Image: Terry Rozier, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. model the Heat's rebooted white Miami Vice-inspired uniforms.
Terry Rozier knocks us out of the Top ten. Miami Heat promotional photo
The Miami Heat's season was done and dusted long ago, but according to a new report from WalletHub, the Magic City is still one of the best places in the country to be a basketball fan.
The financial service platform recently conducted a study that pitted hundreds of the nation's cities against each other in various categories. The results found that Miami ranks 6th overall among 297 cities analyzed nationwide.
Not bad for a city that is still licking its wounds from a year spent watching University of Miami Hurricanes coach Jim Larrañaga quit midseason amid a brutal 7-24 campaign, and the Miami Heat get boat-raced out of the first round of the Eastern Conference via a four-game sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The study found that Los Angeles is the greatest place to be a basketball fan at the moment, which makes a ton of sense considering not only the fact that there are two NBA teams there — the Lakers and Clippers — but also that the Lakers recently pulled off arguably the most shocking trade in NBA history, landing Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks in return for Anthony Davis.
Boston, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and, oddly, Philadelphia rounded out the top five, just ahead of sixth-place Miami.
Source: WalletHub
WalletHub based its rankings on 21 key metrics measuring team performance, fan engagement, ticket pricing, and more. Using data collected as of early April from the U.S. Census Bureau, ESPN, NBA, NCAA.org, Forbes, Facebook, Twitter, Sports Reference, SportsCasting, Statista, and official team websites.
The results found that, despite a crushing sense of basketball depression, Miami's orange-ball fandom remains elite.
The Good News: The Miami Heat Are Elite
Among larger cities, Miami is the fifth-best city for basketball fans, according to WalletHub. Those numbers come from several factors, most notably those listed below, in which Miami ranked near the top of all cities. Miami's high marks were buoyed by the fact that it appears #HeatTwitter remains relentless in their online engagement, even as the team browned its pants all season.
First in NBA Fan Engagement
Seventh in NBA Team Performance
Sixth in NBA Titles Won
Sixth in NBA Stadium Capacity
Sixth in NBA Attendance
The Bad News: The Miami Hurricanes Are DOWN BAD
Okay, we let you eat your dessert before we got to the Brussels sprouts of this study, which found that, as their putrid seven-win season may allude to, times are tough if you're a fan of "The U's" basketball squad. And that would be putting it lightly.
The numbers for the Hurricanes are, let's say, less than swagger-inducing. We'll check back on the Hurricanes when they stop making things worse for us. Until then, we're not going to lie, 152nd in college hoops fan engagement seems high.
144th in NCAA Team Performance
152nd in College Basketball Fan Engagement
131st in NCAA Season Ticket Prices
click to enlarge Terry Rozier, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. model the Heat's rebooted white Miami Vice-inspired uniforms.
Terry Rozier knocks us out of the Top ten.
Miami Heat promotional photo
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Bottom Line: We're Not Buying It
Do we believe that Miami is the sixth-best city for a basketball fan? We do not. Sorry, WalletHub. No science can gauge the pain and suffering inside our hearts when watching Terry Rozier play basketball. There are a handful of cities around America still watching their NBA teams compete for a title, and chances are, none of those people are Miami Hurricanes fans, too. So a bit is going against us.
That being said, basketball is embedded in Miami sports culture. Evidenced by the fact that even while the Florida Panthers compete for a second-straight Stanley Cup title, you're more likely to log into social media to find Heat fans discussing whether Kevin Durant's next destination is the 305 than you are the latest dirty hit from Maple Leafs forward Max Domi.
Because outside of a Super Bowl, Miami craves nothing more than another championship parade down Biscayne Boulevard. But until that happens, being sixth at anything is nothing to celebrate.
As the great Ricky Bobby would say, "If you ain't first, you're last." That mantra is undoubtedly the way Miami fans judge happiness in all sports, not just basketball.