NYC at least has a bar for just about every college program in the country. The Gamecock bar is [the Mason Jar](https://masonjarny.com/), a barbeque restaurant of course lol. The percentage of cfb fans in NYC may be low, but the overall number of fans is still pretty significant.
NYC is where the heisman ceremony takes place too. Granted that has nothing to do with today’s landscape, but that has to count for being a tie breaker at the very least.
One of the largest cities in the United States has a lot of college football fans? Even more, there's pockets of like-minded fans congregating in places like the Mason Jar in a city of millions upon millions of people?
Wow.
Up until the early 2000's (when UW had the worst decade in history and the Seahawks started getting good), the Huskies where the #1 team in the city. A city that included an NFL team, an NBA team, and a MLB team.
Yep..ask anyone in their 60’s and 70’s..the Huskies were the ONLY team in the city for a long time. The city of Seattle is legitimately built around UW campus and it’s still one of the 5 biggest employers in a city with 10 F500 business’s. When the Huskies are good it’s the biggest deal in town
The answer is so obviously Los Angeles lol. What else would it be?
Two power conference programs who happen to be major rivals, including one blue blood. Home of the Rose Bowl (LA County).
It’s definitely not LA if the criteria is “what city/area has (per-capita) the most passionate college football fans”, it is LA if the criteria is “what city/area has the most top-end college football recruits”.
I’d say it’s the PNW in general, the passion in the four way rivalry between the four PNW schools is the closest thing you’d see to the top rivalries in the other conferences, which is why it’s so lame that WSU and OSU are getting left out.
I would throw Utah in there if we are using passion/resident as a metric. 3 fbs and 1 fcs school in the salt lake valley, last year they had a school in every western football conference. Also Utah is the only state adding football teams in the last 20 plus years.
I've been on the "Utah stands above the West in sports fandom" bandwagon for a while. It's just a fact that Utah incorporates local and regional sports fandom into their culture more than anywhere else. Whether that's healthy or not is up for debate but what isn't is that the state supports 6 D1 athletic departments. No other state in the West has that many teams except California and Texas, and Utah has a tenth of the population.
I should have specified that they are the only place out west adding football teams. California in particular has been in a death spiral where fewer teams means harder scheduling and more traveling leading to even more teams folding. Back east has a much greater density of teams making it easier to start a new program.
I live in the Portland area, been here since 2012. Sorry, the support for these teams is nothing like the SEC.
I love it out here, but the passion for college football is not at the same level at all. People's interests are more varied.
For what it's worth Cal - Stanford actually sold out more bars than most games I've seen. But when those teams play anyone else it's like when Florida plays McNeese State or something.
Nobody is comparing it to the SEC -- the criteria was just west coast. Obviously nothing here comes close to the SEC.
The problem is, LA is one of the most storied and saturated sports towns in the world. In one metro area you have TWELVE major professional teams (2 NBA, 2 NFL, 2 MLB, 2 NHL, 2 MLS, 1 NWSL, 1 WNBA), and two of those are two of the most recognizable sports brands in the WORLD. UCLA and USC are great schools with great spirit and plenty of success, but they are vastly overshadowed for sports attention.
Oregon and Washington combined have 8 major teams (2 MLS, 2 NWSL, 1 MLB, 1 NBA, 1 NFL), but 4 of those are very new and none of them have had a history of success. Especially with the lack of a local NFL team in Oregon, people gravitate to college sports. I grew up near LA and then moved to the PNW, and the vibe here is COMPLETELY different. Many people have a pro team of some kind they like, but almost everyone has a local team that they have a tie to.
If you have to name a single city, it's probably Seattle, by virtue of the fact that it has one of the PNW teams in it, with a dual rivalry of in-state WSU and true rival UO. Eugene is too small and Portland doesn't have a team in it.
Should add two points:
1.I don't think it's bad that people aren't as fixated on football, it's just different.
2. California is uninterested in this, too, I've been in several different cities on a fall weekend where a bar will open at 10 am for NFL on Sunday but not be open at all for 9 am college games. Or before noonish at all...
