For places that have both an NFL and NBA team, how many of those places would you say care more about the NBA team?

[DaPessimist]

If we're talking about actual numbers here, the answer is zero.

[okboomer]

I do think if the Sonics never left Seattle would be another potential place. They did leave though and right after they left the Seahawks took off.

[Hangtime84]

Chicago Bulls have had more recent playoff success than the bears but this place very much a football town.

[jkvonny]

I do think if the Sonics never left Seattle would be another potential place. They did leave though and right after they left the Seahawks took off.

That's a good one!!

Seattle. For awhile the SuperSonics were bigger than the Seahawks (they stunk for a long time) Seahawks and Mariners (MLB) were expansion teams that struggled early on.
SuperSonics were an expansion team, too. But a lil bit older and very successful early on.
They won an NBA title in 1979. Been in 3 NBA Finals.
Seahawks didn't start winning often until the mid 2000s, around the time SuperSonics started to decline and then relocate.
Mariners has been good in some years. Now they have a new NHL team Kraken.
I think Seahawks and Mariners are kings in Seattle right now.

But the SuperSonics were huge, popular in Washington back in the days.

Check out the video below lol
'90s pop punk song. SuperSonics song

https://youtu.be/Xe4PN9Ifmpg?si=lqneZmTq0KDvhbtd

[jokeboy86]

Chicago Bulls have had more recent playoff success than the bears but this place very much a football town.

When the Bears are good you can hear it all the way in Wisconsin. And right now the hype and buzz with Williams now with Ben Johnson is deafening. As a Packers fan I haven’t seen Bears fans this excited in years and that even includes the Urlacher/Smith years.

[California Gold]

Living in the LA area, I'd say it's a tie between Lakers and Dodgers. Those two are by far the two biggest teams here. It's one of the rare metros where basketball or baseball can be #1 and football is a distant from those, St Louis is probably another one that comes to mind where baseball is king.

Really I would say the towns where baseball is arguably #1 is a short list.

St Louis (Cardinals)
New York (Yankees)
Los Angeles (Dodgers)
Boston (Red Sox)

That's probably it.

For basketball I'd say only LA can make an argument there as well.

[JayMKE]

LA is the only place where the NBA outpaces the NFL imo

[Liam_Gallagher]

No one mentioned the Raptors over the Argonauts?

[MrGoat]

Dallas has been close to it before, may have actually been the case after 2011 and a couple years afterwards. The Cowboys have been so frustrating for so long there is a lot of ire towards them, they might have more haters than fans at this point.

[FlyingArrow]

Living in the LA area, I'd say it's a tie between Lakers and Dodgers. Those two are by far the two biggest teams here. It's one of the rare metros where basketball or baseball can be #1 and football is a distant from those, St Louis is probably another one that comes to mind where baseball is king.

Really I would say the towns where baseball is arguably #1 is a short list.

St Louis (Cardinals)
New York (Yankees)
Los Angeles (Dodgers)
Boston (Red Sox)

That's probably it.

For basketball I'd say only LA can make an argument there as well.

Cincinnati Reds >> Bengals

[AbeVigodaLive]

We can safely say America is way more into the NFL than the NBA in general, and for most places, it’s the football team that reigns supreme in terms of a city’s sports identity, way more than their NBA counterpart. For example, I don’t think it’s controversial at all to say that Dallas cares way more about the Cowboys than the Mavs, and Milwaukee cares way more about the Packers than the Bucks. Eagles over Sixers for sure.

But which cities/states actually care more about their NBA team than their NFL counterpart?

A few that come to mind for me (and are probably still arguable):

-Celtics over Patriots
-Bulls over Bears (maybe more so during the 90s, probably not so much now)
-Lakers over Rams/Chargers
-Knicks over Giants/Jets

Which others?

Wisconsin folks are diehards in all of their sports. Brewers, Bucks, Packers. So it's hard to say. I'd probably lean Packers over Bucks.
Same thing with Michigan folks and Minnesota folks. Upper midwest. They love their teams. Minn Twins, Wild , TWolves, Vikings. Detroit Lions, RedWings, Tigers, Pistons.
I'd probably lean Lions over Pistons and Vikings over Twolves tho. But again...football is king in the US.

There's no question about Wisconsin. None.

It's Packers >>>>> everything. In fact, it's probably one of the easier calls.

[NZB2323]

We can safely say America is way more into the NFL than the NBA in general, and for most places, it’s the football team that reigns supreme in terms of a city’s sports identity, way more than their NBA counterpart. For example, I don’t think it’s controversial at all to say that Dallas cares way more about the Cowboys than the Mavs, and Milwaukee cares way more about the Packers than the Bucks. Eagles over Sixers for sure.

But which cities/states actually care more about their NBA team than their NFL counterpart?

A few that come to mind for me (and are probably still arguable):

-Celtics over Patriots
-Bulls over Bears (maybe more so during the 90s, probably not so much now)
-Lakers over Rams/Chargers
-Knicks over Giants/Jets

Which others?

