Iowa is a state that is full of passionate sports lovers, even though the region is not home to a professional sports team across any discipline.
However, this is a rather common feature across America, as there are a number of states that do not feature a team that represents them across any of the five big professional sports leagues. These leagues are the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer.
Nonetheless, the lack of a professional sports team has not stopped those who reside within Iowa to pick and choose a number of different sports to watch. Indeed, to further highlight how much the residents of the state love their sports, they are now able to enjoy their passion in combination with legal sports betting in Iowa now as it was legalized in 2019 after legislation was passed.
However, which are the most popular sports to watch in Iowa?
According to a survey that was conducted by USDirect in 2019, American football came out on top of the rankings based on a number of metrics that were used to analyze the data that was found when producing the report.
A total of three main metrics were used across a range of different sports to try and determine which of them were favored, with TV watch-time, the interest of a household in sports, and the interest of a household in TV/movies. Additional data in the published report by the authorized DIRECTV dealer included things such as product purchases such as PPVs, subscriptions as well as surveys to try and determine the rankings across a total of eight popular sports.
The sports used were baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, skiing, soccer, and tennis, with American football coming out on top when all the information was analyzed. Indeed, there are a couple of college teams such as the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones both being widely supported within the state.
According to the data, it was also found that Iowa was ranked 10th when it came down to finding their overall position of all 50 states, with the region being ranked just being Wisconsin and ahead of Minnesota.
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As mentioned before, there are no professional sports teams that are based within Iowa, which means residents within the state will typically decide to choose who they support across a variety of different reasons. As a result, there are multiple different teams within the NFL that have become incredibly popular with sports fans.
For instance, the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Bears, and even the Minnesota Vikings are found to have a significant amount of support from the region. However, anyone who has a knowledge of American geography will quickly come to realize that these teams are popular because of their proximity to the state.
Indeed, with each of them rather close by compared to many of the other options available, many will have an affinity for them because they will have a better opportunity compared to other professional sports franchises of being able to see them live and in person at the stadium.
There is not a lot of data around to suggest what other sports could be amongst the most popular within the state, although there are suggestions that there will be many that may appear on a list as many within the area would have been able to participate in a number of activities whilst in educational environments.
Colleges and high schools in Iowa have continually offered the chance for students to participate in sports such as football, basketball, softball, baseball, track and field, cross-country, gymnastics, wrestling, golf, volleyball, swimming, soccer, and tennis. This will likely have had an impact on their popularity for many residents.
Other popular sports teams known to have been widely supported include franchises such as the St Louis Cardinals in the MLB were incredibly popular in the past, whilst the Chicago Cubs are also followed due to the fact that there is a team called the Iowa Cubs, as well.
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