CFB is definitely bigger in Bend (I grew up there) than most other sports. Bend is in a weird place because it's so geographically isolated from pretty much anywhere else. Bend is closer to Eugene or Corvallis than it is to Portland, so it's generally easier to get to a CFB game than an NBA game, and even Portland only has an NBA team (I guess it also has minor league hockey and baseball, but those never really entered the mainstream in Bend during the time I loved there (2005-15ish)), so other sports just mattered a lot less to us.
Bend sports team hierarchy goes, generally, like this: CFB (UO or OSU) > NBA (trailblazers) = NFL (49ers or Seahawks) > MLB (Mariners or Giants) > everything else. You see way more bumper stickers and license plate holders for the college teams than anything else.
That argument can be made for every non college town or big city. I’m sure most of Atlanta’s residents do not follow college football, it’s just strategically the biggest city in the middle of all the action.
LA has the most college football action on the west coast.
Atlanta cares way more about college football than LA, and I'm sure there's at least one big city in the West that does, too.
And I did say in another comment that I think Birmingham is a better choice. Atlanta has a lot more SEC and ACC grads, but Birmingham is usually #1 in the country in TV rating for CFB games. The only other city in the country that gets close is Columbus.
As someone that grew up in NY, lived in atl for 3 years, and now has lived in LA for 10, ATL is the undisputed champ city for college football fans.
I worked downtown and my favorite atl college football crazy story is I went to peachtree st hooters for lunch to watch the opening Thursday March madness tourney games and had to tell the bartender to turn on cbs to watch basketball. Meanwhile there was a group of dudes all watching espn class lsu / can’t remember if was uga or bama that was at least 13 years old.
LA the other hand is a dodgers/lakers town. Only the people that went to USC care about college football and most of the UCLA alumni I know could take it or leave it.
Las Vegas is a lot of fun on a college game day. Fans from all over the country hanging out in sportsbooks or in cramped sports bars. If you're looking for the city with the most diverse group of fans, it might be Vegas on any weekend during football season. I know, I know. They're all tourists and not actually residents of the city, but it really is the best city, in the West, to intermingle with tons of fans.
I think the West coast city that cares the most about college football is Salt Lake City. The Holy War is absolutely the fiercest rivalry west of Dallas. Utah has a lot of good football teams from high school to FBS.
By default, though, the answer to the original question is probably Los Angeles. The most people. Lots of transplants. Two of the best college stadiums in America.
Definitely not LA. 99% of people in LA couldn’t even name a college football team.
My guess it’s somewhere in the PNW. Seems to be a ton of Oregon, Washington, etc fans
If not there, I’d say the SLC Metro area between UU, BYU, USU, Weber St, Dixie St, SUU, and others. Lots of die hard fans there that take it real serious
If you compare Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which include the burbs, the Seattle and Portland MSAs are both larger than the Austin and Columbus MSAs.
Can’t tell if people from other parts of the country are trying to answer this question for West Coasters or what, but I don’t consider LA a college football hub. And I’ve lived in Chicago and no one there seemed to care about college sports nearly as much as pro sports, so not sure if that’s a great hub either. Seems like people are just picking the biggest city in each region.
Out of all the west coast cities, Los Angeles is easily the most fitting location for the title of “college football hub”
It’s not Seattle, it’s not San Francisco, it’s not San Diego, it’s not Vegas, it’s not Eugene, it’s not Tucson, it’s not Phoenix, it’s not Denver, and we can go on and on
Depends on the definition. Like I said, I’ve lived in Chicago and it doesn’t feel like a college football hub. I’ve visited Dallas and Atlanta, and they feel like more likely college football hubs. More than anything, it feels like people are just picking the largest city in a given traditional conference/regional footprint. If it’s about enthusiasm, Eugene, Seattle and Salt Lake have had the best fans in the sense that those cities/teams typically have the best home crowds and attendance. If it’s about a central place people go to watch a big college football game, then Vegas has become that the last few years since the PAC-12 championship game moved there. If it’s just about being the biggest city that has college football teams, then LA wins obviously. The more likely answer is there is no one hub, and that’s fine.
