Best states for college hoops fans? Not Kansas, Kentucky or NC, according to this list
Prior to this year’s NCAA Tournament, HowToWatch.com ranked all 50 states and Washington D.C. in terms of the best and worst for March Madness fans.
To calculate its list, How To Watch used three factors: interest in sports, gambling, and fantasy sports such as competing in an online bracket game or others.
The results were interesting as Minnesota, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Colorado were the top five, while Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, New Mexico and Arkansas were the bottom five.
North Carolina, a state with traditional powerhouse programs such as UNC and Duke, ranked 42nd by How To Watch, while three other states home to blueblood teams (UCLA in California, KU in Kansas and UK in Kentucky) didn’t crack the top 10.
The full list can be found here.
Meanwhile, WalletHub used nine different metrics to rank the best and worst cities for college basketball. The categories were weighted, most important to least important in its formula, as follows:
- College basketball fans engagement based off adding Twitter followers and Facebook ‘Likes’ per capita, ~18.75 points
- Number of Division I college basketball teams, ~12.50 points
- Performance based off number of wins divided by total games played using the last three seasons’ averages, ~12.50 points
- Number of Division I basketball championships, ~12.50 points
- Number of Hall of Fame head coaches, ~12.50 points
- Minimum season ticket price for a Division I college basketball game, ~12.50 points
- Number of Division I college basketball conference regular season championships, ~6.25 points
- Number of coaches in the past 10 seasons, ~6.25 points
- College basketball stadium capacity based off stadium capacity divided by city population, ~6.25 points
Lawrence, Kansas took the No. 1 overall spot. Durham, North Carolina; Los Angeles, California; East Lansing, Michigan and Chapel Hill, North Carolina rounded out the top five.
Lexington, Kentucky was No. 8 behind Storrs, Connecticut (No. 6) and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (No. 7).
This year’s tournament’s first- and second-round host cities were Columbia, South Carolina; San Jose, California; Jacksonville, Florida; Des Moines, Iowa; Salt Lake City, Utah; Hartford, Connecticut; Tulsa, Oklahoma and Columbus, Ohio.
The action shifts to Washington D.C.; Anaheim, California; Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas City, Missouri for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games. The Final Four is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota this year.
This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Best states for college hoops fans? Not Kansas, Kentucky or NC, according to this list."
