From LA glitz to Indy's legendary car races: which city is the true epicentre of American sport?

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off, Heather Dichter reveals the illustrious and unexpected sporting histories of cities around the United States

A close-up view of a printed map of the United States. A small American flag pin sits in the centre of the country, surrounded by several red location markers placed across western, central, and eastern regions. Visible map labels include “United States,” “Colorado Plateau,” “Oklahoma City,” “Dallas,” “Lake Huron,” “Lake Erie,” “Indianapolis,” and “Appalachian.” The image emphasises geographic points of interest across the country.

Published: June 17, 2026 at 3:30 PM

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This year’s FIFA World Cup is the first time the tournament has been hosted by three nations – the US, Mexico and Canada. Even so, with 11 of the 16 stadiums, the US takes the lion’s share. The opening match took place in Mexico City on 11 June, in the same stadium that hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals. Los Angeles saw the first game played in the US, while San Francisco and New York hosted matches the next day.

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With stadiums up and down the east and west coasts and across middle America, the world has been able to see many different cities, either as spectators attending the World Cup or watching on television (or streaming). And, from iconic skylines to sporting heroes, American sports and culture has been front and centre during the tournament.

All of which begs the question: what claims do each of these cities have to being America’s sporting capital? Many of the World Cup host cities can make that case – but so can other cities.

A 19th‑century illustration showing a busy yacht regatta on open water. Dozens of sailboats with tall white sails race across the harbour, while spectators in period clothing—men in top hats and women in long dresses—watch from the shoreline and a wooden dock. Small rowboats sit near the water’s edge. Text in the image reads: “The New York Yacht Club Regatta. The start from the stake boat in the Narrows, off the new club house and grounds, Staten Island, New York Harbor.”

The New York yacht club regatta takes place, c1880. Home to the wealthiest people, New York established many sports clubs in the latter half of the 19th century, including yachting, swimming and athletics | Credit: Getty Images

New York

The crucible of American sports

As the home of America’s wealthy elite, New York established sports clubs in the mid-1800s to mirror developments in Britain. The New York Yacht Club, founded in 1844, challenged British yachtsmen in 1851, and the trophy became the America’s Cup. The American Jockey Club – notably different to the modern version of the club, which dates to 1894 – was established in 1866, with the Belmont Stakes (a race for thoroughbred horses) run for the first time the following year, making it the oldest of the Triple Crown horse races.

The New York Athletic Club (NYAC), founded in 1868, quickly became a prominent venue for sport, hosting the first national championships in athletics (1876), swimming (1877), boxing (1878), and wrestling (1878). The NYAC also became the focus of protests in 1968 for its discriminatory membership practices, with many of the top track and field athletes – both black and white – boycotting the NYAC’s 100th Anniversary Games, held at Madison Square Garden.

While many men and boys across America played games with a ball and a bat in the 1800s, it was New York’s version of baseball rules that became the way of playing the game.

The city’s diverse residents also created their own teams, many of which became famous as barnstorming teams that travelled across the US. The Rens, named for the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom where they played, were the first all-black professional basketball team that was black-owned.

Madison Square Garden (MSG) – all four iterations of the venue – has hosted major professional and amateur sporting events since 1879. Professional basketball and ice hockey teams have called the venue home. It has also hosted famous boxing matches, including the first Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier fight. It regularly sold out six-day cycling races and multi-day pedestrian races at the height of those crazes. MSG also hosts the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

A black‑and‑white photograph of the U.S. Olympic team marching in formation during an opening ceremony. The athletes wear matching uniforms: white trousers, short‑sleeved white sweaters with dark trim, and dark berets. Each sweater displays a shield‑shaped United States emblem. They walk across a stadium field filled with spectators in the stands, capturing a moment of national representation at an early 20th‑century Olympic Games.

The US team marches during the opening ceremony of the 1932 Summer Olympics, held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was the first games to have a purpose-built Olympic village that we would recognise today | Credit: Getty Images

Los Angeles

A touch of Hollywood glamour

Hollywood stars fill the courtside seats to watch the Lakers play basketball, a team that has won 12 NBA championships with some of the game’s biggest stars: coach and executive Jerry West, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as part of the “Showtime Lakers”, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.

Los Angeles has boasted championships in every professional sport: basketball (Lakers, NBA and Sparks, WNBA), football (Rams), baseball (Dodgers and Angels), ice hockey (Kings) and soccer (Galaxy, Major League Soccer).

British footballer David Beckham signed with LA Galaxy, winning Major League Soccer (MLS) Cups in his final two years with the club. When the city received a women’s soccer team, Angel City FC, it had a superstar Hollywood and sport celebrity-filled roster of owners, mostly women. In 2024 it was the most valuable women’s sports team in the world, valued at $250 million.

But Hollywood has had an even bigger role in global sport. Studio executives helped bring the Olympics to Los Angeles. The 1932 Games transformed the Olympics, creating a Village to house the athletes and bringing the production skills of Hollywood to add drama and colour to the Opening Ceremony, previously a staid affair. When the city hosted the Olympics again in 1984, it transformed the event by developing an extensive sponsorship program that the International Olympic Committee eventually adopted.

The Phillie Phanatic, the Philadelphia Phillies’ large green furry mascot, stands on the baseball field beside a fan wearing a red Phillies jersey and a crown. The two appear to be dancing or playfully interacting. Behind them, a crowd of spectators in jackets and hats watch and smile from the stands, creating a lively, celebratory game‑day atmosphere.