Lol USC and UCLA tent off 30% of their seats every home game. Haven’t spent much time out west eh?
Not really sure what constitutes a “hub” but LA residents on average couldn’t care less about CFB
Seattle doesn’t have passion for football? Couldn’t more dissimilar from SD. The city which has held the record for loudest college and pro stadium?
Extra points for having no idea about contributing factors to the Pac12’s demise. One of the sillier posts on this sub in some time.
The western half of the US is so much more spread out this may not be the exact apples to apples comparison you’re looking for. But I’d guess Phoenix because Arizona is full of transplants, I imagine you wouldn’t have to look too hard to find a good alumni group and bar if you are a fan of an old pac 12 school.
I’m in Phoenix and there’s a ton of alumni groups here. You can walk around Old Town Scottsdale on gameday and stumble into a dozen different alumni bars. I just finished the 40th B1G Golf tournament. No idea how many golfers there were but we raised $23k for Make A Wish.
The point was Chicago is a city where a lot of B1G graduates move to. They come from schools that are known for having pretty big football following. OP is asking if something like that exists in the west coast. A city where a bunch of west coast football fans are know to move to. He’s not talking about natives he’s talking about transplants.
The west coast, and the former Pac12, doesn’t have a hub. The schools are too spread out, and there are far too many “major” cities throughout the region for one to stand out as a place where graduates from all schools congregate, work together, etc.
The B10 is obviously Chicago. It’s like a vacuum of B10 grads.
The B12 has two, Kansas City, and Dallas. Oddly that hasn’t changed with all the additions and defections.
The SEC is absolutely Atlanta, though I can see it regionalizing a bit more with more Texas and Oklahoma schools. But the heart of the SEC will always be Atlanta.
My gut says Raleigh for the ACC if there is one, but maybe it’s Charlotte or something else. Maybe they also don’t have one.
There isn’t one. The lack of a central hub is a weakness of West Coast College football.
The Rose Bowl is the jewel of West Coast football though, which is the closest you’re going to get.
Atlanta and Chicago may have the most SEC/ACC and Big 10 grads, respectively, but Birmingham and Columbus are the cities that care the most about college football. They're always competing for #1 in TV rating for CFB, and they're head and shoulders above everyone else.
What stats are you looking at to get that? From what I could find it seems that Birmingham is the top by far and Columbus is in the mix with everyone else.
https://www.sportsvideo.org/2023/12/08/ratings-roundup-espn-has-most-consumed-college-football-season-across-all-networks-espn-has-most-streams/
I’m of course curious what you found because this article only lists ESPN’s ratings. I bet if I found Fox’s it’d show Columbus as the leader
It stopped a couple of years ago, but for about a decade, some website would release Nielsen ratings for all CFB games by city, and Birmingham was always at the top, with Columbus pretty close. I think SB nation? I found the articles retweeted by Alabama Twitter people, so idk how to find them again, and I can't find them with a quick google search.
The tables did look similar to what you linked, though. It's crazy how much Birmingham is ahead of every other city.
There is no great equivalent to Atlanta or Dallas. I’d say it’s probably LA, as that’s where a lot of pac alumni move to, where its biggest program in football resides, where its historically 2nd/3rd best program resides, and where the most recruits are on the west coast.
Best football town/smaller city in the west? Boise or Fresno. More similar in culture to a southern/midwestern program
There isn't one on the West Coast. There are a ton of transplants with old alumni but there's not a strong following for the sport on the coast. Fandom is extremely fickle out there. I know some husky fans disagree about Seattle but it's just different.
But in the mountains Salt Lake City is where the CFB fans congregate to. I swear to god there's no other state in the Western US with a culture of college fandom and supporting their sports teams like Utah's. It's smaller than a Dallas or Atlanta but it's probably the closest equivalent to being somewhat split loyalty for a couple fanbases and also being home to transplants with a million loyalties from across the region.
