We have researched the data to reveal the the best baseball cities to live in based on the number of sports bars, food and drink prices, as well as winning percentages and championships.
Best Baseball City in America
1. New York – (6.69 baseball fan score)
New York takes top spot with a score of 6.69 out of 10. New York is home to two teams, the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. Together, both teams have accumulated 29 championships and a win rate of just over 37%. Although New York has the highest number of stadiums and arenas, the number of sports bars per 100,000 is amongst the lowest in the MLB.
2. Atlanta – (6.54 baseball fan score)
Atlanta takes second place with a baseball fan score of 6.54 out of 10. The Atlanta Braves are the local team in Atlanta, and they have a 38% win rate over the last five years, as well as two championships to their name. The Braves’ stadium, Truist Park, also has one of the more reasonably priced food and drink out of the MLB stadiums.
3. Los Angeles/St. Louis/Minneapolis – (6.23 baseball fan score)
Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Minneapolis all share third place to complete our top three with a score of 6.23 out of 10. Los Angeles is home to two teams, the LA Dodgers and the LA Angels. Together, they have won seven championships and accumulated a win rate of just under 37%. However, LA has the second-lowest number of bars per 100,000 people. St. Louis’ local team, the St. Louis Cardinals, have won 10 championships and have accumulated a win rate of just over 36%. Minneapolis, home to the Minnesota Twins, have only won two championships, however have one of the best food and drink prices in the league.
Best Cities to be a Baseball Fan
Rank | City | MLB Team | Sports Bars per 100,000 | Stadiums | Food and drink Price Score | Average Win % (Last 5 Years) | No. of Championships | Score /10 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | New York | New York Yankees New York Mets | 1.2 | 91 | 4.62 | 56.01% | 29 | 6.69 |
2 | Atlanta | Atlanta Braves | 5.8 | 36 | 7.05 | 57.59% | 2 | 6.54 |
3 | Los Angeles | LA Dodgers LA Angels | 0.8 | 90 | 4.74 | 55.20% | 7 | 6.23 |
3 | Minneapolis | Minnesota Twins | 5 | 46 | 8.59 | 53.90% | 2 | 6.23 |
3 | St. Louis | St. Louis Cardinals | 5.7 | 27 | 4.87 | 54.22% | 10 | 6.23 |
6 | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh Pirates | 11.2 | 33 | 6.67 | 41.21% | 5 | 6.08 |
7 | Cincinnati | Cincinnati Reds | 10.6 | 35 | 4.49 | 45.70% | 5 | 5.85 |
8 | Boston | Boston Red Sox | 5.8 | 32 | 3.46 | 53.74% | 7 | 5.77 |
9 | Tampa | Tampa Bay Rays | 4.1 | 51 | 7.05 | 59.45% | 0 | 5.54 |
10 | Denver | Colorado Rockies | 7.2 | 37 | 7.56 | 46.65% | 0 | 5.23 |
11 | Chicago | Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox | 3.8 | 60 | 2.69 | 49.67% | 6 | 5.15 |
11 | Houston | Houston Astros | 2 | 56 | 4.23 | 60.58% | 1 | 5.15 |
13 | Miami | Miami Marlins | 5.3 | 27 | 9.23 | 43.00% | 2 | 4.77 |
14 | Philadelphia | Philadelphia Phillies | 3.1 | 38 | 6.15 | 49.79% | 2 | 4.69 |
15 | Oakland | Oakland Athletics | 5.3 | 31 | 2.05 | 53.31% | 4 | 4.61 |
16 | Toronto | Toronto Blue Jays | 2.3 | 32 | 7.82 | 49.64% | 2 | 4.46 |
17 | Cleveland | Cleveland Guardians | 5.2 | 19 | 5.39 | 54.26% | 2 | 4.38 |
18 | Baltimore | Baltimore Orioles | 7.9 | 19 | 6.28 | 37.22% | 3 | 4.31 |
18 | Phoenix | Arizona Diamondbacks | 0.7 | 51 | 8.85 | 44.23% | 1 | 4.31 |
20 | Detroit | Detroit Tigers | 5.3 | 31 | 4.75 | 39.59% | 4 | 4.15 |
21 | Seattle | Seattle Mariners | 4.6 | 26 | 8.98 | 49.84% | 0 | 4.08 |
22 | San Francisco | San Francisco Giants | 9.5 | 25 | 0.25 | 51.63% | 2 | 4 |
23 | Washington | Washington Nationals | 8.8 | 26 | 2.82 | 45.11% | 1 | 3.46 |
24 | Milwaukee | Milwaukee Brewers | 6.8 | 12 | 2.44 | 55.30% | 0 | 3.38 |
25 | Kansas City | Kansas City Royals | 4.6 | 19 | 7.18 | 40.06% | 2 | 3.31 |
26 | San Diego | San Diego Padres | 1.7 | 36 | 3.85 | 50.11% | 0 | 3 |
27 | Dallas | Texas Rangers | 2 | 72 | 2.82 | 42.05% | 0 | 2.77 |
Methodology
- Using our research into the teams with the best home-field advantage to get the average win percentage for each team in each city for the last five years.
- For cities with more than one team, we took the average for those teams to get the city’s average.
- We used Wikipedia to get the number of championships each NBA team had.
- Our average beer, soft drink, and hot dog prices came from Team Marketing.
- We used Yelp to find the number of sports bars, as well as the number of stadiums and arenas in each city. We looked at sports bars, stadiums, and arenas within five miles of the city center.
- We normalized the above factors to get a score out of 10, before taking an average of these scores to get our results, focusing only on the city’s local team for that sport.