Shreveport’s Rank Nationally as a “Basketball City”
As Shreveport continues to argue over whether or not the city should pursue a New Orleans Pelicans minor league team, a new study has shed some light on why that might not be a bad idea.
WalletHub.com has put together a study, totally unrelated to the current Shreveport debate, about what the best "Basketball Cities" in the country are. Due to their criteria, Shreveport itself is not ranked inside their top 293 cities. Only because the city doesn't currently host an NBA or NCAA team on a regular basis.
But what we can do is look over the 10 Louisiana cities that are ranked, and see what the data says about how Louisiana ranks.
What WalletHub found that 9 of the 10 cities in Louisiana make the top 50% in their respective categories, with 3 of them making the overall top 25%. Which is pretty good news for Shreveport's argument for getting a team. Cities like New Orleans rank extremely high, but cities like Ruston, Natchitoches, and Grambling rank pretty high themselves.
The research was based on 17 metrics, which WalletHub explains here:
"With basketball fans in mind, WalletHub crunched the numbers to find the best spots in America to love on your favorite sport. We compared 293 of the largest cities based on 17 key metrics, ranging from the performance level of each city’s NBA and NCAA Division 1 basketball teams to ticket prices to stadium accessibility. Read on to find the full list of winners, a ranking by city size, commentary from a panel of experts and how we ranked the cities."
So without an exact rating for Shreveport, and using the data that has been provided, it would suggest that if Shreveport falls inline with other Louisiana cities, an NBA-affiliated team would do just fine in the city.
Now there is an argument to be made that Shreveport doesn't do well with sports franchises, but there's now some push-back on that thought, and national sportscaster (and Shreveport native) Tim Brando is leading that charge: