Best City for College Basketball Fans Named Ahead of March Madness
College basketball takes center stage this month with the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments. Currently, conference tourneys are in full swing, with the full Madness right around the corner.
Americans--and their wallets--go all out for March Madness every year. While the entire country locks in during tournament time, there are certain areas that are more college hoops-centric than others.
Personal finance company WalletHub compiled a list of the best cities in America for college basketball fans, using nine different metrics, including number of teams per city and their winning percentages, number of national championships, ticket pricing, stadium capacity, social media following and number of coaches in the last decade.
"The best cities for college basketball have high-performing teams, affordable and accessible games, and strong fan engagement," says WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo.
The 10 best U.S. cities for college basketball fans, per WalletHub
- Los Angeles, California
- Durham, North Carolina
- Lexington, Kentucky
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Lawrence, Kansas
- East Lansing, Michigan
- Storrs, Connecticut
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- New York, New York
- Boston, Massachusetts
Los Angeles at No. 1 may surprise some
The City of Angels has four Division I programs, led by UCLA and USC. The Bruins' 11 national championships, more than any other city, carry a ton of weight here.
Los Angeles schools have also had four Hall of Fame head coaches: UCLA's John Wooden, Larry Brown and Gene Bartow and USC's George Raveling. Still, if we have one gripe about this ranking, it's that LA doesn't have the recent history of most of the cities ranked behind it in the top 10.
UCLA is about to head to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in six years under Mick Cronin, and the Bruins reached the Final Four in 2021. However, only one of UCLA's 11 titles (1995) has come in the last 50 years, and USC has reached the NCAA Tournament only five times in the last 15 seasons.