Hey, we're better than McAllen and Amarillo!

The Sporting News releases its annual list of The 400 Best Sports Cities in America in this week's edition. How editors arrived at their numbers is explained in the paragraph at the bottom of this post. Midland is in at No. 319, on the strength, one would assume, of the RockHounds. While some qualifications obviously don't apply to Midland, some obviously do, such as:

"... overall fan fervor as measured in part by attendance as percentage of venue capacity; abundance of teams, though we reward quality over quantity; stadium and arena quality; ticket availability and prices; franchise ownership; and marquee appeal of athletes."

Fan fervor is not really a measurable entity; perhaps Midland's rating is based on the quality of our facilities at the Scharbauer Sports Complex. It's difficult, too, to determine in the list of qualifications if high school sports, is a component of what is measured.

Odessa did not make the list which leads me to believe high school football is not part of what makes a good sports city. With the Jackalopes and the indoor football team, Odessa actually has more minor league sports franchises than we do so quantity of franchises is not figured in either. One can probably deduce from all this that the RockHounds and the quality and reputation of Double A ball and the top-notch condition of the complex are what landed us at least on the list's lower end.

Still, we beat out Amarillo and McAllen. As little as we do have here in comparison to No. 1 Boston and No. 2 Detroit, I wonder how Prairie View is 34 cities better than us, even with small college football. Same with Edinburg, a full 98 spots better than Midland. One more question: How on earth did New York finish 4, behind Detroit and Dallas? Even with all their playoff misses, the prestige of NY sports still has to count for something, one would think.

Here is the list of the 19 Texas cities named in the Top 400. Dallas is at 3, although I'm sure if you asked today after a Cowboy overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals Sunday and a broken pinky finger on Jessica Simpson's boyfriend's hand, Dallas might not be feelin' so three this morning:

356. Amarillo
326. McAllen
319. Midland
285. Prairie View
229. San Marcos
225. Corpus Christi
221. Edinburg
175. Beaumont
161. Huntsville
153. Nacogdoches
130. Denton
121. El Paso
104. Waco
74. Lubbock
66. College Station
33. San Antonio
31. Austin
12. Houston
3. Dallas

Admittedly, The Sporting News says it creates the list mainly to spark dialogue and water cooler arguments, which it does every year, almost as reliably as Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition.

How we rate the cities: We take a 12-month snapshot, roughly July to July, of each city's sports, putting a heavy premium on regular-season won-lost records (from the most recently completed season); playoff berths, bowl appearances and tournament bids; championships; applicable power ratings; quality of competition; overall fan fervor as measured in part by attendance as percentage of venue capacity; abundance of teams, though we reward quality over quantity; stadium and arena quality; ticket availability and prices; franchise ownership; and marquee appeal of athletes.