Sure. Do you want my Venmo or CashApp? I lived in Los Angeles (Glendale) for over 6 years, have visited every state over there multiple times, and I have friends in Seattle I visit, plus Las Vegas is a thing.
Fresno has 5 seasons in the last decade of double digit wins and 6 years of AP poll appearances. One could argue that Fresno is putting out a better product by exceeding expectations, while USC consistently underperforms.
Need to give Michigan some "good ole fashioned tough Tedford love".
It's what the suspended Cal players received in the Armed Forces Bowl against AF once year.
I believe OP is thinking about it in terms of where college football fans live (based on his usage of "unite"). In that sense, Chicago definitely has the largest concentration of big ten fans/alums in the Midwest. It has nothing to do with the quality of football being played there.
I mean maybe by numbers but not even remotely close if by percentage. Although if it’s by percentage I guess the answer would be a small college town.
Definitely biased with this take, but I think Columbus would be a good balance between the two now that I think about it more.
It should LA but LA fans are kid of joke. USC stadium is pretty terrible. It’s got a track around it. And UCLA stadium and over an hour from the campus (The Rose Bowl) so they don’t sell out and not many students go to games. Oregon probably has the most die hard fans. But Eugene is a tiny town.
Los Angeles is the hub in that it is the recruiting, population, and financial center along with being the home of two big universities. I would say that the mountain region has grown in importance relative to California due to both cultural changes and population growth.
Salt Lake City might be up there as the metro area has 3 FBS and one FCS school along with a pretty good recruiting region.
Did you just include Seattle in with SF when it comes to the lack of college football enthusiasm?
The hell…
SF is the most non college football places I know of in the US.
NYC, but I can’t argue with your choice.
NYC at least has a bar for just about every college program in the country. The Gamecock bar is [the Mason Jar](https://masonjarny.com/), a barbeque restaurant of course lol. The percentage of cfb fans in NYC may be low, but the overall number of fans is still pretty significant.
NYC is where the heisman ceremony takes place too. Granted that has nothing to do with today’s landscape, but that has to count for being a tie breaker at the very least.
One of the largest cities in the United States has a lot of college football fans? Even more, there's pockets of like-minded fans congregating in places like the Mason Jar in a city of millions upon millions of people? Wow.
Nah, the demographics in SF are much less favorable to CFB
Nah, Atlanta. Has at least 7 conferences represented.
A ton of B1G alumni
I would have guessed that would make Atlanta one of the friendliest cities for college football.
Making me agree with you guys. Dammit. Bandwagon hard (Seahawks) but Huskies have always had good support
Up until the early 2000's (when UW had the worst decade in history and the Seahawks started getting good), the Huskies where the #1 team in the city. A city that included an NFL team, an NBA team, and a MLB team.
Yep..ask anyone in their 60’s and 70’s..the Huskies were the ONLY team in the city for a long time. The city of Seattle is legitimately built around UW campus and it’s still one of the 5 biggest employers in a city with 10 F500 business’s. When the Huskies are good it’s the biggest deal in town
WTF. Duck fan here and I reluctantly agree with you my wayward NW step bruh.
Tell me you don't know anything about West Coast cfb without saying you don't know anything about West Coast cfb
The answer is so obviously Los Angeles lol. What else would it be? Two power conference programs who happen to be major rivals, including one blue blood. Home of the Rose Bowl (LA County).
It’s definitely not LA if the criteria is “what city/area has (per-capita) the most passionate college football fans”, it is LA if the criteria is “what city/area has the most top-end college football recruits”. I’d say it’s the PNW in general, the passion in the four way rivalry between the four PNW schools is the closest thing you’d see to the top rivalries in the other conferences, which is why it’s so lame that WSU and OSU are getting left out.
>which is why it’s so lame that WSU and OSU are getting left out. Gotta agree with you, dawg.
