Where Teams Play

There are many professional sports teams in this country. How many teams home court, home field or home stadium is not located in the city they are named for? I'll look at the three major sports, baseball, basketball, and football. Others can examine hockey and soccer.

Let's start with basketball. There are 30 teams in the NBA. Since they play basketball indoors in arenas that seat about 20,000, there shouldn't be much need to go outside the downtown area of the host city. That is primarily the case. There are a couple of ambiguous names. The Golden State Warriors play in downtown Oakland. The Minnesota Timberwolves play in downtown Minneapolis. The Utah Jazz arena is in Salt Lake City. An aside is that the Utah Jazz is one of the most inappropriately named teams. Jazz and Salt Lake City have nothing in common. The franchise was originally the New Orleans Jazz before it was moved to Utah. The NBA should have required the nickname be changed. New Orleans now has another NBA team, the Pelicans. It should be named Jazz. The Salt Lake City team should be called the Mormons. The remaining 27 NBA teams actually play in the city whose name they carry. 

There are also 30 MLB teams. Baseball stadiums require considerably more land than a basketball arena. That makes it more difficult to find a location in some downtown areas. Although tax incentives rather than available land is more often the reason some teams threaten to build outside their namesake city. As with basketball, there are a few ambiguous teams. My favorite Texas Rangers play in Arlington, TX. The Arizona Diamondbacks are based in Phoenix. The Minnesota Twins stadium is in Minneapolis. The Colorado Rockies play in Denver. The Tampa Bay Rays are located in St. Petersburg. Those are all OK. Many people probably think that the Texas Rangers are in Dallas and the Tampa Bay Rays play in Tampa, but their names are technically correct. The Atlanta Braves recently moved to SunTrust Park which is northwest of downtown Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County. While still in the metropolitan Atlanta area, it is not within the Atlanta borders and in fact is not even in the same county as most of Atlanta. Now we come to the longest and most confusing team name, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The team does play in Anaheim and were once named the Anaheim Angels. They were originally named the California Angels when they actually played in Los Angeles. 

The NFL has a whopping 32 teams. Like baseball, they require enough land for huge stadiums plus parking. The NFL is currently the most popular and high profile major sport. Competition for their stadiums and training facilities is intense The NFL also has its geographical area named teams. There are the Minnesota Vikings who play in Minneapolis. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in Tampa (not St. Petersburg). The Arizona Cardinals play in Glendale, AZ. The Tennessee Titans settled in Nashville after a year in Memphis. The Carolina Panthers are located in Charlotte, NC. The New England Patriots expanded beyond a single state to encompass a whole section of the country. They were originally the Boston Patriots but had the decency to change their name when they moved out of the city. Their home field now is located in Foxborough, Mass., halfway between Boston and Providence, RI.  

The NFL is the most notorious league to actually play outside the city limits of their namesake. The two New York City teams, the Giants and Jets, not only don't play in that city, they don't even play in New York state. Both teams share MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. The Buffalo Bills play in Orchard Park, NY. The Miami Dolphins play in Miami Gardens. The recently moved LA Chargers play in Carson, CA. The Washington team plays in Landover, MD. The San Francisco 49's stadium is located in Santa Clara. The local Dallas Cowboys haven't played in Dallas since 1971. They were in Irving, TX until 2008 and are now in Arlington, TX. As of now, the remaining teams play in the city they are named after.

If you have enough land and can pull off public financing and tax incentives, you may be able to get the next new major sports venue. No need to actually be in the city the team is supposedly named for. 

So, don't always believe the name on the hat or jersey. You can use Google maps to find your favorite team's stadium. It may not be where you expected. Let's all root for the Arlington Cowboys or the New Jersey Giants (or Jets) or maybe the Carson Chargers. 

wjh