U.S. states without major sports teams

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Despite the rampant popularity of professional sports in the United States, there are 25 States that do not have any major league sports teams (major leagues are defined as being MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL).

1 Reasons
2 Special cases
3 Outside the lower 48 and in Canada
4 Recent Developments
5 List of U.S. States without major sports teams
6 Teams formerly located in one of these states
7 See also

[edit] Reasons

The reasons for this are mixed. Often it is because of a lack of population density or size in a single city or even an entire state. No density hurts TV contracts, advertising, ticket sales, attendance, and city/state funds for the required facilities and salaries of the players. Often many states are grouped together, in the case of the New England Patriots (and, though not in name, the Boston Red Sox). Even though both teams play in the Boston area, there are still sizeable amount of fans in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Similarly, fans of Pittsburgh franchises can be found in West Virginia (mainly in the northern half of the state), Philadelphia fans in Delaware, Minneapolis and Minnesota fans in North and South Dakota, Kansas City fans in Kansas, Dallas fans in Oklahoma and Arkansas, Atlanta fans in Mississippi and Alabama, Denver and Colorado fans in Wyoming, Phoenix and Arizona fans in New Mexico, and any franchises based in California a sizable amount of fans can be found in Hawaii.

[edit] Special cases

Virginia is by far the largest state in terms of population without a major sports team. There are 15 states (including Washington, D.C.) with lower populations and pro-sports franchises. [1]. However, a large portion of Virginia's population supports Washington, D.C. teams (though those in the Hampton Roads area tend to support teams in or near North Carolina or Atlanta). The second largest state without a team, Alabama, is the largest without any major sports teams either within or near its boundaries. Northern Alabama's population supports Atlanta teams and Southern Alabama's population supports New Orleans teams, but the entire state shows much more support for either of the state's two major university athletic teams. There are only three states smaller than Alabama with any permanent teams and only four teams between the three states (Louisiana, Oregon and Utah).

Nevada's case is unique in that its major city, Las Vegas, more than qualifies for at least one major league team, as its popularity, notoriety and population have exploded in the last 10 years. However, the major leagues have always been apprehensive of Las Vegas' gambling reputation, and the possibility that if Las Vegas had a franchise, illegal gambling would rise among the players and staff. Also, it is worth noting that Nevada's overall population remains below that of any state hosting a major league team. Las Vegas expansion has been explored by each of the four leagues, and it is possible that a Las Vegas team will join one of the leagues in the near future. Las Vegas will host the NBA All-Star Game in 2007, in hopes of convincing NBA officials that the city will support a team. Sports fans, mainly Las Vegas area natives, support Phoenix teams, any Los Angeles or San Diego teams, San Francisco Bay Area or Sacramento teams, Seattle teams, Oregon teams, Denver teams, Utah teams (a large Mormon population is found in the city and state), and a large college team following as well. In the more recent years, the Las Vegas population has been found to have many fans from teams all over the United States, Mexico and Canada, due to the hugely diverse population of residents from all over North America relocating to rapidly growing Las Vegas.

[edit] Outside the lower 48 and in Canada

Alaska and Hawaii have never had a major league team, mainly due to their distance from the US mainland, and that the states were just admitted to the union in 1959, when most of the major sports leagues were just emerging. While Anchorage, Alaska's chances of getting a team are very slim, due to its relatively small population and undersized venues, Honolulu, Hawaii has adequate population and large enough venues to possibly host a team in the future. Honolulu used to be home to a WFL franchise, and currently hosts the annual NFL Pro Bowl. Nowadays, most of Hawaii's population tends to support Los Angeles teams, and Alaska's population tends to support either Seattle teams or Western Canadian-based teams such as the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers.

[edit] Recent Developments

The latest addition to this list is Connecticut, after the NHL's Hartford Whalers moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1997. Though fan support for a return to Hartford is big, issues have risen over stadium quality, cash, and lack of interest from potential team owners. The Connecticut Sun WNBA team does play in the state, but isn't considered a major sports league.

The latest removal from this list is Oklahoma in 2005; the basketball team formerly known as the New Orleans Hornets is now officially the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets following the Hurricane Katrina disaster and negotiations between the franchise and Oklahoma City to house the team on a temporary basis. The Hornets played 35 of 41 home games in Oklahoma City during the 2005-06 NBA season. There had been considerable speculation that this move would be permanent and that the team would eventually become the Oklahoma City Hornets, but the NBA has since announced that the franchise will return to New Orleans permanently for the 2007-08 season. However, the Seattle SuperSonics have been purchased by a group from Oklahoma City, fueling speculation that the Sonics may move there once the Hornets return to New Orleans.

Currently, 3 states have only 1 major league sports team. Coincidentally, all of these teams are in the NBA, which led the other leagues in expansion to fast-growing Western U.S. markets such as Phoenix and Seattle. The states are Oklahoma (the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets), Oregon (the Portland Trail Blazers), and Utah (the Utah Jazz). Each team is healthy enough to remain in their current location, though the NBA has announced that the Hornets will return to New Orleans in 2007.

In place of major league teams, college, minor league, and high school teams enjoy quite a lot of attention, such as high school football teams throughout Alabama, The University of Alabama football and basketball, Nebraska's college football team, Kentucky's college basketball team, and so on.