How popular are the Stars in Dallas?

[VictoriaJetsFan]

Thank you for that insight. Didn't realize there was a stark difference in that alumni/college relationship between the U.S./Canada.

It's one of the stark differences between Canadian and American culture. The American connection, emotionally, to their schools is something else.

 

[AlexModvechkin8]

In the case of the Capitals I assumed that in DC Metro area, the Redskins, Ravens, Nationals, and maybe the Orioles and Wizards were more popular. Again, not because all of those teams were necessarily more exciting or better, but just sheer numbers of fans. Perhaps I'm just overestimating the gap between all of the big 3 and the NHL, but I just don't know. Both the Wizards and Orioles have been terrible for years, but I would be willing to bet money that if you polled 100 people in DC, you would find that more people had been to Wizards and Orioles games, could name more players on those rosters, owned jerseys, watched games, etc.

I've been to DC once, in the summer of 2002. I was 17 at the time. I hadn't really traveled much outside of the South at that point, so I'm not sure what my expectations of the city were based on. I just assumed that it was a really small area filled with government buildings and super rich neighborhoods where politicians and government workers past and present lived. When we visited the Capitol, we drove through what I seem to remember were some really run down neighborhoods with rough looking apartment buildings and just not a great area. I don't mean to insult those who live in DC, but it's just not at all what I thought it would be. There's definitely nice areas, but the juxtaposition of lifestyles is incredible; some areas are just night and day.

Dallas on the other hand has a really weird downtown, and now having been all over the country, I can tell you that it's unlike most major cities in the US. Comparatively, it's incredibly devoid of people moving around on foot, living there, etc. About the only thing to do in downtown Dallas is go to work. There's some neighborhoods in the surrounding areas, but the actual downtown area is not really known for much of a nightlife compared to similarly sized cities. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we don't really have an extensive bus/rail system that connects all the various areas of a pretty large metroplex efficiently enough to rely on that for commuting. You'll never have a problem finding an entire bench to yourself on the trains here. People here spread out further and further into the suburbs and just commute. For reference, I grew up here until I was 18, moved out to the Bay Area, CA and then came back after living there for a decade. San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose are more like most major cities in the US. I suspect that Dallas is reaching the limit of expansion to where people won't want to make a 90 minute commute anymore and there will be the need for affordable housing to expand downtown.

The Orioles don’t have much of a following at all in DC. In fact most DC sports fans really dislike the Orioles because their owner fought against DC getting a team and is now holding the team hostage with a terrible TV deal. The Ravens also don’t have much of a following in the DC area. There are pretty clear divides across suburb lines for DC and Baltimore. And nobody in Baltimore cares about the Wizards, Baltimore sports fans are diehard Ravens and Orioles fans and the Caps are a distant third.

The Caps have been the second most popular team in the area because they’ve had Ovechkin and they’ve been consistently one of the best teams in the league for running on two decades now. Things could and probably will change once Ovi hangs it up but for now Washington is a pretty solid second considering the Nats are terrible and will be for years to come. The Nats are also hard to watch on TV given the contract dispute I mentioned which hurts their following.

DC is unrecognizable from 20 years ago. 20 years ago Nats Park wasn’t built and the SE waterfront (right outside of the area around Capitol Hill) was a drug haven of abandoned buildings. Capital One Arena was only four or five years old and Chinatown (where the arena is) hadn’t gone through a ton of development. The new buildings add interesting architecture while the old brick buildings and row homes have almost all been renovated. DC now is a great city. There are tons of fun areas and neighborhoods and it’s skewed younger and younger in demographics. There’s a big arts and music scene. There are a lot of new museums and things to explore. The food scene is underrated. Its easily walkable and has a Metro that can get you anywhere and one of the largest docked Bikeshare systems in the country so there’s no need to have a car to get around. It’s no longer just a government/law/lobbying city and if you come back I bet your experience would be entirely different.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Pretty much what I expected. I follow college sports too, as a Canadian, so you just pick your teams based on who you liked watching. I landed on Texas due to loving the 2004 and 2005 teams with Vince Young and Duke for basketball because of Jay Williams. I know people here who aren't alums of schools but cheer for certain teams. But, it's way more scattered. Similar to the NFL in Toronto, the NFL might be more popular than the NHL in Toronto, but no one team is more popular than the Leafs. I'd expect the same thing with college football in the NYC area, especially since you get transplants from all over the country.