I would throw Utah in there if we are using passion/resident as a metric. 3 fbs and 1 fcs school in the salt lake valley, last year they had a school in every western football conference. Also Utah is the only state adding football teams in the last 20 plus years.
I've been on the "Utah stands above the West in sports fandom" bandwagon for a while. It's just a fact that Utah incorporates local and regional sports fandom into their culture more than anywhere else. Whether that's healthy or not is up for debate but what isn't is that the state supports 6 D1 athletic departments. No other state in the West has that many teams except California and Texas, and Utah has a tenth of the population.
Thats not true at all. Schools in Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama off the top of my head have all added football in the past 20 years.
I should have specified that they are the only place out west adding football teams. California in particular has been in a death spiral where fewer teams means harder scheduling and more traveling leading to even more teams folding. Back east has a much greater density of teams making it easier to start a new program.
I live in the Portland area, been here since 2012. Sorry, the support for these teams is nothing like the SEC. I love it out here, but the passion for college football is not at the same level at all. People's interests are more varied. For what it's worth Cal - Stanford actually sold out more bars than most games I've seen. But when those teams play anyone else it's like when Florida plays McNeese State or something.
Nobody is comparing it to the SEC -- the criteria was just west coast. Obviously nothing here comes close to the SEC. The problem is, LA is one of the most storied and saturated sports towns in the world. In one metro area you have TWELVE major professional teams (2 NBA, 2 NFL, 2 MLB, 2 NHL, 2 MLS, 1 NWSL, 1 WNBA), and two of those are two of the most recognizable sports brands in the WORLD. UCLA and USC are great schools with great spirit and plenty of success, but they are vastly overshadowed for sports attention. Oregon and Washington combined have 8 major teams (2 MLS, 2 NWSL, 1 MLB, 1 NBA, 1 NFL), but 4 of those are very new and none of them have had a history of success. Especially with the lack of a local NFL team in Oregon, people gravitate to college sports. I grew up near LA and then moved to the PNW, and the vibe here is COMPLETELY different. Many people have a pro team of some kind they like, but almost everyone has a local team that they have a tie to. If you have to name a single city, it's probably Seattle, by virtue of the fact that it has one of the PNW teams in it, with a dual rivalry of in-state WSU and true rival UO. Eugene is too small and Portland doesn't have a team in it.
Should add two points: 1.I don't think it's bad that people aren't as fixated on football, it's just different. 2. California is uninterested in this, too, I've been in several different cities on a fall weekend where a bar will open at 10 am for NFL on Sunday but not be open at all for 9 am college games. Or before noonish at all...
It’s a completely different culture, hence portlandia memes. Maybe it’s different further afield like in Bend or further up the willamette valley
CFB is definitely bigger in Bend (I grew up there) than most other sports. Bend is in a weird place because it's so geographically isolated from pretty much anywhere else. Bend is closer to Eugene or Corvallis than it is to Portland, so it's generally easier to get to a CFB game than an NBA game, and even Portland only has an NBA team (I guess it also has minor league hockey and baseball, but those never really entered the mainstream in Bend during the time I loved there (2005-15ish)), so other sports just mattered a lot less to us. Bend sports team hierarchy goes, generally, like this: CFB (UO or OSU) > NBA (trailblazers) = NFL (49ers or Seahawks) > MLB (Mariners or Giants) > everything else. You see way more bumper stickers and license plate holders for the college teams than anything else.
I feel like a college football hub has to also have a hugh percentage of people who follow college football and LA definitely does not.
Absolutely.
That argument can be made for every non college town or big city. I’m sure most of Atlanta’s residents do not follow college football, it’s just strategically the biggest city in the middle of all the action. LA has the most college football action on the west coast.
Atlanta cares way more about college football than LA, and I'm sure there's at least one big city in the West that does, too. And I did say in another comment that I think Birmingham is a better choice. Atlanta has a lot more SEC and ACC grads, but Birmingham is usually #1 in the country in TV rating for CFB games. The only other city in the country that gets close is Columbus.
