SEC
Ranking the best, worst towns for SEC football fans
WalletHub.com recently crunched some numbers, compared and contrasted various criteria and produced a list of the best and worst cities for football fans in America.
Read here for a full explanation of their methodology. Essentially they looked at the 245 largest cities in the U.S. with NFL and college football teams and measured the number and quality of teams, fan passion, cost of attendance, etc.
The didn’t break it down by conference, but that’s why we’re here.
Clemson, S.C., home of the Tigers, was the highest-ranked college town, finishing No. 2 overall behind Green Bay, Wis.
Here is how WalletHub.com ranked the 14 SEC cities:
| Rank | SEC city | Performance | Fan experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Tuscaloosa, Ala. | 4 | 19 |
| 10 | Baton Rouge, La. | 15 | 46 |
| 41 | Starkville, Miss. | 85 | 11 |
| 57 | Nashville, Tenn. | 42 | 171 |
| 66 | Columbia, S.C. | 131 | 37 |
| 74 | Fayetteville, Ark. | 95 | 57 |
| 98 | Gainesville, Fla. | 108 | 103 |
| 110 | Auburn, Ala. | 34 | 203 |
| 162 | Oxford, Miss. | 67 | 196 |
| 176 | Athens, Ga. | 32 | 215 |
| 197 | Knoxville, Tenn. | 70 | 202 |
| 203 | College Station, Texas | 53 | 209 |
| 207 | Columbia, Mo. | 51 | 218 |
| 240 | Lexington, Ky. | 202 | 238 |
What a load of horsesh*t. I went to Alabama and lived there for years. Tuscaloosa sucks to live in.
Nobody goes to a university and hates it, unless you were touched by Big Al…
This ain’t about the university. This is about Tuscaloosa as a college town and as such it’s garbage to rank it that high. Lot of traffic, crime and a lack of entertainment. The downtown area is flat concrete buildings that are drab and there’s no trees. It’s like the crap part of Birmingham relocated.
I grew up in Columbus, MS and basically felt the same way about T-town… It was nothing special,,, just another small southern city… But have you been there since the devastating tornados ripped it to shreds? I think you’d be surprised? I was this past August.
Of course you think it’s horse shat. DeaconAU. Your names shows your bias. Personally Aubarn has a smell of Manure that destroys the fan atmosphere and dip spit covering the sidewalks. But that’s just keeping it down home cuz!
Huh, I am surprised.
Any list that ranks Starkville ahead of Athens should be immediately considered horse manure. Oxford at #162 is way too low. Lexington is pretty great too- nowhere near the bottom of the list.
This list is total garbage. We deserve low marks for performance, but anyone who has ever been to Lexington in the fall and pulled the Keeneland/UK football game doubleheader will testify that ‘238’ for ‘fan experience’ is a not just joke, but frigging ridiculous.
Another Kentucky fan on this website? Please tell me you’re a sensible human being unlike SevenT, and we can have constructive arguments in here.
Athens parking on game day is typically tough. Also the city single-laned many two lane thoroughfares and added bike lanes. I guess because to many of the dawg fans ride their bicycles to the UGA games?
Maybe if you guys looked at the 18 metrics that they used for comparison, you would better understand the rankings. If you click on the read “here” for methodology, you can find that info, and see the sources.
Yep – this list has about ZERO to do with college football. As a matter of fact, what they rated would point to a lousy college football experience. For a good college football experience, go to a town where the college game IS what happens that day – nothing else.
Well I only know of the towns I have lived in or visited. Was born and raised in Knoxville so I am somewhat partial. Knoxville has everything. Mountians,lakes,night life,outlet malls,you name it they got it. Plus Knoxville is an actual big city. Not like most SEC towns where most are below 100,000 people. Plus Knoxville in the fall when the leaves are turning, you cant get any better.
I lived about an hour north of Tuscaloosa for about 5 years. Hated it. Nothing to do unless your a Bama fan. There is very little for the young kids to do unless you like cruising the back roads.
Nashville is really nice town. Like Knoxville, ton of things to do and its a actual big city as well. The Tennessee Titans draw most of the support from Vandy. All you see is Volunteer and Titan stuff. Vandy is kinda like a step child.
