Sports Travel City Index 2025: Where Sports Fans Traveled and Why It Matters

Sports travel has evolved. Fans are no longer planning trips around a single game. Instead, they are choosing destinations that turn live sports into complete weekend experiences.

The Sports Travel City Index 2025 analyzes how fans actually traveled for sports last year, identifying the North American cities that delivered the strongest combination of live events, atmosphere, accessibility, value, and entertainment beyond the game.

This Index blends aggregated sports travel booking behavior with destination-level analysis to answer a simple question:
‍Which cities truly perform best for traveling sports fans?

How the Sports Travel City Index Was Built

The Sports Travel City Index evaluates cities using a weighted model that reflects real-world fan behavior, not just team count or market size. The methodology combines anonymized booking behavior with destination-level analysis to capture how fans actually plan, book, and experience sports-focused trips.

Cities were assessed across six core dimensions:

• Event density and scheduling flexibility
• Fan atmosphere and game-day experience
• Travel value and typical length of stay
• Ease of access and walkability
• Entertainment options beyond the game
• Real-world sports travel demand

The goal is not to rank the biggest sports markets, but the cities that consistently deliver the best sports travel weekends.

Where Sports Fans Traveled in 2025

The 2025 rankings reveal a clear pattern. The cities that perform best are built for travel, not just teams.

Top-performing destinations share several traits:

• Walkable entertainment districts near venues
• Multiple sports and major events across seasons
• Efficient two- to three-night trip planning
• Strong off-field experiences that extend stays

These factors consistently outweighed market size alone. These destinations consistently attracted repeat sports travel demand across leagues including MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, and global events, reflecting a shift toward cities that support complete sports travel weekends.

Most Booked Sport in 2025

Across all aggregated bookings analyzed for the Index, baseball emerged as the most booked sport for sports travelers in 2025.

MLB travel benefits from flexible scheduling, weekend series formats, and stadiums embedded in entertainment districts. These factors have positioned baseball as the most accessible and repeatable form of sports travel for fans planning short, destination-driven trips.

Football and hockey followed closely, driving the highest urgency travel tied to rivalry games, playoff races, and limited availability. Basketball, soccer, and global events such as Formula One also continued to grow as destination-driven travel motivators.

The Top Sports Travel Cities in North America

The top-ranked cities in the Sports Travel City Index share a defining trait: they are built to host traveling fans, not just local audiences. These destinations consistently convert live sporting events into complete travel experiences by combining event density, walkable entertainment districts, reliable transportation access, and a depth of off-field attractions that extend trips beyond game day.

Rather than relying solely on market size or the number of professional teams, the Index highlights cities that perform well across multiple sports seasons and event types. The strongest sports travel cities allow fans to attend high-demand games while staying close to hotels, dining, nightlife, and cultural attractions. This structure enables efficient two- to three-night trips that maximize experience without added complexity.

Across the rankings, cities that support multi-game weekends, rivalry-driven travel, and destination-level events such as championship games and global sporting spectacles consistently outperformed those dependent on single-team demand. These cities attract repeat visitation because they make sports travel predictable, flexible, and rewarding. For traveling fans, the difference is clear. The best sports travel cities are not defined by one marquee event, but by their ability to deliver high-quality sports weekends year after year.

Trends Shaping Sports Travel

The Sports Travel City Index reveals a shift in how fans approached sports-driven travel in 2025. Sports trips are becoming shorter, more intentional, and more experience-focused, with travelers prioritizing cities that allow them to do more in less time. Rather than planning extended vacations around a single event, fans increasingly built compact sports weekends that combine games with dining, nightlife, and sightseeing.

Bundled sports travel packages played a growing role in this shift. Fans showed a clear preference for simplified planning that combines tickets and accommodations, particularly for high-demand games and destination-driven events. This trend reflects a broader expectation for frictionless sports travel experiences, where logistics fade into the background and the focus remains on the event and the destination.

Another defining trend was the rise of cities with strong fan culture and walkable urban cores. Secondary sports markets with passionate local support, recognizable game-day atmosphere, and concentrated entertainment districts gained ground against larger markets that require more planning and transportation. Group travel also increased, with friends, corporate groups, and milestone travelers favoring destinations that support shared experiences and flexible itineraries.

Together, these trends underscore a central takeaway from the Index. Sports travel is no longer about chasing the biggest game. It is about choosing destinations that consistently deliver memorable, efficient, and repeatable sports travel experiences.

What This Means for Sports Travelers and Destinations

The Sports Travel City Index makes one thing clear: sports travel is no longer driven by the game alone. Fans are increasingly choosing destinations that allow live sports to serve as the anchor for a broader, more rewarding travel experience. Cities that reduce friction through walkability, centralized entertainment districts, and reliable access are consistently capturing a larger share of sports-driven travel demand.

For sports travelers, this shift means planning trips more intentionally. The most successful sports weekends are built around destinations that make it easy to layer games with dining, nightlife, and sightseeing within a short stay. Fans are prioritizing efficiency without sacrificing atmosphere, favoring cities where venues, hotels, and entertainment are closely connected. As a result, two- to three-night sports trips have become the dominant format, allowing travelers to maximize value while minimizing complexity.

For destinations and tourism boards, the findings reinforce sports as a powerful and repeatable tourism driver. The Index provides destination marketers with a clearer view of how live sports influence travel demand, length of stay, and visitor spending patterns. Live sporting events are increasingly functioning as catalysts that bring visitors into cities, particularly when supported by strong off-field experiences and hospitality infrastructure. Cities that invest in accessibility, fan experience, and entertainment ecosystems are not only attracting visiting fans, but encouraging longer stays, higher spend, and repeat visitation.

As sports travel continues to evolve, the cities that perform best will be those that treat live sports as part of a larger destination story. The strongest sports travel cities are not simply hosting games. They are designing environments that consistently turn sporting events into compelling reasons to travel.

Download the Full Sports Travel City Index

This article highlights key insights from the Sports Travel City Index 2025, but the full report includes:

• The complete Top 10 city rankings
• City-by-city breakdowns
• Category leaders by travel type
• Booking behavior insights shaping sports tourism

👉 Get the full Sports Travel City Index PDF