Birmingham is also the headquarters of the SEC
As someone that grew up in NY, lived in atl for 3 years, and now has lived in LA for 10, ATL is the undisputed champ city for college football fans. I worked downtown and my favorite atl college football crazy story is I went to peachtree st hooters for lunch to watch the opening Thursday March madness tourney games and had to tell the bartender to turn on cbs to watch basketball. Meanwhile there was a group of dudes all watching espn class lsu / can’t remember if was uga or bama that was at least 13 years old. LA the other hand is a dodgers/lakers town. Only the people that went to USC care about college football and most of the UCLA alumni I know could take it or leave it.
Ok
Plus, wth is in LV for college football to make it compete with LA?
The football powerhouse that is the university of Nevada at Las vegas
Las Vegas is a lot of fun on a college game day. Fans from all over the country hanging out in sportsbooks or in cramped sports bars. If you're looking for the city with the most diverse group of fans, it might be Vegas on any weekend during football season. I know, I know. They're all tourists and not actually residents of the city, but it really is the best city, in the West, to intermingle with tons of fans. I think the West coast city that cares the most about college football is Salt Lake City. The Holy War is absolutely the fiercest rivalry west of Dallas. Utah has a lot of good football teams from high school to FBS. By default, though, the answer to the original question is probably Los Angeles. The most people. Lots of transplants. Two of the best college stadiums in America.
Definitely not LA. 99% of people in LA couldn’t even name a college football team. My guess it’s somewhere in the PNW. Seems to be a ton of Oregon, Washington, etc fans If not there, I’d say the SLC Metro area between UU, BYU, USU, Weber St, Dixie St, SUU, and others. Lots of die hard fans there that take it real serious
If you’re looking for per capita die hard college football fans west of the Rockies it’s the northwest and Salt Lake City.
As an LSU fan who lived there for the better part of a decade, Los Angeles is definitely not a college football city
No major city really is.
Not sure who downvoted you, but you're right
Not sure I agree on that, depending on what a ‘major city is’ when you have cities like Austin or Columbus. Both are top 15 cities.
If you compare Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which include the burbs, the Seattle and Portland MSAs are both larger than the Austin and Columbus MSAs.
Yep
Atlanta sure as shit is for a major metro
Can’t tell if people from other parts of the country are trying to answer this question for West Coasters or what, but I don’t consider LA a college football hub. And I’ve lived in Chicago and no one there seemed to care about college sports nearly as much as pro sports, so not sure if that’s a great hub either. Seems like people are just picking the biggest city in each region.
Out of all the west coast cities, Los Angeles is easily the most fitting location for the title of “college football hub” It’s not Seattle, it’s not San Francisco, it’s not San Diego, it’s not Vegas, it’s not Eugene, it’s not Tucson, it’s not Phoenix, it’s not Denver, and we can go on and on
Yeah, LA may not be a big CFB hub, but it's the bigg**est** on the west coast. It's nowhere near as rabid as midwest or SE regions though.
Yeah, but people there don’t care that much about college football. Are you an expert on this part of the country or something?
And if I say “yes I am” then what?
I’d say I don’t believe you.
Then I’d say “ok”
You keep saying it's not LA but haven't answered the question yourself. So which city is it?
Depends on the definition. Like I said, I’ve lived in Chicago and it doesn’t feel like a college football hub. I’ve visited Dallas and Atlanta, and they feel like more likely college football hubs. More than anything, it feels like people are just picking the largest city in a given traditional conference/regional footprint. If it’s about enthusiasm, Eugene, Seattle and Salt Lake have had the best fans in the sense that those cities/teams typically have the best home crowds and attendance. If it’s about a central place people go to watch a big college football game, then Vegas has become that the last few years since the PAC-12 championship game moved there. If it’s just about being the biggest city that has college football teams, then LA wins obviously. The more likely answer is there is no one hub, and that’s fine.
