This Maine town tops Vegas, Tampa for football fans

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With Super Bowl 50 looming as the next unofficial sports holiday in America, finance site and city ranking factory WalletHub crunched the numbers to determine which places in the country are the best and worst ones for football fans.

The particularly fan-friendly Green Bay, Wisconsin, where fans share ownership of their beloved NFL team, the Packers, came in at the top spot on the list.

But more than halfway up — at No. 104 out of 245 cities and towns — was none other than Orono, Maine, which topped both Las Vegas (No. 105) and Tampa (No. 117).

St. Louis, which was home of the NFL’s Rams for two decades and the Cardinals before that, narrowly edged Orono at No. 103.

Vegas, of course, is the gambling capital of America, and will the home of significant financial activity on Super Sunday, while Tampa actually has its own professional football team (albeit a traditionally mediocre one).

Source: WalletHub

While WalletHub tied its study into the news hooks of the upcoming Big Game, it clearly included college towns in its list of possible football-friendly places, and it’s worth pointing out that Orono — home of the UMaine Black Bears — was rated higher than major Division I college football towns like Syracuse, New York (No. 126); Boulder, Colorado (No. 168); Athens, Georgia (No. 176); and South Bend, Indiana (No. 198).

WalletHub used criteria such as ticket prices, stadium accessibility, team performance and “friendly and engaged” fans (as determined by Twitter followers and Facebook “likes”).

So while Boston, for instance, won points for having a successful team in the New England Patriots and having engaged (friendly?) fans, it suffered somewhat from having expensive tickets to get into Gillette Stadium in nearby Foxborough.

Tampa and Jacksonville were lauded for selling cheap tickets to NFL games, but then were docked points for having bad teams (which is probably why the tickets are so cheap).

If you’re looking for a good place to watch Super Bowl 50 within the state of Maine, the foodie website Eater Maine has a list of 13 suggestions, including Seasons Grille & Sports Lounge in Bangor, Rollie’s in Belfast, Trackside Station in Rockland, and Mulligan’s in Biddeford, as well as several places in Portland, including Binga’s Stadium, The Thirsty Pig and Roustabout.