City Population Database

[Henry]

Below is a table I put together that I think would be a good basis to justify a city's capability to support a team (going along with my original ideas for a financial overhaul).

Basically there's two values for each city. One is it's population in 2002, and the second is it's "growth" over the past 2 decades. The population numbers have been reduced to a rating and the "growth" to a percentage (1980 to 2002).

Keep in mind that the financial system I'm thinking about for now is ONLY for present time leagues (real or fictional). The "historical adjuster" issue still needs to be resolved before we would know how to integrate this into the game for historical seasons.

I've included a growth rating becasue it's important from a team ownership perspective to know if your community is increasing or decreasing in size.

Another point.... because of the huge differences in size, leagues would have to be assembled from similar sized communities if the financial picture is to make any sense.

This is only a very small part of the total picture - but I thought you'd like to see the data if nothing else :-)

[sporr]

This looks great! This will help for those of us who want to model our leagues on modern-day realistic settings. Hopefully, we can add more to this city data and OOTP can pull the appropriate info from the city database.

[643gdp]

I used to look ONLY at population as well, especially when creating fictional leagues. But then I added per capita income to the mix. When you combine both pieces of the puzzle (how many people, and how much does the average person have to spend) then you get a better picture of the purchasing power of the people, which is (IMHO) a solid indicator of where teams can (or should) thrive.

The best link to per capita income data (including some historical data) is:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/msa/msa3.html

which has this information for LOTS of good-sized metro areas back to 1959 or so.

Another possibility to fill in the picture of where successful teams go and live is the age distribution of metro areas. I'd imagine that cities that are heavier on younger families (as opposed to retirement-age population) are probably more baseball-friendly. But I haven't look at this in any detail at all.
Jay

[jaxmagicman]

It looks Louisville, is the highest ranked city without a Professional Sports team.

Edit: I looked again and found El Paso.

[Karros270]

I think this list it a good start but it doesn't take into account surrounding areas as well. Example: The Angels may be in Anaheim which has a low index number but they get a lot of fans from surrounding areas and LA. No way they would be able to be one of the top drawing teams like they were last year based on that model.

[treedom]

this would be killer *if* this city data was in some external text file we could alter and even completely replace...for us nuts who like to set our fantasy leagues in fantasy worlds...

[fantom1979]

Originally posted by Karros270
I think this list it a good start but it doesn't take into account surrounding areas as well. Example: The Angels may be in Anaheim which has a low index number but they get a lot of fans from surrounding areas and LA. No way they would be able to be one of the top drawing teams like they were last year based on that model.

Agreed, Detroit only has 900k people and is falling fast, but their are 4.5 million in metro detroit and increasing (within 60 miles) and they are the ones that have the money to go to sporting events.

[Henry]

Well.... I came up with this one a while back - but it didn't seem to interest anyone at the time... this more of what your looking for ?

[Karros270]

Bingo

[ifspuds]

Very interesting stuff, Henry, and thanks for posting it -- I'm thinking about a new solo league, and this could be really useful.

I'm curious where you got the numbers for the second chart. To count Portland and Salem (Oregon) together which are about 45 miles apart but not include Vancouver, WA (just across the Columbia River from Portland) seems a bit inaccurate to me.

[kq76]

There's definitely something off with those #s. Boston, Washington and Atlanta are all relatively large markets, yet they're pretty low in your ratings. Where exactly did you get them? Are they MSA, CMSA, PMSA?

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs): The U.S. Office of Management and Budget designates MSAs to be used as standard areas in the reporting of data for qualifying metropolitan regions. A MSA defines a county or group of counties having a large population center and economic ties to adjacent communities. To be designated a MSA, the area must either have a city of 50,000 or more inhabitants, or have an urbanized area of 50,000 inhabitants and a total MSA population of at least 100,000.

Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSAs): Metropolitan Areas that contain one million or more persons and meet other criteria are designated as CMSAs. They are separated into smaller areas (PMSAs). In Illinois, the Chicago-Gary-Kenosha area meets the CMSA criteria.

Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSAs): The smaller areas which comprise CMSAs are designated as PMSAs. A PMSA is a Metropolitan Statistical Area which is part of a CMSA. For 1992, the Chicago-Gary-Kenosha CMSA is comprised of the Chicago, IL; Kankakee, IL; Gary, IN; and Kenosha, WI PMSAs.

In other words, be wary of using PMSA's, CMSA's are preferred, while MSA's are ok if there is no CMSA.

I also agree with others that it should be:

1) tied to PCI data and
2) in an editable text file

EDIT: I was referring to the first table. Hadn't seen the second before I posted.

[bigD4VT]

I find this link helpful

link

[Henry]

If anyone would like to add the PCI figures (or eqivalent) to the second table, I can provide it in a spreadsheet.

Henry

[JimboJones]

This is a couple of years old, but pretty interesting nevertheless. It's a study ranking US cities in order of the percentage of the population who consider themselves avid baseball fans. This combined with population data, would be a pretty good indicator of the market for baseball in any given city.

http://www.scarborough.com/scarb2002/press/pr_mlb.htm

[Skipaway]

Did any of these count Yankees fans in Tampa Bay or Mariner fans in Tokyo?

[Brick]

I've played around with these numbers for more than a decade. I've discovered that when you put an additional team in a metro area, there's a square relationship to the populations.