NYC is absolutely a basketball city, and schools like St. Johns, Syracuse and UConn absolutely built their programs at points due to being able to walk into the Bronx, Coney Island or Lower Manhatten and pick whichever stud kid was showing off for the Gauchos in AAU. As recruiting got more national that has changed a bit.

True on basketball, but St Johns has not been significant in a long time. UConn and Syracuse are so far from NYC, not much of a following here except for alumni. Thing is, it is a very fair-weather town when it comes to basketball. When the Knicks are good, they are by far the hottest ticket in town. However, when they are bad it is a different story. People will still say they are Knicks fans, but will follow better teams/players as well. Ask people who know the market and they will tell you the Rangers do not have as many fans as the Giants, Jets, Mets, Yanks, and Knicks, but they have by far the most loyal and hardcore by percentage along with the Giants.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Never really understood the college pride thing, think it's one of the silliest aspects of being American. Also hate college sports too, would much prefer regional D-leagues and stop the facade of "education" and fiscal waste at those institutions. But it's never going to change until college evolves to become something else.

Do you think Alabama, ND, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, etc are "wasting" money on sports?

 

[Ararana]

I live in San Antonio and people don't even know hockey exists here.

I'm sure they're far more popular up in Dallas.

 

[TrillMike]

Even SMU probably attracts more fans to football and basketball than the Stars to any hockey game. Truth is, hockey is just a niche sport in all but a few NHL cities, and Dallas is no different in this regard. Doesn't mean hockey is bad, but it doesn't come close to dominating fan bases. Dallas could get to the WCF and probably less than 0.1% of the population would care. Contrast Canadian cities.

I have lived in the city of Dallas for over 10 years. SMU is nowhere close in popularity to the Stars, let alone any of the big college football teams/other pro sports.

 

[ElGuapo]

I like your style. Because lord knows I take pride in being on par with North Korea, India, and a random cricket venue.

Who knows? Maybe someday the NFL will finally get their shit together and do away with mezzanines, luxury boxes, and individual seats with trash cupholders, armrests, and occasionally even cushions.

I for one get erect at the thought of sitting in between blackout frat boys - who spent $6 to be there - on a bleacher and it's always nice to find similarly minded individuals, topic be damned.

Awesome! NFL games in person are really boring compared to a major college football game. Very sterile atmosphere and slow paced. Total ripoff.

 

[edog37]

Pretty accurate. Personally, I'd bump the Horns up to #2 or at least tied with the Mavs, but's that's about all I'd change. I want to believe the Stars are more popular than OU, but probably not.

Football is the biggest sport here in TX, always has been and always will be. The Cowboys have had success that most of us are old enough to remember, and usually have a decent team. UT has a storied history. TCU just made it to a National Championship. There's high school stadiums here bigger than college stadiums in northern states. So football will just always be #1. The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable sports franchise in the world at $8 billion.

Baseball has a long history in TX and as "America's Pastime", it has always enjoyed immense popularity. The Rangers are terrible, but have had some recent success. They just got a new air conditioned stadium and you can easily get pretty cheap seats to Rangers games. Again, college and high school baseball are both incredibly popular here.

Basketball has been pretty popular in Texas for decades. All three Texas teams (Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio) have had maintained success over the past 20+ years and have won championships. Luka Doncic is arguably the best player in the league and looks like he will have an incredible HOF career. Like football and baseball, college and high school basketball is a huge draw. There's courts everywhere.

Hockey is totally different. Yes the Stars have had some recent success, but were terrible before that. Hockey teams at the collegiate and especially high school level are extremely rare. You're more likely to see lacrosse. That's just a function of the cost of entry of the sport and few rinks. I love hockey and think that the ticket prices aren't bad for what the product is, but it's not as cheap as going to Rangers or Mavs games. I don't know how much of a bump the team has seen due to recent playoff runs, but I'd surmise that the gap between the Big 3 and hockey here is enormous.

Dallas Stars fans are plentiful enough to fill the seats every game. In a metroplex of a million people, you can only sell 20k tickets, so there's definitely enough fans. I'd say that on average, they seem pretty dedicated. I'd be curious to see what percentage of seats are held by season ticket holders and how that compares league wide. Perhaps if they won a Cup, the following season could see them close the gap a little bit, but I doubt that would be enough. In order for the Stars to move up in the rankings here, every other team would need to be complete garbage at the exact same time that the Stars had a dynasty.

I think all of this is probably true for every NHL city. Going back to 1999 just to include the Stars, here's the list of Cup winners. In any of these cases were they ever the most popular team in the city? Were they even second?

