Friday, November 16, 2007

Congratulations Baltimore

http://www.tailgatingideas.com/2007/10/18/baltimore-top-tailgating-city/#more-43

Congratulations Baltimore

Baltimore, a city esteemed for its crab houses, Inner Harbor and home of one of the NFL’s most rugged defenses, now has another claim to fame: it’s the best football tailgating city in the United States. Runners-up were Denver, Houston, San Diego and Cincinnati. This ranking was funded and backed by DirecTV and KVH Industries, Inc. Both are companies that have a stake in encouraging more fans to go high-tech in their tailgating ventures. Which ones were ranked the worst by these “experts”? St. Louis, Detroit and Seattle all ranked at the bottom. See where your city ranked.

The main criteria in forming this ranking included stadium parking lots, overall tailgating environment, tailgating-fan enthusiasm and the sales of tailgating accessories like in-car live TV systems and mobile programming. Taking into account all these factors, these experts visited 31 NFL cities (both the Giants and the Jets share the same stadium) plus NFL-hopeful Los Angeles. Apparently it took this group of experts four years to compile all the information and to visit all of the cities to gather this information and make their rankings. With all the criteria considered, Baltimore came out on top.

Rounding out the top 10 were Miami (sixth), Tampa (seventh), Kansas City (eighth), Buffalo (ninth) and Philadelphia and Phoenix (tied for tenth). The complete 32-city ranking can be found at the bottom of this article. Other factors that would help a particular stadium and city’s “tailgating-friendliness” quotient included stadium parking lot sizes, fees, accessibility, hours of operation and special facilities and programs for tailgaters. Oh yeah, the sale of DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket packages and TracVision mobile satellite TV systems for cars and RVs in 2006-2007 also played a role.

Baltimore’s top ranking is attributed to its high scores in all four categories while Tampa, Miami and Buffalo benefited from high tailgating expert ratings and superior stadium or parking facilities boosted Denver, Houston and Cincinnati. Ongoing construction of the Meadowlands Xanadu and Patriots Place projects limited the scores of New York and Boston, respectively, while parking or tailgating restrictions in Green Bay, Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle similarly affected their tailgating scores. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Rose Bowl were used for evaluation.

Keep in mind that this “study” was funded by two large corporations that want to encourage the consumption of their products and programming. We’re not saying the results were skewed or are we questioning the integrity of the rankings but please know where the information is coming from. think your city and stadium should be ranked higher? Maybe you should get your fellow tailgaters to buy more portable satellite TV systems and subscribe to DirecTV. That may help your rankings. If you are unconcerned on how your city ranks, keep up that attitude and create your own tailgating style.

The following is a complete list of all 32 cities ranked most “tailgating-friendly” cities in the U.S. by KVH Industries, DirecTV and tailgating experts:

1. Baltimore
2. Denver
3. Houston
4. San Diego
5. Cincinnati
6. Miami
7. Tampa
8. Kansas City
9. Buffalo
10. Philadelphia (tied)
10. Phoenix (tied)
12. Washington, D.C.
13. Green Bay
14. Jacksonville
15. Oakland, CA
16. Indianapolis
17. Nashville
18. New York (tied)
18. Pittsburgh (tied)
18. Boston (tied)
21. San Francisco
22. Cleveland
23. Charlotte
24. Los Angeles
25. Minneapolis
26. Dallas
27. Chicago
28. Atlanta
29. New Orleans
30. St. Louis
31. Detroit
32. Seattle

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