Sports Business Journal Rankings... Dead Last

Well, Sports Business Journal conducted a study on the Best and Worst Minor League Cities. Of course, Richmond was rated dead last, 239th.

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/63374

How exactly was the study conducted? Find out here:

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/63375

A market’s total score is the result of three category-specific scores: tenure rank, attendance rank and economic rank.

Richmond's Score Breakdown

239 Richmond, Va. -136.18
239th - Tenure
239th - Attendance
235th - Economic

Teams Lost - AIFA Richmond Bandits, IL Richmond Braves, SPHL Richmond Renegades, USL Richmond Kickers

Let's give each part of the score a thorough run down:

Tenure Rank

This score accounted for two-thirds of each market’s grade. It came from a formula that included such support measurements as each team’s length of presence in its market and the total number of team-years for a market in the past five seasons.

Attendance rank

This score, which accounted for one-fifth of each market’s grade, was based on the total attendance of all a market’s teams and the overall percentage of seats filled at the teams’ venues over the five-year period. Both measurements were indexed against the market’s total five-year population to create a single score.

Economic rank

Three economic factors went into this ranking: fluctuations in unemployment, population and each market’s Total Personal Income (TPI). For each, a measure of standard deviation was set, and markets gained or lost credit based on their attendance behavior.

Score adjustments

Hershey-Harrisburg, Pa., had the highest point total, and all markets were indexed against that total. Points could be deducted from a market’s total for five reasons: losing a franchise, failing to pass a voter referendum that would have helped fund construction of a new stadium or arena, and for failing to keep attendance in line with fluctuations in area unemployment, population or TPI. Because of the indexing, a total of 73 markets finished with negative scores.

Maybe I'm crazy but Richmond hasn't lost the Richmond Kickers, at least not yet. Now without specific details of how all these numbers were broken down, I feel like we got the shaft a bit. Richmond's tenure rank seems skewed terribly to the bottom for missing 1 year of MiLB baseball. No offense to you Bandit fans out there, but when I think "minor league," I think of leagues that service the professional clubs. No one playing AIFA football has an NFL future. This study may in fact be too overly comprehensive. I'll admit, many leagues conducted in the study were news to me and many shut down under their own power, thereby "penalizing" the cities in the study.

Just a lot of petty musings right now. I've attempted to contact SBJ in an effort to get a better feel of how Richmond ranked dead last in tenure and attendance and nearly last in economic rank. I'm not saying Richmond is one of the top minor league cities, or even top 100... that's clearly not the case. The numbers do seem to be skewed to the downside, let alone the error regarding the Kickers. I would like to see Richmond's ranking before the arbitrary score adjustments that sunk us to the bottom. The study will definitely give anti-baseball residents some fuel to add to their fire which is disappointing.