Ranking the 30 best sports cities in America for 2016

Which city is the best sports city in the United States?

The title of best sports city is one that, depending on how one’s teams performed and what events it hosted, can fluctuate wildly from year to year. Heritage, passion, night life: These are just a few of the factors that figure into what is, at its core, a pretty complicated cultural calculus.

Some, like New York and Chicago, are bound to be shoe-ins. Others — even some big cities — just don’t have the cachet to compete.

With that in mind, it’s important to remember that, given all the cities in the United States, even being in the top 50 means you’ve established something resembling a bona fide sports culture.

But it’s having a strong, loyal fan base, along with being an attractive market for events like Super Bowls, national championships, or even WrestleMania, that separates the good sports cities from the great ones.

After months of historical analysis, data-collection, and on-the-ground research*, we came up with our list of the top 30 sports cities in America. Enjoy!

*Note: We did none of this.

Next: 30. San Diego