Most football fans probably feel as though their home turf, their team's stadium, their proud city is the best throughout the league. The sunny skies of Raymond James Stadium and Hard Rock Stadium are likely optimal watching environments for getting the season underway for Bucs and Dolphins fans. The blisteringly cold environment of Soldier Field and Lambeau Field couldn't be more perfect for watching late-season football games to Bears and Packers fans, respectively. And for every team in between, there's probably a reason why home is such a great, special place that can't be outdone by any other city.
But by putting those subjective views aside, we can see that there certainly seem to be some stadiums and cities that provide a fantastic fan experience, and there are those that, well, don't. Action Network put together a "gameday index" using a number of different metrics, including data related to the cost of watching and consuming the entire football experience, the stadium and social media info for each team and more. Weighted differently and combined into one catch-all figure, the 30 cities boasting at least one NFL team — New York and Los Angeles both have two — were put in order based on their index score out of a possible 20 points.
Atlanta earned the top spot with a score of 12.72 on the index, putting Mercedes-Benz Stadium well above the others on the list. Again, it's not all about the stadium experience, as other factors come into the equation according to the methodology, but it's not necessarily a surprise to see Mercedes-Benz at or near the top of any NFL stadium list. The Sporting News, for instance, ranked it near the top back in 2019 (via Mark Meltzer of The Atlanta Business Chronicle).
The rest of the top five cities were New York (11.79), Nashville (11.29), Cincinnati (11.24) and Kansas City (11.07). The bottom five of the list was composed of San Francisco (6.82), Boston (6.57), Los Angeles (6.17), Philadelphia (6.16) and, coming in dead last, Chicago (5.89). Another compilation of data showed that the Bears were the "least affordable team" in the league based on the city's median income in comparison to ticket prices, so perhaps this shouldn't come as too big a surprise.
Here's the full list — where does your city rank?
1. Atlanta
2. New York
3. Nashville
4. Cincinnati
5. Kansas City
6. Phoenix
7. Charlotte
8. Green Bay
9. Miami
10. Cleveland
11. Indianapolis
12. Tampa
13. Baltimore
14. Buffalo
15. Houston
16. Denver
17. Jacksonville
18. Detroit
19. Dallas
20. Las Vegas
21. New Orleans
22. Washington, D.C.
23. Pittsburgh
24. Seattle
25. Minneapolis
26. San Francisco
27. Boston
28. Los Angeles
29. Philadelphia
30. Chicago
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