Map: The Best American Cities for Soccer Fans

America’s love affair with football is obvious: It’s for good reason that nine out of the top 10 most-watched television broadcasts in U.S. history are Super Bowls (and, to put that into perspective, the only other one is the Apollo 11 moon landing).

But to the rest of the world, the word football means something very different: The game known to Americans as “soccer” is the most popular sport on the planet, with a staggering 3.5 billion regular fans and participants estimated worldwide. In recent years, however, the U.S. has begun to catch up, no doubt thanks in part to the U.S. women’s team’s record-breaking performance at the World Cup. Soccer is more popular than ever in the United States, with some 14 million Americans playing the sport regularly. And now, finance data website WalletHub has compiled a new survey uncovering the best cities for soccer fans across the U.S. 

1. The Survey Methodology
2. The Best American Cities for Soccer Fans Are …
3. The Best Cities for Soccer Fans by City Size
4. Interactive Map of the Best U.S. Cities for Soccer Fans

The Survey Methodology

The survey’s authors compiled data for 302 of America’s most populous cities that have at least one college or professional soccer team, taking data from five divisions: the MLS (Division I Men’s), NWSL (Division I Women’s), USL (Division III Men’s), College Soccer (Division I Men’s), and College Soccer (Division I Women’s). Each city was then given a weighted score across 52 different metrics, including stadium capacity and attendance, franchise value, coaching stats and records, local Hall of Fame inductees, and even social media likes and activity among local teams.

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The Best American Cities for Soccer Fans Are …

With all the data collected and numbers crunched, the survey found that Los Angeles is America’s most soccer-friendly city, with a total weighted score in the survey of 55.88—placing it a full eight points higher than the city in the No. 2 spot.

LA’s top-spot victory is perhaps unsurprising given that it is one of the founding cities of Major League Soccer in the United States, and is home to two of the MLS league’s most profitable teams—LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC, worth an average of more than $1 billion each—as well as NSWL’s Angel City FC.

In second place, Orlando scored 47.14 in the survey, followed not far behind by Seattle in third (46.26), Salt Lake City in fourth (44.15), and Portland, Oregon, a close fifth (44.05). The remainder of the top 10 was comprised of New York (40.65), Washington, D.C. (39.83), Miami (37.63), Kansas City, Missouri (36.62), and Atlanta (35.24).

The Best Cities for Soccer Fans by City Size

Comparing major population centers as Los Angeles and New York with smaller (but no less sports-friendly) locations might seem a little unfair. But the survey’s authors had the foresight to break the data down further based also on the relative size of city in the study, diving the numbers between large cities (300,000 people or more), midsize cities (100,000 to 300,000 people), and small cities (fewer than 100,000 people).

Los Angeles still came out on top in the large list, and Salt Lake City took the top spot in the midsize cities list. The most soccer-friendly small-scale city in America is Clemson, South Carolina, which scored 12.75 in the study. Not far behind it was Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with 12.70 in second place, followed by Leesburg, Virginia, in third with a score of 11.86.

America’s love of soccer, it seems, doesn’t always rely on legions of fans and billion-dollar turnovers.

Interactive Map of the Best U.S. Cities for Soccer Fans

Hover over the dots to see each city’s rank.

For more on the survey’s choice of metrics, and to find out how the other cities included in the study fared in the national rankings, head over to the WalletHub blog here.