Houston is ranked #5 on the list... Here is the yahoo link: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ys-forbesmisery041409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns The Forbes Link: http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/13/am...business-sports_slide_11.html?thisSpeed=15000
It's funny.. because me, xcomp, and logicx were discussing this as after the loss last night in the Clutchfans chatroom. We are the 4th largest city in the U.S. - Each city ahead of us and some even behind us have a sports franchise that has had some sort of success. NY - Yankees LA - Lakers Chicago - Bulls For us.. we've got 2 championships from the Clutch City days, that's it. The Astros have a pennant (which IMO means nothing), and the Texans are a new franchise (upcoming franchise). Oilers were a disappointment, though they had their glory years.. We haven't had much success in sports here in Houston, and it's pretty sad. I know we aren't the only city like this, but a city as big as ours, when you look at the other big cities.. they have had more success. Right now though, our city is compared most likely to Philadelphia in terms of sports.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure Houston is the 6th largest metropolitan area (once you include the suburbs and whatnot), which slots Houston just below Philly (and just above Miami). And if you think about Houston being the 10th largest media market, that puts Houston between Washington, D.C. (who, aside from the Redskins, have been pretty sports miserable) and Detroit (who are certainly football-miserable right now).
I wasn't saying he wasn't right. He was pointing out that Houston's sport success is a good bit less than the three larger cities in the U.S. I just noted that if you slot Houston by metro area or by TV market size, you can maybe feel a little better comparing Houston's success to the markets that are at about the same size.
And also, the 4th largest city thing is kind of silly. I would venture to wager that at least some of those 3.5 million people who live in the Houston MSA but not within the city limits of Houston are Houston sports fans just like I would venture to bet that there are at least a couple of Jets and Giants fans in New York City, even though the teams play in a different city. And, too, I don't think anybody calculating "sports misery" would say that Dallas only has the one Stars Stanley Cup as their only championship, even though Forbes uses the word "city" in their analysis.
how does houston have the 10th largest market if we're the forth largest city? i thought everyone in houston was fat n watched tv lol or thats the sterotype
Because while Houston is big, it's suburbs are not as large as the suburbs in some other cities. Same with San Antonio, which is the nation's 7th largest city but the 37th largest TV market. And sometimes it works the other way. Dallas is the 9th largest city but the 5th largest TV market. Within the city limits, Dallas has 1 million fewer people in it than Houston. But when all the suburbs are added in, the greater Dallas area ends up with 500,000 more people than the greater Houston area. Also Nielson measures TV households, so either there are a bunch of households in Houston without TVs or the are larger than average households (more people living in the same house, on average).
Fitting that Seattle is the most miserable city. The Thieves went to OKC, the Mariners have sucked for years (although maybe not this year), the Seahawks imploded last year, and UW went 0-12 last year. The city is excited about our new professional soccer team. It's eerie how depressing the sport scene is up here.
Dallas and Ft. Worth are two major cities, and this has been a misconception for some time. You rarely see Baltimore and Washington DC lumped together, and they are similar, distance-wise. I'm not sure why Ft. Worth is always gipped out of any recognition.
Ft. Worth is included in the Dallas market, right? Or is it considered its own market? And Houston has ~2 million within the city limits....does that number make us the 4th largest or is it the ~5.5 million in the metropolitan area or whatever it's called? (Actually....what is it called?)
It's usually lumped in with the Dallas market (especially for TV purposes since Dallas and Fort Worth share media), though it's almost never considered a "suburb" of Dallas like Arlington (over 370,000 people, which is bigger than the cities of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Buffalo, if you consider the population within the city limits of each city). Fort Worth alone is roughly the size of Austin proper. Based on the city population alone, it's the 17th largest city in the nation. The 2.2 million within the city limits is what makes Houston the 4th largest city. When you add the suburbs, Houston falls down the list a little bit.
Metro area is better indication of city size rather than "city limits", which really have no meaning at all except on the mailing address. Houston's city size is severely inflated as indicated by being only the 10th largest media market.