Mascot Philly Phanatic dances during a baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St Louis Cardinals, April 2006. The famous mascot is one of those honoured with a permanent display in the Baseball Hall of Fame | Credit: Getty Images

Philadelphia

An old sporting city

While a staple of American sports is that teams move and are renamed by owners, Philadelphia boasts the oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in the country with Major League Baseball’s Phillies, founded as an expansion team (a new team in a sports league) in 1883.

College teams have been a core of the city’s sporting landscape since the mid-1800s, with the University of Pennsylvania boasting teams in cricket, rowing and football (which was an early version more like rugby than American football or soccer). Franklin Field has hosted the Penn Relays for athletics since 1895.

British-born Constance Applebee played a major role in developing field hockey in the US, co-founding the American Field Hockey Association and serving as the athletic director at Bryn Mawr College for over two decades.

Philadelphia teams have won championships in all four major professional sports, by teams currently in the city and teams that have since relocated or folded, including Negro League teams.

Philadelphia’s fans are renowned for their passion – when their teams both win and lose. The city grease lamp poles prior to championship games because fans have a history of climbing them, though Crisco and hydraulic fluid don’t deter Philly fans.

Eagles’ games (NFL) have seen the most notorious events. Fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus during a December 1968 game. In 1997, the team added Eagles Court – a judge and jail cell in the basement of the stadium for rowdy fans to face immediate consequences.

The city also boasts two of the most iconic mascots. The furry green Phanatic has been at Phillies games since 1978 and is one of only three mascots on permanent display in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2018 the Flyers introduced Gritty, a furry orange mascot with googly eyes who has a ‘security’ team in suits and sunglasses, throws cakes at people, and has beef with the mascot from the cross-state rival Penguins.

A vintage black‑and‑white photograph of an early 20th‑century motor race. In the foreground, a race car marked with a large number 3 sits on the track, driven by two racers wearing goggles and uniforms with the number 17. Behind them, another car with the number 35 is partly visible. Grandstands packed with spectators rise in the background, with a sign marked “C” hanging above one section. The scene captures the atmosphere of an early competitive racing event.

Norwegian driver Gil Andersen (left) and his mechanic await the start of the 1913 Indianapolis 500. The race, which debuted in 1911, takes place in the largest sport venue in the world | Credit: Getty Images

Indianapolis

A passion for basketball

Indianapolis is home to the largest sport venue in the world. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built in 1909, has more than 230,000 permanent seats and hosts the largest single-day sporting event in the world: the Indianapolis 500, which first took place in 1911. Several IndyCar racing teams are based in the city, too.

Three professional teams – all of which have won championships – call Indianapolis home: the Colts (NFL), Pacers (NBA), and Fever (WNBA). The Colts moved in the dead of night in March 1984, as moving trucks fled Baltimore with all of the team’s possessions for their new home in Indiana.

Basketball is the heart of the whole state of Indiana, with Indianapolis long holding the high school state championship tournament. The 1986 film Hoosiers was a fictionalised account of the 1954 champions, small town Milan High School.

The Pacers were an original member of the upstart American Basketball Association in 1967 until the league merged with the NBA.

Indianapolis received a WNBA expansion team in 2000, and four-time Olympic gold medallist Tameka Catchings played her entire 15-year professional career with the Fever. Caitlin Clark, the most talked about female athlete today, now plays for the Fever.

The city of Indianapolis has also defined itself as a destination for college sports, holding numerous conference and national championships. The Final Four in men’s basketball has been in Indianapolis nine times, and the women’s basketball champion has been crowned in the city three times. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) also has its headquarters in Indianapolis.

A black‑and‑white photograph of a football match in progress. A player in a white kit with the number 10 runs toward the ball, while three opposing players in dark kits—numbers 16, 19 and 5—chase and defend around him. Behind them, a packed stadium of spectators fills the stands, capturing the intensity and movement of a high‑energy match.

Pelé plays for the New York Cosmos against the Portland Timbers, July 1977. Later that year, he would take part in his last professional soccer match, against the same team | Credit: Getty Images

Portland

Home of The Sports Bra

Portland might not be on many people’s radar as a major sporting city in the US, as it only has one team in the four major men’s professional sports (the NBA’s Trailblazers). With the earliest major professional leagues on the east coast, the Pacific Northwest city had a variety of minor league teams. In 1916, the Rosebuds were the first US-based team to compete for the Stanley Cup.

However, the city boasts a strong soccer tradition – for both men and women. The original Portland Timbers were a 1975 expansion team in the North American Soccer League. Pelé played his last official professional soccer match against the Timbers. The team was reincarnated as an MLS expansion team in 2011, regularly has over 20,000 spectators, and won the MLS Cup in 2015.

Portland, which had a history of women’s professional soccer teams in earlier leagues, was one of the original clubs in the National Women’s Soccer League, with the same ownership as the Timbers. Women’s soccer has thrived in the City of Roses, with the first Thorns team including US Women’s National Team stars Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath and Canadian team captain Christine Sinclair. The Thorns have won three NWSL championships, and by 2019 their matches averaged over 20,000 fans.

The success of women’s soccer in Portland contributed to the creation of The Sports Bra in 2022, which boasts that it is “the first-ever sports bar 100 per cent dedicated to supporting and showing women’s sports.” The success of The Sports Bra has led to its expansion to other American cities.

Less than a two-hour drive south of Portland is Eugene, home of Nike. The sneaker and sportswear company has transformed the University of Oregon’s sports facilities, with an international-level athletics track that has hosted the National Championships several times and the 2022 World Athletics Championships – leading Eugene to be called TrackTown USA.

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Heather Dichter is associate professor at De Montfort University and a specialist in sport history

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