Colorado Avalanche
Tampa Bay Lightning
St. Louis Blues
Washington Capitals
Pittsburgh Penguins
Chicago Blackhawks
Los Angeles Kings
Boston Bruins
Detroit Red Wings
Anaheim Ducks
Carolina Hurricanes
New Jersey Devils
Dallas Stars

Looking at that list, I'm not sure if any of those teams were ever higher than #3.

Pens are solidly #2 in Pittsburgh & have been so for years. The Pirates are a distant third.

 

[Postulates]

DC loves college football its just michigan, penn state, nd, ohio state instead of maryland or georgetown

It has arguably the best top to bottom high school conference in the country

 

[AintLifeGrand]

I replaced Kansas and Indiana with South Carolina and Kentucky - as they are a better example.

Kansas and Indiana are in that middle ground where they each have a pair of teams, but probably won't be getting all 4 sports anytime soon.

indiana has indy 500- the top level racing in the world

 

[EichHart]

Oh, college football is nuts in certain regions, even among non-alumni. Hell, the new Atlanta NFL arena, has a Chick-Fil-A despite them being closed on Sundays due to college games that occasionally get played there. Since it's filled with transplants from throughout the South who went to SEC schools the passion runs high there.

Also, in my experience, I don't think Buffalo would qualify either, as the SUNY system doesn't really have D1 teams, and Buffalo is a group of 5 team. But, if you are talking places like Raleigh, Columbus, Florida, Dallas, and possibly even LA when it comes to UCLA and USC.

Like, I have no idea on who the most popular team for college football would be in New York City. My guess would be ND as they have a massive catholic fan base nationwide, but I doubt it's more popular than the Rangers. It's probably a byproduct of the North East being dominated by older institutions (aka the Ivey league, small colleges, and big private Universities that aren't big on football like Georgetown, NYU, etc.) that didn't have football traditions, and Rutgers is generally one of the worst Power 5 schools that is also a flagship state school. Everywhere else in the country pretty much has big state schools with huge athletic programs if they are in a populated state and is often the desired choice within the state for people to go to.

SUNY has more than 85 NCAA Division I, 290 NCAA Division III, and 385 NJCAA athletic teams, as well as hundreds of non-competitive athletics clubs. UB is D1

 

[HisIceness]

I used to visit family in Dallas and I would say prior to about 2010 they had a more noticeable fanbase than the Texas Rangers. Remember prior to their 2010 ALCS win, the Rangers had a grand total of 1 playoff win, not series, one win total.

Also in the late 00s they still had Modano.

 

[93LEAFS]

SUNY has more than 85 NCAA Division I, 290 NCAA Division III, and 385 NJCAA athletic teams, as well as hundreds of non-competitive athletics clubs. UB is D1

I was mostly talking college football, and they don't have a powerhouse state team like most other states do (tOSU, Michigan, Penn St, etc), especially ones with a population as high as New York state as the system is very spread out. Buffalo is D1 but a group of 5 team.

 

[LT]

Being originally from PA I agree there but ....now living in Florida, the South is huge with college. I'd argue Florida State and Florida U draw more interest and popularity than any pro Florida team in any sport.

In Miami, the most popular sports team is the UM football team by a fair margin. The South values football, both NFL and NCAA, higher than anywhere else on the continent.

 

[93LEAFS]

In Miami, the most popular sports team is the UM football team by a fair margin. The South values football, both NFL and NCAA, higher than anywhere else on the continent.

Miami's weird in the sense that no team really gets all-in support. Miami Hurricanes when they fell off in the 2000s started seeing pretty bad attendance at least for a major power 5 team. I think in 2021 they drew like 66% capacity. It's also specific to certain regions in the South, like UK Basketball vs Louisville is the biggest thing in Kentucky for sports (outside of Horse Racing), UNC vs Duke or NC State is massive for North Carolina. Now, what is generally considered the Deep South which is like South Carolina, Georgia, Louisana, Alabama, and Mississippi it's Football by far. Although Florida is the furthest south state in the nation, I think it's generally viewed that culturally the only "Southern" parts of Florida is what's north of Jacksonville.