For example, when you considered whether the New York area should get a third team, you don't divide 21.2m by 3 to get 7.1m and conclude that New York should have get a 3rd team before San Francisco-Oakland gets its first team. Instead divide 21.2m by 9 (3 squared) to get 2.4m. Now a 3rd team around New York is more in the neighborhood of Denver, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Pittsburgh.

So if you consider the 1.7m of Milwaukee to be the minimum support level, Sacramento (1.8m), Portland OR (2.3m), Washington DC (1.9m), New Jersey (2.4m) and Riverside-San Bernardino (1.8m) can also support teams. This is on a purely population basis. Ranking by income is probably a better measure in which case Washington comes out miles ahead. The populations of cities in Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico should be adjusted for income and exchange rate.

[JimboJones]

Originally posted by Skipaway
Did any of these count Yankees fans in Tampa Bay or Mariner fans in Tokyo?

No, its the percentage of the population of the CITY that are avid baseball fans. It asked if they were baseball fans, not what team they were fans of.

[Henry]

Originally posted by Brick
I've played around with these numbers for more than a decade. I've discovered that when you put an additional team in a metro area, there's a square relationship to the populations.

For example, when you considered whether the New York area should get a third team, you don't divide 21.2m by 3 to get 7.1m and conclude that New York should have get a 3rd team before San Francisco-Oakland gets its first team. Instead divide 21.2m by 9 (3 squared) to get 2.4m. Now a 3rd team around New York is more in the neighborhood of Denver, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Pittsburgh.

So if you consider the 1.7m of Milwaukee to be the minimum support level, Sacramento (1.8m), Portland OR (2.3m), Washington DC (1.9m), New Jersey (2.4m) and Riverside-San Bernardino (1.8m) can also support teams. This is on a purely population basis. Ranking by income is probably a better measure in which case Washington comes out miles ahead. The populations of cities in Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico should be adjusted for income and exchange rate.

Seems to make sense... law of diminishing returns ??

I'd like to redo this table (2nd one) based on this approach - what would really be great is to also include a PCI variable in the table as well... anyone have some reliable resources ?

Henry

[Chappy]

Thanks for the lists, Henry.

Whenever I consider expansion, I look at media market size, using this list:

Top 50 TV Markets Ranked by Households, 2001
Rank Designated Market Area (DMA)
TV Households % of US
1 New York, NY 7,301,060 6.924
2 Los Angeles, CA 5,303,490 5.030
3 Chicago, IL 3,360,770 3.187
4 Philadelphia, PA 2,801,010 2.656
5 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA 2,426,010 2.301
6 Boston, MA (Manchester, NH) 2,315,700 2.196
7 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX 2,201,170 2.088
8 Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD) 2,128,430 2.019
9 Atlanta, GA 1,990,650 1.888
10 Detroit, MI 1,878,670 1.782
11 Houston, TX 1,831,680 1.737
12 Seattle-Tacoma, WA 1,647,230 1.562
13 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN 1,573,640 1.492
14 Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL 1,568,180 1.487
15 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, FL 1,549,680 1.470
16 Phoenix, AZ 1,536,950 1.458
17 Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH 1,513,130 1.435
18 Denver, CO 1,381,620 1.310
19 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA 1,226,670 1.163
20 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL 1,182,420 1.121
21 Pittsburgh, PA 1,148,340 1.089
22 St. Louis, MO 1,143,690 1.085
23 Portland, OR 1,069,260 1.014
24 Baltimore, MD 1,023,530 0.971
25 Indianapolis, IN 1,013,290
0.961
26 San Diego, CA 975,690 0.925
27 Charlotte, NC 954,210 0.905
28 Hartford & New Haven, CT 953,130 0.904
29 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville), NC 939,000 0.891
30 Nashville, TN 879,030 0.834
31 Kansas City, MO 849,730 0.806
32 Cincinnati, OH 836,190 0.793
33 Milwaukee, WI 832,330 0.789
34 Columbus, OH 809,940 0.768
35 Salt Lake City, UT 782,960 0.743
36 Greenville-Spartanburg, SC-Asheville, NC-Anderson, SC 771,680 0.732
37 San Antonio, TX 710,030 0.673
38 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI 702,210 0.666
39 Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), AL 683,830 0.649
40 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL 681,100 0.646
41 Memphis, TN 655,210 0.621
42 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA 654,150 0.620
43 New Orleans, LA 653,020 0.619
44 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC 634,130 0.601
45 Oklahoma City, OK 623,760 0.592
46 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA 617,830 0.586
47 Buffalo, NY 616,610 0.585
48 Albuquerque-Santa Fe, NM 607,170 0.576
49 Providence, RI-New Bedford, MA 600,730 0.570
50 Louisville, KY 598,940 0.568


It's hardly scientific, but it takes a little more into account than just population. It takes into account how many boobs will sit around all day and watch sports. DC and Orlando in the east and Portland and Sacramento in the west are always the first places I add teams.

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by JimboJones
No, its the percentage of the population of the CITY that are avid baseball fans. It asked if they were baseball fans, not what team they were fans of.

It's just hard to really get a realistic model. There is no market boundaries in real life. It's generally about media coverage, but that could be easily adjusted.