With the 2016 World Series kicking off today, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2016’s Best Baseball Cities to go along with its 112th World Series By The Numbers infographic.
To determine the best places to be a fan of America’s second most followed sport, WalletHub compared the 361 largest U.S. cities with at least one college or professional baseball team across 25 key metrics. They range from “performance level of team(s)” to “average ticket price” to “stadium accessibility.”
| Top 20 Baseball Cities | |||||
| 1 | New York, NY | 11 | Detroit, MI | ||
| 2 | St. Louis, MO | 12 | Oakland, CA | ||
| 3 | Los Angeles, CA | 13 | Kansas City, MO | ||
| 4 | Atlanta, GA | 14 | Cleveland, OH | ||
| 5 | Boston, MA | 15 | Minneapolis, MN | ||
| 6 | Arlington, TX | 16 | St. Petersburg, FL | ||
| 7 | Cincinnati, OH | 17 | Baltimore, MD | ||
| 8 | San Francisco, CA | 18 | Milwaukee, WI | ||
| 9 | Pittsburgh, PA | 19 | Seattle, WA | ||
| 10 | Chicago, IL | 20 | Philadelphia, PA | ||
Best vs. Worst
- The St. Louis Cardinals’ performance level is 1.4 times better than the Houston Astros’.
- The State College Spikes’ performance level is two times better than the Bristol Pirates’.
- The Louisville Cardinals’ performance level is seven times better than the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils’.
- Phoenix has the lowest average season ticket price (for MLB games), $18.53, which is three times less expensive than in Boston, the city with the highest, $54.79.
- San Francisco has the highest attendance as a percentage of stadium capacity (for MLB games), 99.2 percent, which is 2.2 times higher than in Cleveland, the city with the lowest, 44.7 percent.