Wisconsin folks are diehards in all of their sports. Brewers, Bucks, Packers. So it's hard to say. I'd probably lean Packers over Bucks.
Same thing with Michigan folks and Minnesota folks. Upper midwest. They love their teams. Minn Twins, Wild , TWolves, Vikings. Detroit Lions, RedWings, Tigers, Pistons.
I'd probably lean Lions over Pistons and Vikings over Twolves tho. But again...football is king in the US.

There's no question about Wisconsin. None.

It's Packers >>>>> everything. In fact, it's probably one of the easier calls.

For sure. I think a lot of people in Wisconsin would rather go to a Packers preseason game than a Bucks playoff game.

[flranger]

Looked up the Florida specialty plate (where you can get license plates in your favorite team) and was surprised to see Miami Heat far outdistances the next closest team plate in the state (Bucs).

There were a bunch of Dolphin fans as I was growing up, but they have definitely faded. I"m going to agree the Heat probably own Miami and are more popular.

[Tnasty4l]

I like Football but I love Basketball; GO PACERS!!!

[benson13]

LA. Neither team has been in town for ten years. They were without an NFL team for 20 years. I think if the Raiders and Rams don't leave in the mid 90's, then football reigns supreme. If you're a season ticket holder for any NFL team, you always hope and pray your team doesn't suck in years they have home game against the Raiders. The smell of weed and probation violations is everywhere.

The Warriors moved from Oakland to San Francisco, and I'd say they're bigger than the 49ers there.

[Myth]

I'm Boston born and raised and still reside here - Patriots will always be bigger than the Celtics no matter how **** the Pats are doing.

How would you rank these?

Patriots
Celtics
Red Sox
Bruins

I’ve been living in Rhode Island for 10 years (an hour outside of Boston, everybody raised here are Boston sports fans). I don’t know if they are slightly different from Boston proper, but I’ve asked this question directly and this is how they ranked them and it was a unanimous among the 5 I asked:

Patriots
Red Sox
Bruins
Celtics

[kwajo]

If I'm thinking outside the box on this, then Toronto sort of had an NFL team in the Bills when they played there [the GTA is still counted as part of the Bills market too], so in a way you could say that the NBA would be more popular than the NFL in the GTA.

[cornchip]

I'm Boston born and raised and still reside here - Patriots will always be bigger than the Celtics no matter how **** the Pats are doing.

I would say the Red Sox lap the Celtics quite easily as well. NFL is king in whatever city they’re in and I would say the MLB teams also have a larger following in cities they share with the NBA with maybe the Lakers having the ability to draw even with the Dodgers but I don’t know.

NFL and MLB focus on teams and tradition while the NBA is a shorter attention span league hitching their wagon on whichever “star” is popular at the moment along with their off court shenanigans and forecasting which teams they’re gonna hop to next. Guess which is the more stable business model long term?

Yeah, the Bruins may even be ahead of the Celtics. It's New England and hockey is huge up here. Though the Bruins suck right now, so it's probably the Celtics atm. Maybe in the 80's the Celtics were bigger than the Patriots. Some guy named Brady changed all of that. And the Red Sox are closer to the Patriots than the Celtics are to the Red Sox. Bruins and Celtics flip flop depending on if they are good or bad.


As for the topic, the few places I can think of where basketball is huge... there is more interest in the college teams than the NBA teams. Duke, UNC are bigger in North Carolina than the Hornets. I'm not from North Carolina so I can't tell you if fans care more about the Panters or UNC/Duke but I guess it's pretty close.

I think the Hornets could be bigger than the Panthers in Charlotte for a couple of reasons.

First, basketball is that huge there. At the HS level, obviously the college level, even at the rec level when I grew up there. Plus a lot of transplants that fall in love with UNC/Duke/NCST could potentially also become Hornets fans.

Second and this is the biggest one (and it may change): football has always been a pretty big deal too and the Panthers are relatively new. Because of this, many Charlotte fans simply stayed with their favorite teams when the Panthers came around. My dad has lived in Charlotte or around the area for almost 70 years and he just refuses to become Panthers fan out of loyalty to the Cowboys. Even I'm a Panthers/49ers fan.

[SportsGuru08]

Phoenix is another city I'd include. The Suns are their original team and easily the most beloved in the area.

The Cardinals have a decent sized fan base but their stadium gets a lot of opposing fans every game.

[thejigglyroom]

LA. Neither team has been in town for ten years. They were without an NFL team for 20 years. I think if the Raiders and Rams don't leave in the mid 90's, then football reigns supreme. If you're a season ticket holder for any NFL team, you always hope and pray your team doesn't suck in years they have home game against the Raiders. The smell of weed and probation violations is everywhere.

The Warriors moved from Oakland to San Francisco, and I'd say they're bigger than the 49ers there.

The Warriors don’t even sniff the 9ers let alone the Giants in the Bay.

It’s

49ers
Giants


Warriors