ESPN discovers the ‘UK’s Greatest Sporting City for 2016’
The UK’s Greatest Sporting City for 2016, has been crowned after research by ESPN and the University of Bath.
The accolade for the city of Leicester comes after UK sport site ESPN.co.uk collaborated with the University of Bath on the second annual research project to discover the best place in the country to be a sports fan.
“Leicester City’s success last season has given the whole city a huge boost, and that positivity is clearly reflected in this research. We’re obviously enormously proud of our football club, but Leicester is also home to one of England’s most successful rugby clubs, the country’s oldest basketball club, an ambitious cricket club, and a very successful women’s hockey club. I think it’s fair to say that, when it comes to sport, Leicester – a city of just 330,000 people – enjoys punching above its weight. Being recognised as the best place in the country to be a fan is a huge accolade, so I am delighted that ESPN’s research has confirmed Leicester as the UK’s Greatest Sporting City.” – Leicester’s City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby
Leicester topped the ranking after scoring highly in most of the 12 factors that fans identified as key to a great sporting city. The city climbed 17 places from 18th last year, and earned a maximum score in five factors – Success, Matchday Atmosphere, Local Talent, Community and Social. Last year’s winning city, Manchester, scored maximum points in just two factors.
Leicester is followed by 2015’s top two, which each moved down a place – Manchester in second and London in third. Completing the top five are Liverpool in fourth and Leeds in fifth. At the bottom end of the list, Blackpool ranked last for the second year in a row, behind York in 48th, Luton in 47th and Bournemouth in 46th.
This year, ESPN also divided the research into individual sports to reveal the best places to be a fan of football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. On the back of Leicester City’s historic title-winning season, Leicester received the accolade of the best city to be a football fan. Leeds ranked as the best city for both cricket and rugby league fans, while Cardiff is the top town for rugby union lovers.
There is a continued northern dominance in the top ten, with seven of the top-ranked cities located in the north of the UK, up from six last year. Despite Leicester’s massive 17-place rise up the list, it is not the biggest climber, as Oxford jumped up 19 places from 40th to 21st. Meanwhile, the biggest faller was Bournemouth, which dropped 24 places from 22nd to 46th.
As part of the research, ESPN asked fans to rank 12 factors that help make up a great sporting city, in order to provide weightings for each city’s results. This year, fans ranked Value for Money as the most important factor, as it received 19% of the vote. A city’s Matchday Atmosphere was ranked by 17% of fans as the most important, while Club Success for a city’s professional teams received 15% of fan votes.
“It is not easy to earn the accolade of ESPN’s Greatest Sporting City, so the city of Leicester deserves all the congratulations it receives. To rank highly, a city must perform well in a variety of key factors which rely on a combination of fan opinion and third party data. To score top marks in five factors is a great achievement.” – Assistant Professor Thomas Curran, University of Bath