 

[HisIceness]

Now, what is generally considered the Deep South which is like South Carolina, Georgia, Louisana, Alabama, and Mississippi it's Football by far. Although Florida is the furthest south state in the nation, I think it's generally viewed that culturally the only "Southern" parts of Florida is what's north of Jacksonville

"The more North you go the more South it gets"

I don't who said that but they're not wrong

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Miami's weird in the sense that no team really gets all-in support. Miami Hurricanes when they fell off in the 2000s started seeing pretty bad attendance at least for a major power 5 team. I think in 2021 they drew like 66% capacity. It's also specific to certain regions in the South, like UK Basketball vs Louisville is the biggest thing in Kentucky for sports (outside of Horse Racing), UNC vs Duke or NC State is massive for North Carolina. Now, what is generally considered the Deep South which is like South Carolina, Georgia, Louisana, Alabama, and Mississippi it's Football by far. Although Florida is the furthest south state in the nation, I think it's generally viewed that culturally the only "Southern" parts of Florida is what's north of Jacksonville.

yea most U games are ghost towns, but I would say compared to Miami sports they are number 1

 

[MrHeiskanen]

I used to visit family in Dallas and I would say prior to about 2010 they had a more noticeable fanbase than the Texas Rangers. Remember prior to their 2010 ALCS win, the Rangers had a grand total of 1 playoff win, not series, one win total.

Also in the late 00s they still had Modano.

The Tom Hicks bankruptcy certainly killed the Stars growth before Gaglardi came in.

 

[JoeSakic13]

As a local, here's the answer:

Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Mavericks
Texas Rangers
Texas Longhorns
Oklahoma Sooners
Dallas Stars
FC Dallas

I was half expecting you to not list Dallas Stars

 

[voyageur]

In Miami, the most popular sports team is the UM football team by a fair margin. The South values football, both NFL and NCAA, higher than anywhere else on the continent.

The fact the ESPN/ABC SEC contract for such a short season is almost the same as ESPN's deal with the NHL and greater than TNT's should be a good indication of how popular college football is in the South. Adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC solidifies their foothold as the powerhouse conference too.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

In America; schools are places where you go to play sports, socialize, get new experiences,
have fun and pay shit loads of money to do so.

Rest of the world : get education to get a better job, work really hard, learn and improve self

----------

Sure i'm generalizing here but still... looking America outside in, i think for most that's how it is.
- for example, College is larger than life thing, its a concept really

For someone like me, a guy from Finland, it is so ridiculous looking outside in about College
and how big thing it is in your country.

 

[VictoriaJetsFan]

In America; schools are places where you go to play sports, socialize, get new experiences,
have fun and pay shit loads of money to do so.

Rest of the world : get education to get a better job, work really hard, learn and improve self

----------

Sure i'm generalizing here but still... looking America outside in, i think for most that's how it is.
- for example, College is larger than life thing, its a concept really

For someone like me, a guy from Finland, it is so ridiculous looking outside in about College
and how big thing it is in your country.

Just because its different doesn't make it ridiculous.

 

[Troy McClure]

In America; schools are places where you go to play sports, socialize, get new experiences,
have fun and pay shit loads of money to do so.

Rest of the world : get education to get a better job, work really hard, learn and improve self

----------

Sure i'm generalizing here but still... looking America outside in, i think for most that's how it is.
- for example, College is larger than life thing, its a concept really

For someone like me, a guy from Finland, it is so ridiculous looking outside in about College
and how big thing it is in your country.

Want me to blow your mind? Most fans of college football teams didn’t even go to those schools.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

In America; schools are places where you go to play sports, socialize, get new experiences,
have fun and pay shit loads of money to do so.

Rest of the world : get education to get a better job, work really hard, learn and improve self

----------

Sure i'm generalizing here but still... looking America outside in, i think for most that's how it is.
- for example, College is larger than life thing, its a concept really

For someone like me, a guy from Finland, it is so ridiculous looking outside in about College
and how big thing it is in your country.

my parents spent $250,000 over 5 years for me to get a degree that I don’t apply to my job whatsoever- But i did have an enjoyable fraternity experience and got to check all the “college experience “
boxes.

I will say I had a good education (despite a B- average) in the sense the liberal arts creates a well rounded individual; it makes me a very engaging guest at dinner parties, however I don’t apply anything related to Adam Smith or from Locke or Descartes in my day to day job.

My alma mater did help provide the connections to enter in my current profession, which I suppose has some value.

Basically if you do American College right you are paying for access to friends and associations that you can leverage into certain jobs

 

[Dr Pepper]

Want me to blow your mind? Most fans of college football teams didn’t even go to those schools.

Well that's just common sense....the way they pack every stadium for the multitude of "bowl games" that are televised every year, they can't ALL be alumni in those seats.