Oct. 9, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin, Texas is the highest-rated sports city that does not have at least one team in a major professional league, Sporting News announced this week as part of its annual Best Sports Cities rankings.

"Austin is the capital of Texas and for our purposes this year the capital of college athletics, since it's the highest-rated city that didn't have at least one team in a major professional league," said Sporting News chief of correspondents Bob Hille, who has coordinated the Best Sports City rankings since they were expanded 13 years ago. "In fact, The University of Texas was so good in football and basketball in our 12-month snapshot that Austin finished higher than some cities that have major pro teams."

This year's Best Sports Cities list features almost 400 cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada, ranked by a system that assigns points to a variety of categories, including a city's number of teams, their regular-season won-lost records, playoff berths, bowl appearances and tournament bids, championships, applicable power ratings, fan fervor, attendance and more.

Pittsburgh earned the title of "City of Champions" with the Steelers and Penguins winning world championships and ranks No. 1 in the rankings. The full list can be found at: http://www.sportingnews.com/general/article/2009-10-06/best-sports-city-list.