The Sports City Debate

Growing up in the Atlanta area, it's hard to talk about memorable sports moments without referencing the Sid Bream slide, Jamal Anderson's Dirty Bird touchdown celebration, or the Human Highlight Reel. The Braves, Hawks, and Falcons are synonymous with the City. It's hard to imagine Atlanta without the Hawks or Falcons. It's impossible to imagine Atlanta sports without the Braves.

Now, the relationship between the three professional teams and Tech is sometimes blurry or overlooked but it's definitely there. Tech hoops has played a few games in Philips Arena and used to play Georgie in the Omni every year. Tech baseball scrimmages the Braves every other year while also playing the annual Georgie series finale at Turner Field. The Dome and Fulton County have hosted Tech four times in Peach Bowls. Bobby Dodd Stadium actually hosted the Peach Bowl for its first three seasons. And despite Tech's home venue being Alexander Memorial Coliseum, Tech is considered the hosting university when the Dome hosts the Final Four. Tech all time has had 27 Draft selections between the Hawks, Falcons, and Braves. The professional sports in our town provide Tech a unique resource for recruitment and marketing. Not only do we live in a growing metro, we have access to the vast resources of every professional sporting league within the perimeter.

Now, let's look at all of the other cities in major sports. There are 32 NFL host cities. If you consider Foxborough and Boston separate (I do),(Winfield's note: WAIT WAIT HOLD ON! Much discussion has said that Boston needs to be included. I have added Boston to the poll) then there are eleven NBA host cities without NFL franchises. None of the thirty MLB cities lack an NBA or NFL franchise. And finally, there are eight NHL cities that don't have an NBA, NFL, or MLB squad (mostly Canadian cities). So that gives us a list of 51 upper echelon professional sporting cities. And honestly, let's forget hockey as I'm not much of a fan.

Atlanta fits into my "Perfect Storm" scenario, which means the City hosts a combination of NFL, MLB, NBA, and I-A football teams - quality sporting events year round. There are only nine other cities with this great distinction: Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Oakland. If you don't feel Cal-Berkeley deserves to be considered in Oakland, then by all means scratch them from the list. Here's a quick review of the ten Perfect Storm cities that really should be your only viable candidates for any and all future moving plans:

Personally, I'd throw out Philly, Houston, and Dallas as their CFB teams are all historically pretty bad. Thus, we're left with 6 Super Cities. Which city of the Super 6 is the best sporting city? Did my criteria leave out your favorite sporting city?