Chicago has been raking in recognitions this year, consistently topping rankings and receiving flattering results in varying studies.
From being named the best big city in the United States last month to being deemed both one of the world’s prettiest cities in summer and one of the world’s most beautiful cities in fall, we’ve not stopped accumulating the accolades.
Esteemed establishments like the New York Times and Condé Nast Traveler have lauded the city’s hotels, bars and restaurants this year but now another study has deemed Chicago a top-tier city in a ranking it will be truly proud of – sports.
In a study carried out by Betting.com, the company analyzed all 130 stadiums across North America’s five major sporting leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, & NHL).
Using Yelp, data was then pulled for post and pregame places within a 2km radius of each stadium, creating a list of over 75,000 restaurants, bars, and pubs across the US with information on distance, affordability, and quality.
Using these data points Betting.com ranked cities in North America based on the best availability of sporting nightlife normalizing the cities against each other to prevent bias towards the most densely populated metropolitan areas.
Boasting over 2,300 post-game restaurants, bars, and pubs, and ranking in the top 3 for affordability, Chicago narrowly finished runner-up in the list of North America’s liveliest sporting cities with an index score of 8.48.
“While Bears fans are often consoling a loss, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in Chi-town,” wrote Betting.com.
From all the numerous fantastic sports bars around Chicago, the study highlighted Parlay Lincoln Park, Joe’s on Weed St, the family-owned Glascott’s and bar-bite heaven McGee’s Tavern.
Chicago was pipped to first place by Toronto which was named the liveliest sporting city in North America, with an index score of 8.74.
“The city is host to several top sports teams, including the Blue Jays, Raptors, Maple Leafs, and Toronto FC,” wrote Betting.com. “With such a wide array of sports fans visiting the Canadian city, Hogtown is well-served with over 643 sports bars.”
New York City finished third liveliest city for sports fans with some of the most impressive nightlife offerings in North America and over 1,000 sports bars and pubs to choose from.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis ranked top of the affordability leaderboard with 23.15% of Minneapolis sports bars and pubs rated affordable beating out St Louis, Missouri (22.41%) in second and Chicago in third with 20.78%.
At the other end of the scale, 93.87% of Los Angeles’ 182 sports bars and pubs were deemed unaffordable, making it the most unaffordable city in North America for sports fans closely followed by Salt Lake City, Utah, and Miami, Florida with 92.95% and 91.71%.
Of all major North American sports, Baseball came out as the best catered-for sport while on the flip side, the struggle is real for MLS fans who have the hardest task enjoying the MLS across the continent.
Read the full study.[Featured image from Shutterstock]