There are sports fans, and then there are sports fanatics. And, of course, there are America’s smartest sports fans.

Not only can these devoted diehards rattle off sports stats and records like nobody’s business, they’re also always the first to be picked for sports trivia night.

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When it comes to sports IQ, we were curious to find out where the smartest sports fans in America live. In order to find out, we took to Google and analyzed sports-related questions in every major sports city across the country. Questions ranged from general knowledge queries such as “what’s a quarterback” and “what is the strike zone in baseball” to more difficult questions such as “who has the most Super Bowl rings” and “who won the World Series in 2002.”

Where Do America’s Smartest Sports Fans Live?

New York City can arguably be considered the sports mecca of America. After all, the city is home to three NHL teams, two NBA teams, two MLB teams and two NFL teams. With such a deep sports history, it might not come as a surprise that New York City ranks No. 1 for smartest sports fans.

According to our analysis, New Yorkers are searching the least for sports-related questions with a monthly average of just 243 sports-related searches per 100,000. Translation: New York sports fans know their stuff and don’t need to turn to Google for the answers.

We travel to the opposite coast to find the home of the second smartest sports fans in the country: Los Angeles. LA also has a solid number of professional sports teams including two NBA teams, two NFL teams, two MLB teams and two NHL teams. According to our analysis, LA has a monthly average of 422 sports-related searches per 100,000.

And of course, Chicago sports fans also rank high on the list coming in at No. 3 with 577 sports-related searches per 100,000. Houston and Phoenix round out the top five at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.

Sports Questions by State

Along with analyzing Google searches to determine the smartest sports cities, we also looked at the most Googled common knowledge sports questions in every state. For this portion of the analysis, we specifically focused on questions such as “what is a quarterback,” “how many innings in a baseball game,” “what is traveling in basketball” and “what is cross checking in hockey” as well as hundreds of different variations for the NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL.

Baseball-related questions were by far the most popular common knowledge questions. Overall, baseball questions were the most popular in 32 states followed by football questions, which ranked No. 1 in 12 different states.

Despite his 10 Super Bowl appearances, seven Super Bowl wins and five Super Bowl MVP awards, there are still quite a few people who aren’t familiar with Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, Tom Brady. In fact, “who is Tom Brady” was the most common search in Delaware, Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming. But to be fair, these states also do not have any professional football teams.

2015 MVP, Cam Newton, also ranked as the No. 1 search in five states including Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. These states also do not have any professional football teams.

Whether you’re new to the world of professional sports, or looking for a good teammate on trivia night, you’re probably in luck if you know a sports fan in New York City that you can call up.

Methodology

We analyzed more than 1,500 sports-related search queries throughout the last 12 months (June 2020 – June 2021) using data from the Google Ads platform. Keywords and phrases ranged from general knowledge questions to advanced queries for the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. Average search volume during this period was then calculated per capita and visualized per 100,000 for 46 major sports cities across the country. We also analyzed disproportionately popular general knowledge sports queries in all 50 states.