Not 10M. More like 6.5M and that's being slightly generous. Houston has always been the outsider. Houston is the only city that doesn't feel as "Texan" as DFW, SA, or Austin do. It's the most isolated. Even though it is closer miles wise to Austin and SA than DFW, those three cities are all connected along one interstate that runs through the most densely populated area of the state (Waco, Killeen-Temple, etc.). You can blame the Gulf of Mexico for cutting off some of Houston's sphere of influence, too. Houston is the only flat major city in Texas and the most international. Only the Astros had a larger state following than Rangers. The Rangers being successful now and being called the Texas Rangers as sort of took some of that luster off (though when the Astros become good again, I think their bandwagon will be larger).
You posted all that because you wanted to tell me the approximate population of Greater Houston when it should have been obvious we were talking about the "blob" of influence that both encompasses Houston and meekly extends beyond its borders? And then you wanted to tell me about the geography of the city I was born and raised in? What is this thing.
I guess I'll also take this opportunity to point out that when it comes to towns that do not have sports teams of their own, television franchising agreements often play a more significant role in dictating who is a fan of what team than a sense of "oneness" or "community" or (what else did you say?) "shared highway use" with neighboring towns that have teams. One would think that people in Austin, for instance, were already clamoring to see the San Antonio Spurs, and so Fox Sports Southwest is merely performing a service when they carry Spurs games instead of Rockets games. What's the problem there? Unfortunately, that's not how that crap works at all. It's very cart before the horse instead. Austin in particular was a disputed territory that the Mavs, Spurs, and Rockets all wanted a piece of. But only one team could make a deal. We are now speaking of events that are decades old, but it suffices to say that a sports team's borders, the areas of influence, are often shaped not so much by the people living in an area and whatever they may actually want, but through television franchise agreements, and then the expectation is that the fan base itself is then theirs to mold and command. And generally, it is. As a resident in a teamless area, you either watch the games of the neighboring team they broadcast for free or air on basic cable or you don't. Those are your two simplest choices. Meanwhile, the franchising agreements are created and then renewed into perpetuity, and by that first renewal or so, the fan base has been established, and any vague, unclaimed pockets of potential sports fans are claimed, they're converted over, just as the franchisee desired. The team gets to expand its fan base and sphere of influence beyond the borders of its respective town, the television network that broadcasts the games is able to make money selling TV ad time for gaudy Spurs jewelry... ...and the residents themselves--after watching a neighboring team play on television for a few decades--are finally on board with supporting the foreign team. Everybody's happy! Except of course for those people who had no choice in the matter and have to become League Pass or satellite subscribers just to watch basketball games for a team that is a couple of hours' drive away. I can't imagine they'd be very happy at all. But this is the way of the world.
The population I posted included the "blob" of influence outside of Greater Houston (Beaumont, College Station, Huntsville). Besides, my first two sentences was my only response to you. The rest was just my idea on why Houston sports teams aren't as popular in the rest of the state. And I was born and raised in Houston, too.
Going for the rare triple post here. He's going the distance. He's going for speed. Adding to the list of things that piss me off about the San Antonio Spurs: We've all seen this fan map at one time or another. No? Okay well there it is. Note the erroneously small trisection of Texas dedicated to the Spurs. Sportswriters looking for future employment have blown smoke up our asses for years now about how the Spurs are a "small market team." And of all they've accomplished as a "small market team." What a well-run, small market team! To have won so much! While being in a small market! Small market! P.S. Small market! But point in fact, the Spurs have one of the largest fan bases in the NBA. The "small market" sycophants are people who have never set foot in Texas, just looked at the population of San Antonio, and then concluded that they had accomplished so much based solely on that population. Look carefully at that map, and then imagine that the Spurs lines extend way north of where they do, almost all the way up to the southern border of Dallas, because that's the reality. Now also imagine that they extend farther east than where they do, so as to make that little triangle that represents Rockets support even sadder and punier than it is. Because that's the reality, too. We can speak intelligently about how the Mavs own north Texas. And about how Houston owns southeast Texas. But through aggressive branding and shady TV deals--being bullies in the marketplace, basically--the San Antonio Spurs own everything else. The entire damn rest of the state. This notion that they are a small market team is illusion, it's a fallacy. The fact is they've been successful with the help of most of the population of one of the most populated states in the country. My oh my, what an accomplishment. x infinity
What a crap map. Yeah, the Washington Wizards only have fans in Maryland and none in Northern Virginia, where most of Metro Washington lives. Spurs have a large following geographically, but population wise, it doesn't match the Rockets or Mavs. Speaking about the Rockets, there is a nice following in SW Louisiana.
