Forbes: Top College Sports Towns

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Forbes magazine just released its list of “top college sports towns”</p>

<li>Ann Arbor, MI</li>
<li>Palo Alto, CA</li>
<li>Madison, WI</li>
<li>State College, PA</li>
<li>Lexington, KY</li>
<li>Fayetteville, AR</li>
<li>Chapel Hill, NC</li>
<li>Columbia, MO</li>
<li>Charlottesville, VA</li>
<li>Bloomington, IN</li>
</ol>

<p>[Top</a> College Sports Towns - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/12/college-sports-towns-lifestyle-sports_0212_college_towns.html]Top”>http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/12/college-sports-towns-lifestyle-sports_0212_college_towns.html)</p>

<p>and </p>

<p>[In</a> Depth: Top College Sports Towns - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/12/college-sports-towns-lifestyle-sports_0212_college_towns_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=36000000000]In”>http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/12/college-sports-towns-lifestyle-sports_0212_college_towns_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=36000000000)</p>

<p>No doubt this will have them snapping mad in Gainesville. Not to mention South Bend, Columbus, Athens, Norman, Austin, Durham, Tallahassee, Knoxville, Tuscaloosa and a few dozen other sports-mad college towns. </p>

<p>In fairness, the ranking is based only partly on sports—all sports, not just football and basketball. The rest is based on a variety of “quality-of-life” factors like affordability, crime rates, public school quality, cultural amenities, and quality as an investment. By those measures it’s perhaps not so surprising that Ann Arbor would come out on top, even though its high-profile sports teams have been struggling a bit lately.</p>

2

<p>UNC should be higher, definitely above Wisconsin and Kentucky.</p>

3

<p>UNC football has been crappy until this last year. It does not fill the stadium. Wisconsin sells out football, basketball, and ice hockey in large arenas.</p>

4

<p>Charlottesville is not sporty, fratty? yes, but not sporty. they're only good at lacrosse, maybe swimming and soccer.</p>

<p>but college park, Maryland should also be considered.</p>

5

<p>Palo Alto? What the heck, just because Stanford has tons of sports that no one cares about does no make it a good sports town. This list is ridiculous other than Ann Arbor, Madison, Chapel hill</p>

6

<p>What about Gainesville, FL? Hello University of Florida ....</p>

<p>4 National Championships in 4 years, a Top-10 Greek System, and a great college town.</p>

7

<p>Michigan State-amazing at tons of sports and East Lansing is definitely a college town</p>

8

<p>Athens? Austin? Boulder? Gainesville? Knoxville?</p>

<p>This list is very incomplete. Ann Arbor is a worthy #1, but it is very debatable. I would rather see an alphabetic list here.</p>

9

<p>To be clear, that's a list of top towns that have college sports, not a ranking how good they are for college sports. Obviously Palo Alto is not focused on sports, but it has them, and it's a great town in terms of economy, education, health etc.</p>

10

<p>That's correct cherokee. Believe me on this as well, Forbes is no friend of the state of Michigan when it comes to favorable rankings. If they feel that Ann Arbor is the best top college sport town, it must be very very good.</p>

11

<p>If you like college hockey, nowhere is better than boston. no where.</p>

12

<p>^ For college hockey Boston is good. But Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Madison, and Minneapolis are all at least as good if not better.</p>

13

<p>^ Yeah I was going to say Minneapolis, but you beat me to it. While most of those cities may be good sports towns, the fact that cities like Gainesville, Austin, Boulder, Athens, and Tallahassee aren't on the list is rather ridiculous.</p>

14

<p>This looks like a list of top college sports <em>small</em> towns - where the college pretty much dominates the life of the town. </p>

<p>If you wanted to list towns purely on the basis of having a lot of big time college sports action, your list would have to include Los Angeles - where they have two top-caliber major sports schools (and several more smaller ones) and perhaps the fiercest same-town sports rivalry in all of college sports.</p>

15

<p>Did most of you even read the criteria that Forbes used to name these towns? I doubt it.</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
UNC football has been crappy until this last year. It does not fill the stadium. Wisconsin sells out football, basketball, and ice hockey in large arenas.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uhh not true. Every UNC home football game this past year sold out.</p>

<p>Additionally, UNC is great at just about every sport. Basketball is legendary, football is great and improving, men's and women's soccer both went to the national chamionship this year, baseball has been to the college world series 3 years in a row and is preseason number 1 in many publications, and lacrosse is good as well. We're about as balanced as you can get.</p>

17

<p>To an SEC student, Arkansas and Kentucky the schools that make the cut? Hmm.
I would like to go to a fall football game in Ann Arbor.
Actually, laughing in Gainesville. National football and basketball champions two of the last three years?
An analysis like this isn't going to shake anyone's tree in Gator country.</p>

18

<p>Yeah. The Forbes ranking is about the town, not the sports success. Get with the program, Gators fans.</p>

19

<p>I would say that Ann Arbor, Austin and Gainesville are as similar as could be. Except for the accents. That and the fact that folks in Ann Arbor likely feel they don't HAVE accents.</p>

20

<p>^In what ways are those three "as similar as could be"? Just curious.</p>