Manchester is the greatest sporting city in the UK, say researchers

Football

Manchester has ranked as the UK’s greatest sporting city for 2018, according to research from ESPN and the University of Bath.

Manchester topped the ranking after scoring highly in many of the 12 factors that fans identified as key to a great sporting city. The city was the inaugural winner of ESPN’s Greatest Sporting City in 2015 and hasn’t dropped below second since – finishing behind Leicester in 2016 and Liverpool in 2017. The city ranked strongly in several key factors, including local talent (second), community (sixth), social (ninth), success (first), and history (fourth).

ESPN also divided the research into individual sports to reveal the best places to be a fan of football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. Liverpool claims the title of best city to be a football fan for the second year running, with Leeds maintaining its position as the best city for both cricket and rugby league fans, and Bath maintaining its status as the best city for rugby union fans.

As part of the research, ESPN asked fans to rank 12 factors that help make up a great sporting city. Those factors were then each given respective weightings to apply to each city’s results. This year, fans ranked value for money as the most important factor, with 19 percent of fans saying it was the most important factor - Milton Keynes topped the ranking in this factor for 2018. The second ranked factor was match day atmosphere, which 18% of fans said was the most important - Blackburn was ranked as the best. Club success for a city’s professional teams received 14% of fan votes and was unsurprisingly topped by Manchester this year.

Commenting on the research, assistant professor Thomas Curran, University of Bath, said: “Now we are in the fourth year of the research some interesting trends are starting to emerge. The impressive performance of Blackburn, and Swansea’s fall to the bottom of the list, show how the performance of a city’s football teams impacts the mood of fans. Manchester is blessed with two of the biggest clubs not just in the UK, but the whole of Europe, so City and United’s strong performances last season have helped take them back to the top spot.

Steven Saunders, senior editor of ESPN online, said: “Manchester’s consistency has been impressive over the years. It has never dropped out of the top two, and now returns to first place in the fourth year.

"The success of the city’s football clubs has driven them back to the top - with Manchester City winning the League Cup and the Premier League, and Manchester United finishing second and reaching the FA Cup final.

"Manchester’s top score for success, combined with strong scores in important factors such as local talent, community and history makes them worthy winners.”

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham said: “We are pleased to receive this confirmation from ESPN of Manchester’s status as the UK’s greatest sporting city. We are not just a power in professional and elite sport like football and cycling, but also in building participation right down to the grassroots.

“For our clubs at the top to succeed, there needs to a dedicated hard core of volunteers from across Greater Manchester who are willing to give up their evenings and weekends to create an environment for young people to thrive. Whether it is junior football, community rugby, amateur boxing or village cricket, none of it is possible without a strong network of coaches and parents.

“We are proud of our professional clubs but for the people across the region who are passionate about junior and amateur sport they should take immense pride in Manchester being named the UK’s greatest sporting city.”