Missoula Jumps Up In “Best Basketball City Rankings,” But Still Trails Bozeman. Here’s Why According To Study

Last year, around this time, I wrote an article on why Missoula was a better basketball city than our counterparts over the hill.

READ MORE: Bozeman Is A Better Basketball City Than Missoula... I Beg To Differ!

The Financial website WalletHub conducts a yearly study of the best and worst basketball cities. The site looks at how well hometown teams perform, ticket prices, arena sizes and social media engagement.

Missoula checked in #219 on last year's list, while Bozeman registered at #167.

I disagree, WalletHub, but I digress. This year, the gap tightened, but Bozeman still has the edge.

Bozeman: #185

Missoula: #200

Zoo Town jumped up 10 spots while Bozeman dropped 18 spots. I'm assuming those changes stemmed from the Montana Grizzlies reaching the NCAA Tournament while Montana State missed the Big Dance for the first time since 2001.

Despite the slight change, my argument stays the same: Missoula is still a better basketball town than Bozeman.

Historically, the Griz have 21 Big Sky regular season or tournament championships since 1991.

The Cats have 7.

Oh, and there's this:

Even with the Cats' run from 2021-2024, Montana still owns a commanding edge in head-to-head battles.

Plus, the Grizzlies have averaged more fans in 3 of the last 4 years.

And how about the Montana Lady Griz?

The Lady Griz owned the entire Big Sky Conference with Robin Selvig for nearly 4 decades. It's a women's basketball program that was way ahead of its time. That counts for something.

Although I will concede the point that MSU has owned the Lady Griz' number over the last decade.

I'm still not over this year's Big Sky Conference Championship😭.

Check out the latest Daily Drive episode: Team Name Game Semifinal: Voice of the Griz Riley Corcoran VS Griz Fan Henry. 

Best cities for basketball fans

Missoula and Bozeman will never compete with most of the cities on the list, because we don't have NBA teams. The WalletHub study looks at both NBA and NCAA ranks.

Checking in as the best basketball city is Los Angeles, CA. The City of Angels was followed by Boston, San Francisco, Salt Lake City (?) and Philadelphia.