Best college sports towns

theKybluedude

All-Conference
Jul 2, 2025
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Agree Lexington is up there.

Can’t go along with the teams above Lex as the category is Best College Sports (with an S) town.
Those towns don’t do much during basketball season or at least pale into comparison with Lexington.
 

Glenn's Take

Heisman
May 20, 2012
13,020
15,328
113
Best I've been to is Athens. It's truly a college town. Alabama is on the list and I'm not saying it's not good but if you took the university out of the city, there is still something there. You take the university out of Athens and it's a corn field.
 
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BookofMormon

All-Conference
Mar 27, 2026
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It's subjective, of course. For me it would be number 1 on the list. I can see Boulder, too, but it's not as appealing as Missoula to me.
Missoula is incredibly subjective. It's hard for me to put a town 1 as best college sports towns when they're not playing big time college sports. Then it just becomes a nice place to vist.
 

vhcat1970

All-Conference
Jul 2, 2025
3,654
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I'm surprised Oxford is big enough to qualify as a town. Athens is a fine place.
 
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Smeegs

All-Conference
Nov 19, 2025
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It's subjective, of course. For me it would be number 1 on the list. I can see Boulder, too, but it's not as appealing as Missoula to me.
But Missoula’s appeal is not really for being a college “sports” town, but instead for its geographic location.

So I don’t think it belongs on this list. It might belong on some other list of prettiest settings for a campus, but not this one. Bad choice.
 

Pygmy Sasquatch

Heisman
Mar 27, 2009
9,875
11,165
113
But Missoula’s appeal is not really for being a college “sports” town, but instead for its geographic location.

So I don’t think it belongs on this list. It might belong on some other list of prettiest settings for a campus, but not this one. Bad choice.
Maybe not, but of those listed it's my choice. The list isn't really meaningful anyway; the university towns were selectedand then presented to USA Today readers to vote on. Not unlike a lot of the Wallet Hub et al. surveys.
 
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