
• Number of Championship Wins: Half Weight (~7.00 Points)
• Number of Regular Season Division Titles: Full Weight (~3.50 Points)
• Number of Hall of Fame Head Coaches: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
• Franchise Value: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
  Note: This metric measures the team(s) estimated value in dollars.
• Average Ticket Price per Game: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
• Fan Engagement: Full Weight (~7.00 Points)
  Note: This metric measures the number of Twitter followers and Facebook “Likes” per capita.
• Number of Coaches in Past 10 Seasons: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
  Note: “Past 10 Seasons” include seasons 2011–2012 to 2020–2021.
• Stadium Capacity: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing stadium capacity by city population.
• Attendance: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing average home-fan attendance by stadium capacity.
• Popularity Index: Half Weight (~3.50 Points)

MiLB – Total Points = 10

• Number of Teams: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
• Performance Level of Team(s): Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing the number of wins by the total number of games played. The past three seasons’ average was used for this calculation.
• Number of Championship Wins: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
• Number of Division Titles: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)
• Number of Hall of Fame Head Coaches: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)
• Minimum Season Ticket Price: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
• Fan Engagement: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
  Note: This metric measures the number of Twitter followers and Facebook “Likes” per capita.
• Number of Coaches in Past 10 Seasons: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)
  Note: “Past 10 Seasons” include seasons 2011–2012 to 2020–2021.
• Stadium Capacity: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing average home-fan attendance by stadium capacity.
• Attendance: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing stadium capacity by city population.

NCAA Baseball – Total Points = 20

• Number of Teams: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)
• Performance Level of Team(s): Full Weight (~2.86 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing the number of wins by the total number of games played. The past three seasons’ average was used for this calculation.
• Number of Championship Wins: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)
• Number of Regular Season Division Titles: Half Weight (~1.43 Points)
• Number of Hall of Fame Head Coaches: Half Weight (~1.43 Points)
• Minimum Season Ticket Price for a Game: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)
• Fan Engagement: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)
  Note: This metric measures the number of Twitter followers and Facebook “Likes” per capita.
• Number of Coaches in Past 10 Seasons: Half Weight (~1.43 Points)
  Note: “Past 10 Seasons” include seasons 2011–2012 to 2020–2021.
• Stadium Capacity: Half Weight (~1.43 Points)
  Note: This metric was calculated by dividing stadium capacity by city population.

 
Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Team Marketing Report, ESPN, MLB Advanced Media, Minor League Baseball, Nielsen, Sports Reference, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, The National Collegiate Athletic Association, Forbes, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and each team’s website.

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