Notes on Population Centers and Sports

Last Saturday Corrie had a plan for us. We decided to move the breakfast trip to the diner to Sunday, and Saturday I could accompany her on her errands. We needed a printer cartridge from a ghetto Office Max (our printer is becoming increasingly outdated), and then we needed to go to a pick and pull to look for a mirror bracket for our Passat (somebody broke the passenger side mirror). 

I wasn't getting out of the car. I was more like a puppy, sitting with my head near the window and letting the air hit my face and rustle my grimy hair. It was glorious.

At the pick and pull yard, while Corrie was the third girl inside the whole place, and the only girl by herself, I sat in the car and looked through a big Rand McNally road atlas from 1988. I'd forgotten the newspaper at home (I'd planned on bringing it). As I looked through the atlas, my brain tripped out a little when I realized that the state of Florida has three NFL teams: Miami, Tampa Bay, and Jacksonville. Texas, America's football epicenter (while living there I saw high school football coverage more in-depth than their MLB Rangers coverage) only has two NFL teams, and one is only 10 years old.

Finding a pen in the car, I started to make notes in some white spaces of the atlas about states and teams covering the big 5 in American sports.

Usually, America is considered to have 4 main team sports leagues; baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. I added in Major League Soccer, because soccer is the main international sport, and in places like Seattle and Portland, soccer is madly popular, and the league itself is growing in exposure and status. Although it pales in comparison to the best European leagues (England, Spain, and Italy), it's a little more like the second tier of leagues (Turkey, the Netherlands), where scoring is still more based on defensive errors more often than offensive brilliance.

In any case, to summarize my notes, which I did at home, I made some strange discoveries. In baseball, California takes top spot, unsurprisingly, with 5 teams. Seven other states have two teams each, then a bunch of single team states (and a province). 

In the NFL, California is tied with Florida and (kinda) New York with the most teams per state, with 3. Two of the New York teams are branded as such, but play in New Jersey, so, that was tough to decide. Four states have 2 teams (five if you consider Jersey).

In the NBA, California comes out with the most teams again, with 4, but that makes a certain kind of sense, what with having the most population. Texas has 3 teams, Florida and New York each have 2, and everyone else has 1.

In the NHL, California and New York are tied with 3 teams each, while Florida, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Alberta have 2 teams each. Seriously, how does Florida have more hockey teams than Quebec? Everyone else has 1 team.

With the MLS, 3 teams are in Canada, and 3 teams are in California, 2 teams are in Texas, and all other states and provinces have 1 team.

I did notice weird things, though. Like North Carolina has more professional teams (3) than Maryland (2) or Indiana (2), two states with iconic teams (Orioles; Colts). Also, Missouri has more teams than I would've thought, with 6. Ontario has the most for a Canadian province, with 5.

Lastly, percentages. 

Out of 141 teams spread over 5 sports, Canada has 12 teams. That percentage is roughly 8.5%. Canada's population percentage of the two combined is 9.8%, so that's not too off. California has 18 of the 141 teams, for 12.8%, with a population of 11% (or, if you're looking at only the US, California's numbers are 14.8% of teams with 12.2% of the population). 

The smallest state by population that has a team is Utah, and they have 2 (one NBA, one MLS) wit a population of 2.8 million. The smallest province with a major team is Manitoba, with 1 (NHL), and 1.2 million. Then you have Washington DC. The territory of less than 618 thousand people have exactly one baseball, one football, one basketball, one hockey and one soccer team, good for 5 total, and the Pentagram of sporting regional collections (exactly 1 team in each of the five sports). Only Massachusetts and Colorado can boast the same.

See how I fill up my time with these stupid and random thought exercises? None of this shit's important. Well, maybe it's important to me to help me keep my brain nimble and worked up a little, as I sit and try not to go crazy. And work up to energy level my brain needs to get back to my novel. But this is trivial and stupid thought exercise.

This particular exercise though combines many things I really enjoy (because I'm a goddamned nerd): lists, sports, looking at maps, and studying populations. How many people do you know that if they listed out things they enjoy would come up with "looking at maps" and "studying populations"?

Time...waster...