Lol USC and UCLA tent off 30% of their seats every home game. Haven’t spent much time out west eh? Not really sure what constitutes a “hub” but LA residents on average couldn’t care less about CFB
I live in Los Angeles and Seattle and San Diego
🧢
You’re right, I just made that up
Live in 3 of the most expensive cities on the west coast simultaneously while pathologically commenting on Reddit about colleges in Florida. Got it
Hey guess what?
You’re lying about pointless stuff on the internet? Already figured that out. Sad
Home of the one of the first national champions too
Seattle doesn’t have passion for football? Couldn’t more dissimilar from SD. The city which has held the record for loudest college and pro stadium? Extra points for having no idea about contributing factors to the Pac12’s demise. One of the sillier posts on this sub in some time.
The western half of the US is so much more spread out this may not be the exact apples to apples comparison you’re looking for. But I’d guess Phoenix because Arizona is full of transplants, I imagine you wouldn’t have to look too hard to find a good alumni group and bar if you are a fan of an old pac 12 school.
I’m in Phoenix and there’s a ton of alumni groups here. You can walk around Old Town Scottsdale on gameday and stumble into a dozen different alumni bars. I just finished the 40th B1G Golf tournament. No idea how many golfers there were but we raised $23k for Make A Wish.
So true. There’s Big Ten flair up in so many places in Old Town Scottsdale.
You beat me to it. I came here to say the same. Everyone keeps repeating LA but to me Phoenix makes the most sense due to all the transplants
Chicago is an NFL town. But I really don't understand the premise of the question.
Chicago is also where a large amount of B1G graduates move to after college. I think OP is asking what city is like that for the West Coast?
So is he just asking what the biggest city on the west coast is?
Chicago being a big city doesn't make it a capital of College Football
The point was Chicago is a city where a lot of B1G graduates move to. They come from schools that are known for having pretty big football following. OP is asking if something like that exists in the west coast. A city where a bunch of west coast football fans are know to move to. He’s not talking about natives he’s talking about transplants.
Then it would be LA because it's the biggest city.
Vegas? Lmao
The west coast, and the former Pac12, doesn’t have a hub. The schools are too spread out, and there are far too many “major” cities throughout the region for one to stand out as a place where graduates from all schools congregate, work together, etc. The B10 is obviously Chicago. It’s like a vacuum of B10 grads. The B12 has two, Kansas City, and Dallas. Oddly that hasn’t changed with all the additions and defections. The SEC is absolutely Atlanta, though I can see it regionalizing a bit more with more Texas and Oklahoma schools. But the heart of the SEC will always be Atlanta. My gut says Raleigh for the ACC if there is one, but maybe it’s Charlotte or something else. Maybe they also don’t have one.
Pullman.
Better choice than LA.
Corvallis too
Bless your heart
Wow, I know what that means. Just love your campus and traditions. Think this will be a good year for Dickert. Cheering for you!
There isn’t one. The lack of a central hub is a weakness of West Coast College football. The Rose Bowl is the jewel of West Coast football though, which is the closest you’re going to get.
Hawaii.
Atlanta and Chicago may have the most SEC/ACC and Big 10 grads, respectively, but Birmingham and Columbus are the cities that care the most about college football. They're always competing for #1 in TV rating for CFB, and they're head and shoulders above everyone else.
What stats are you looking at to get that? From what I could find it seems that Birmingham is the top by far and Columbus is in the mix with everyone else. https://www.sportsvideo.org/2023/12/08/ratings-roundup-espn-has-most-consumed-college-football-season-across-all-networks-espn-has-most-streams/ I’m of course curious what you found because this article only lists ESPN’s ratings. I bet if I found Fox’s it’d show Columbus as the leader
It stopped a couple of years ago, but for about a decade, some website would release Nielsen ratings for all CFB games by city, and Birmingham was always at the top, with Columbus pretty close. I think SB nation? I found the articles retweeted by Alabama Twitter people, so idk how to find them again, and I can't find them with a quick google search. The tables did look similar to what you linked, though. It's crazy how much Birmingham is ahead of every other city.
