ESPN ranked the best sport cities of the year, and (drumroll) Houston ranked 32 out of 33, finishing just ahead of Cicinnati and behind cities like Toronto, Nashville and yes our neighbors to the north Dallas. They added teams winning %, championships and players personal achievements. That's cool, they can do whatever they want, but I think if you really take a close look at it, Houston was one of the most exciting sports cities of the year, and will be for many years to come. The addition of Yao Ming to the Rockets, getting a new football franchise the likes of the Houston Texans and a brand spankin' new stadium like Reliant and the Astros signing Jeff Kent away from the San Francisco Giants, oh ya San Fran was ranked #1. And 2003 can only get better, the #3 pick in the college draft, a new basketball arena on the way and another competitive season by he Astros. Maybe I'm a little biased(sp) but it's all good to be a sports fan in Houston. Here's the link: http://msn.espn.go.com/page2/s/cityrankings/030103.html Adrian
It sucks that the national media hates on Houston so much. I personally agree with you adrian. I was born and raised in Houston and am I HUGE sports fan. Why do I love sports so much? Because I love Houston sports. I've seen some amazing characters (Bum Phillips, Vernon Maxwell, Sam Cassell, Moochie, Barkley), breathtaking athletes (Earl Campbell, Hakeem, Warren Moon, Craig Biggio, Bagwell), and glimpsed the future (Francis, Yao, Berkman, Carr, Wade Miller, Roy Oswalt). Now, it seems, for the first time in our city's history, we have three sports teams that want to win and are making a REAL commitment to winning AT THE SAME TIME!! Houston f*ckin' rocks and anyone who doesn't understand that, probably hasn't seen the great things we have. So... screw 'em!
By the way, I was just glancing at that chart, and our "total" of 575 puts us 9th... but because the Oilers left, we were penalized. Thanks Bud, again.
That chart is completely screwed up. It has us at 575, but behind several cities with lower scores. And the penalty was only 50 points for relocation, and I think it was only for relocation this year. Oh well, I could care less what they rank us at, they're #1 in my mind.
You weren't penalized, it was done strictly on the 2002 performance of the teams. You guys had 375, it was a typo. It wasn't on fan support at all(which in Houston it would be in the bottom half anyway IMO).
My bad... or ESPN's bad for that matter. I never said the thing was based on fan support... I attend all kinds of games here in Houston and see the empty seats... My point of posting in this forum is to say that I have enjoyed or at least valued all of my sports experiences in Houston. We don't have many banners and most of our owners have been misers, but I loved watching the bad Astros, Oilers, Rockets, Texans... which shows that measuring something like "best sports city" with numbers and facts is slightly fallible... IMHO.
Yeah Houston has a lot of good fans, as seen just by how this board runs. But as a whole, its more of a bandwagon sports city.
I hate not having an edit ability, I didn't look at the chart much before my statement, I thought it was more of an opinion thing. PS: BAH, Miami just scored!
nearly every city is bandwagon....every team has bandwagon fans...every team, except a very few exceptions, has trouble selling tickets when the team sucks. it's a cultural thing, and it's not exclusive to any one city. sports are entertainment...when they're not entertaining, people stop paying $50/head to attend them. can't wait to see houston's score next year after hosting the super bowl and the MLB all star game. and of course the trifecta of championships from the texans, rockets and astros!
There are few, if any, sports towns that aren't bandwagon (aside from the serious fans). There are some that have more rabid fans that show up, and there are also some cities that talk about thier sports teams more when they completely suck (whereas Houstonians generally will recognize they suck and decide to just not discuss/pay attention as much), but every city out there is a bandwagon city.
The damned thing is still screwed up. It looks like they gave us 5 bonus points for Francis making the all star team. But they didn't give us 4 for Berkman making the MLB all star team or 3 apiece for Walker and Glenn making the Pro Bowl.
