I agree with yagottagotomo1. MSA is a horrible way to judge territory boundaries for professional sports. Nielsen’s DMA (designated marketing area) would be a better map as at least it bases its boundaries on television carriage which is much more relevant to fan base than physical proximity.

Aside from that NY has 2 baseball teams and 9 prof sports franchises (real ones). I would venture to guess there very few New Yorkers that support all 9 teams. Throw in the fact that just about every one of those teams has played for a championship in the past 25 years and you get some splintering of fan loyalties.

Throw in a diverse immigrant population which forces the team to split its fanbase to an extent with international sports like soccer. I would venture to guess that Cleveland, St. Louis, and Milwaukee don’t have that problem.

Currently living in Boston I can tell you the Red Sox fanbase is very real. However those numbers are flawed because the MSA does not take into account STUDENTS which make up a distinct portion of the population in Boston (and at Sox games). Hence the local revenue generated by team is drawing from much further boundaries than are indicated here.

All in all I’d say that study just proved that the writer knows very little about sports marketing. Even with all the flaws stated above, the fact that MLB games are now available nationally (via Extra Innings) pretty much make the point moot as teams are no longer bound by these geographical boundaries.

How about they include the entire island of Taiwan and good parts of Tokyo? I’m pretty sure the Brewers don’t generate quite as much revenue over there as the Yanks. All in all this is a very closed minded view of sports fans behavior.

@yagotta. The team with the biggest radio network, the Cards , are one of those teams whose fan base really extends outside of its geographical area. And BTW they are in the top five for good reason. Quite frankly, it’s an interesting study and shows that the profit centers are not necsessarily nestled in NYC, Chicago and LA.

This is a silly study. Firstly, using MSA data is silly, especially for teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs, who have fanbases that extend far past their MSA’s. Secondly, there is bound to be diminishing returns as a population gets larger. There are only so many tickets that a club can sell. Also, a city with a larger immigrant population may have less fans than those in more homogenous cities.