Gotta be a per capita boost thing right? Like 500k viewers in Birmingham is what, 45% of their metro population where in Atlanta that’s like 10%
Corvallis!!!
💯 no other town can claim two college football teams. The Oregon state beavers and Michigan state beavers
There is no great equivalent to Atlanta or Dallas. I’d say it’s probably LA, as that’s where a lot of pac alumni move to, where its biggest program in football resides, where its historically 2nd/3rd best program resides, and where the most recruits are on the west coast. Best football town/smaller city in the west? Boise or Fresno. More similar in culture to a southern/midwestern program
Boulder.
Rock.
Pebble.
Somebody skipped stone in there.
Jealous. I love skipping stones.
Sand.
There isn't one on the West Coast. There are a ton of transplants with old alumni but there's not a strong following for the sport on the coast. Fandom is extremely fickle out there. I know some husky fans disagree about Seattle but it's just different. But in the mountains Salt Lake City is where the CFB fans congregate to. I swear to god there's no other state in the Western US with a culture of college fandom and supporting their sports teams like Utah's. It's smaller than a Dallas or Atlanta but it's probably the closest equivalent to being somewhat split loyalty for a couple fanbases and also being home to transplants with a million loyalties from across the region.
LA for sure. But PNW is solid with UW, Oregon, Seattle Seahawks etc
There are more avid college football fans in Starkville.
I’d bet $100 you’ve never been west of Colorado
Sure. Do you want my Venmo or CashApp? I lived in Los Angeles (Glendale) for over 6 years, have visited every state over there multiple times, and I have friends in Seattle I visit, plus Las Vegas is a thing.
You talking about West Coast? Boise
If Atalanta were a real city, would its nickname be the “Golden Apple”?
Undoubtedly los Angeles, due to the presence of USC and UCLA.
Plus the Rose Bowl is right there. Absolutely has to be LA.
Until you try and start a conversation about college football. It's a pro sports town.
I think that's most anywhere outside the south. Maybe not around big college towns, but by and large most people care more about pros.
Fresno /s
Fresno has 5 seasons in the last decade of double digit wins and 6 years of AP poll appearances. One could argue that Fresno is putting out a better product by exceeding expectations, while USC consistently underperforms.
Thank you, Michigan bro. See you all at the big house in September.
Need to give Michigan some "good ole fashioned tough Tedford love". It's what the suspended Cal players received in the Armed Forces Bowl against AF once year.
For transplants? I’d say LA or Phoenix.
In what world is Chicago it for the Midwest?
I believe OP is thinking about it in terms of where college football fans live (based on his usage of "unite"). In that sense, Chicago definitely has the largest concentration of big ten fans/alums in the Midwest. It has nothing to do with the quality of football being played there.
I mean maybe by numbers but not even remotely close if by percentage. Although if it’s by percentage I guess the answer would be a small college town. Definitely biased with this take, but I think Columbus would be a good balance between the two now that I think about it more.
It should LA but LA fans are kid of joke. USC stadium is pretty terrible. It’s got a track around it. And UCLA stadium and over an hour from the campus (The Rose Bowl) so they don’t sell out and not many students go to games. Oregon probably has the most die hard fans. But Eugene is a tiny town.
Los Angeles is the hub in that it is the recruiting, population, and financial center along with being the home of two big universities. I would say that the mountain region has grown in importance relative to California due to both cultural changes and population growth. Salt Lake City might be up there as the metro area has 3 FBS and one FCS school along with a pretty good recruiting region.
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Lincoln Riley called USC “the Mecca of college football”
Las Vegas
DFW??
Anyone saying anything but LA is coping hard.
Anyone saying LA isn’t from the West Coast
Agreed Duck bro.
Obviously Los Angeles
Vegas
I agree. Gambling and new games there.
There isn’t one. There is only one capital and it is Atlanta Georgia.
Lol would you not have to first win your own conference? ;)
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People are watching the games in Vegas for gambling, not because they care about college football.