Feb. 10--Chicago ranks as the 18th best city for football fans based on an analysis of several factors by financial website WalletHub. It gets better, Bears fans: Green Bay is No. 1.
WalletHub looked at 245 cities with an NFL or college football team and graded each on a combination of historic team performance, ticket costs, fan engagement and other factors.
Chicago took a hit on the "costs and fan engagement" half of WalletHub's composite score, landing at 198th in that category.
"The city has the fifth highest average ticket price for a NFL game at $108 and also the fifth lowest NFL fan friendliness and engagement at 1.82 Twitter followers and Facebook Likes per capita," WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez said via email on Tuesday. "In terms of stadium accessibility, Chicago ranked 2nd worst, from parking to how many fans can fit into the stadium."
Accessibility was measured by a stadium's capacity compared to the city's population. Soldier Field has the second smallest capacity, next to Oakland's O.co Coliseum, but Chicago is the nation's third largest city.
Chicago's score got its boost from the "teams and performance" category, where the city placed seventh. But how can a city without a major college football team (Northwestern isn't in the city proper, so, no, it doesn't count toward the score) and a professional team that hasn't had a winning season since 2012 rank so high?
In short, it's past championships, only one of which (1963) occurred after Bears head coach John Fox was born in 1955.
The Bears' record in the least three seasons ranks 24th, Gonzalez told the Tribune. but WalletHub's counting the fact that the franchise has the second highest number of football championships wins with nine, along with all of its conference and division titles since 1920. So there you go, Bears fans, that strong run in the NFL Western in the 1930s and '40s is helping prop up your score in 2016.
"The team also has the seventh highest NFL franchise value at ($2.45) million," Gonzalez said.
Meanwhile, DeKalb ranked 23rd on WalletHub's list in part because of Northern Illinois University's "fairly high" record the past three seasons.
The following charts the top 10 sports cities of 2015 based on a composite of rankings in football, basketball, hockey and baseball.
plthompson@tribpub.com
