SPORTS

East Lansing ranked top college town for football fans

Steve Schrader
Detroit Free Press
Sparty riles the crowd against Ohio State on Nov. 8, 2014.

East Lansing — the home of your Michigan State Spartans — is the nation's second-best city overall for football fans, behind only Green Bay.

That's according to new rankings by wallethub.com, a personal finance resource site, which had a team of experts judge 142 cities on 11 metrics, including their proximity to college and NFL teams, the success and value of said teams, stadium quality, ticket prices, attendance, etc.

And that makes East Lansing basically the top college town in the rankings (Green Bay also has a college, but it sure wouldn't be No. 1 without the Packers). Tuscaloosa, Ala., is No. 5 overall.

Other cities in our state didn't fare as well.

Ann Arbor, home of rival Michigan, is ranked just 29th. And Detroit, home of the Lions, is No. 53.

As for the state's three Mid-American Conference schools, Central Michigan's Mt. Pleasant is No. 74, Eastern Michigan's Ypsilanti is No. 92, and Western Michigan's Kalamazoo is No. 111.

Surveys like this come out this time of year as companies try to coattail on the Super Bowl hype. So just to connect those dots with the Super Bowl teams, Boston is ranked ninth and Seattle — home of the 12th Man — is 13th.

Contact Steve Schrader: sschrader@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @schradz.