Fayetteville is nice but small. You have the Ozark mountians and Branson not that far away. Have couple of lakes nearby. I would rank Fayetteville behind Knoxville and Nashville. Fayetteville is just a small town and has that small town look. Some people like that.
A lot of people prefer small towns. Especially for college football. Big cities are just big cities with too many other things to detract from the game.
Not Knoxville….all orange and UT. Small towns are nice but usually not much going on except church and watching paint dry.
An hour north of Tuscaloosa? So do I. Jasper or Fayette?
Around Jasper. Nothing there but mobile home factories or thays what it was when I lived there.
Fayette used to have a pretty darn good football team.
Thanks for sharing Chippy
You obviously are a real world traveler
Me and mommaT get around. I have lived more places than your moms basement in podunk Kentucky.
Finnebum made the list
I don’t know how they came up with these rankings but if they are talking about college towns, how in the world is Starkville and Tuscaloosa that high? I have been to Oxford, Fayetteville, Baton Rouge, Nashville, Knoxville, Starkville, Tuscaloosa and Athens. Oxford and Athens are by far the best college towns in the country. Baton Rouge is nice but it’s a large place. There is absolutely nothing in Starkville and Tuscaloosa isn’t that nice either. Nashville is NOT a college town. Its a nice city but nothing about says it’s a college town. Knoxville is a nice place but not on the same level as Oxford and Athens.
Need a tissue?
Oxford and Starkville are more similar than you seem to think, what is there about two restaraunts and Home Depot difference between them. That and unreasonably high rent in the Oxford area along with real estate prices. Count everything that’s available in Oxford to what’s available in Starkville, there’s just not that much different. I’ve spent about half my life between them. All of that is beside the point, as you obviously didn’t bother to check out their metrics (has nothing to do with ‘college towns’). If you had, you would probably see it does make some sense. You want to see a comparison of the two as college football venues, check out ratings for stadiums and gameday experience by any of the sites to do such surveys. Everybody apparrently thinks that OM fans are rude, and that’s people not affiliated with MSU. Maybe if yall would stop trying to ‘win the party’, that wouldn’t be the case. Just being honest, both towns, like most college towns, lack a lot of things while still having more of certain other things than most towns as small. And don’t compare Oxford to Athens, Athens is literally about 5 times the size of Oxford or Starkville. You know, Starkville is actually bigger than Oxford, and wierdly, has more to do overall. That’s actually sad. I will admit Oxford has better proximity to prime public land and water in almost every direction, and thanks for McCallister’s and OVP (food was better when there was just one, but still pretty darned good).
I agree with Deacon4AU, a load of horse sh*t! Athens at number 176! Can’t be. Not that low!
Having Athens and College Station so low? Been to both on game day. That’s nuts.
STARKVILLE has the best ranked fan experience in the SEC. Bahahahahahahaaaaa
I hate Bama and tend to support Auburn but if you haven’t been to a game then you really don’t have room to talk.
Auburn usually doesn’t show up to the games where they’re gonna kick our ass, yet alone the ones when we’re gonna kick there’s.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
It’s amazing that your authors don’t seem to see the same thing in Columbia, MO that so many national publications do. COMO is repeatedly ranked in the top college towns in the USA.
Well most southerners dont really consider Missouri part of the south. People even talk different in Missouri, theu have thay northern accent. I like visiting Missouri, but people are different there. Like Florida, folks dont consider them part of the south as well. I know the southern accent changed from state to state but Missouri folks are northerners in my opinion. I have lived in Tennessee, Bama,Georgia, and Arkansas which probably I would say Bama is the most backwards hillbilly place that I have lived.
Thanks for the geography lesson Chippy
Please keep posting you provide great entertainment.
Are all people from Tennessee as ignorant backward and stupid as you are?
Did you graduate from high school?
It’s bad enough that the writers at SDS now write a lot of bullsh*t, but now they are linking to outside sites that write even worse bullsh*t. Get it together SDS.
Lexington needsto be higher, performance wise we deserve that, but lexington has a lot to do from Keeneland to having some nice modern areas for students and being nearby to Louisville and Cincinnati helps too