Posted on: November 12, 2025, 11:15h.
Last updated on: November 12, 2025, 11:34h.
- Las Vegas scored poorly on a survey’s list of Best Sports Cities
- Las Vegas continues to embrace sports
- The Oakland A’s are next set to relocate to Southern Nevada
Las Vegas has bet big on sports over the past decade, luring the NFL’s Raiders and WNBA’s Aces, and fielding an NHL expansion team with the Golden Knights. Southern Nevada hosted Super Bowl LIVIII and will likely welcome back the big game in the coming years. Allegiant Stadium is additionally set to host the Final Four in 2028.
Despite Southern Nevada playing host to numerous major events and already home to two of the “big four,” with a third possible with the arrival of MLB’s Athletics relocating to the Strip, a new study suggests Sin City still isn’t a sports city.
Spoiler alert: Las Vegas didn’t score well.
In search of the best sports cities, researchers at WalletHub analyzed data on 399 cities across more than 50 metrics related to football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and hockey to determine the “Best Sports Cities.”
Las Vegas Underperforms
WalletHub concluded that the sports-obsessed have better options than Las Vegas, despite its many casino sportsbooks being among the best places to watch sports.
Las Vegas placed 25th on the list of the Best Sports Cities, with its basketball rank of 203rd weighing down the destination. The city ranked 23rd for football, 69th for baseball, 42nd for soccer, and 22nd for hockey.
The football and hockey scores come as a bit of a surprise, considering Allegiant has emerged as a visiting fan’s paradise to watch their NFL team on the road, and the venue hosted the February 2024 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. The Chiefs won in a 25-22 overtime thriller. Allegiant will host the College Football Playoff National Championship on Jan. 25, 2027.
As for the ice, the Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final in the team’s inaugural 2020-21 season and won the Stanley Cup two years later. The team has made the playoffs in four of its first five years, quickly becoming among the most popular teams in the NHL.
Las Vegas’ overall score of 28.75 trailed Tampa (29.19), Buffalo (29.25), Indianapolis (29.68), and Houston (30.29).
Boston is the “Best Sports City” with a score of 49.93. The top five included Los Angeles (49.45), Pittsburgh (48.38), New York (47.86), and Dallas (44.82). No other city scored above 40 points, with Philadelphia sixth at 39.76.
Athletics Latest
John Fisher, the heir to the Gap retail clothing chain, plans to follow the Raiders in moving his Oakland Athletics from San Francisco’s Bay Area to Southern Nevada. Fisher hopes to have the A’s throw their first pitch near the Strip on MLB’s Opening Day in 2028.
There remain concerns, however, about the funding for the ballpark. The project is targeting land where the Tropicana stood until it was imploded in the fall of 2024. Early site prep is underway.