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Glendale is among the Top 5 best mid-size sports cities in the U.S., according to a new report.
The city is home to the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, is the spring training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, and boasts collegiate sports programs at Arizona Christian University and Glendale Community College.
The personal-finance website WalletHub on Nov. 10 released its report on 2021’s Best Sports Cities. To determine the cities where the game is always on regardless of season, WalletHub compared 392 small to large cities across the five largest sports in the U.S.: football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer.
Among the “Best Midsize Sports Cities” Glendale checked in at No. 5 overall, following Buffalo, New York; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Orlando, Florida.
State Farm Stadium, at 1 Cardinals Drive, Glendale, has garnered recognition including being named “Event Site of the Year” by Event Solutions Magazine in 2007, Best NFL Facility by Sports Business Journal and Sports Business Daily in 2006 and 2007, NFL’s best playing surface in 2008 and Best New Venue of the 2000s by SportsIllustrated.com.
The stadium has hosted two Super Bowls, two National College Football Championship games, and the 2017 NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship. Glendale will also host the 2023 Super Bowl at State Farm Stadium.
Glendale was the only Arizona city to make the Top 10 in any category.
Boston is ranked the top “Large Sports City,” followed by Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
For the study, WalletHub assigned each sports category a weight corresponding with the total percentage of adults in the U.S. who claim to follow that particular sport, according to The Global Sports Media Consumption Report. Because some adults claim to be fans of more than one sport, the sum of all the weights is greater than 100 percent.
Each sports category was also graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for sports fans. Finally, WalletHub determined each city’s weighted average across all sports categories to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order its sample.
In the U.S., 59% of all adults claim to be sports fans.
Despite the impact of the pandemic, the North American sports industry is expected to grow from a value of $71.1 billion in 2018 to $83.1 billion in 2023, with money coming from ticket and merchandise sales, media rights and sponsorship fees.
Steve Stockmar has been with the Independent Newsmedia team since 2017. An NAU alum and Peoria resident, Steve’s community journalism pursuits focus mostly on arts & culture, education, and profiles of neighbors making a difference. In his spare time Steve plays in a vintage baseball league using uniforms and rules from the 1860s, and also acts (badly) in community theater. In addition, he has an unhealthy obsession with baseball and the Chicago Cubs.