What is a big city?

[Pete from Boston]

Sparta

Yeah, about that–

Sparta's population is about 35,000. Or, to put it in terms you can relate to, about the size of Chelmsford, Mass.

[Zeffy]

Here are the cities in Europe that I'm familiar with, making them big cities:

Athens
Barcelona
Belfast
Berlin
Birmingham
Hamburg
Lisbon
Liverpool
London
Madrid
Manchester
Moscow
Paris
Sparta
St. Petersburg
Warsaw

EDIT:

Dublin
Glasgow
Vienna

Maybe someone not from North America can do this for the United States?

No ROME???! Come on, that's one city everyone should know! Oh, and Milan while we're on the Italy tangent.

[SD Mapman]

Are there big cities without pro sports teams? Austin, TX may be an example. Las Vegas is definitely one.

Tulsa. Wichita (which is the largest city in its state).

Albuquerque? (500,000 ish)

[golden eagle]

Tucson and Fresno's populations are estimated to be over half a million, but neither one have pro teams. El Paso is getting close to 700K, and they have no pro teams, either.

Louisville, KY, also doesn't have pro sports. However, their population is largely due to consolidation with Jefferson County.

[US 41]

He also forgot Dusseldorf, Germany.

[DTComposer]

Tucson and Fresno's populations are estimated to be over half a million, but neither one have pro teams. El Paso is getting close to 700K, and they have no pro teams, either.

Louisville, KY, also doesn't have pro sports. However, their population is largely due to consolidation with Jefferson County.

It's a matter of large city, but (comparatively) small metro and/or television market. Fresno, Tulsa, Tucson, Albuquerque, Wichita and El Paso all have metro populations of under a million (even if just barely), putting all of them at #50 or below in ranking. Same with tv markets - Albuquerque's the largest of that list at #44.

Factoring in two-team markets, pro sports have 26 to 30 slots to fill - so they're more likely to go where the most eyeballs (and most potential dollars) are.

[hotdogPi]

El Paso metro has over a million... Ciudad Juárez has over a million itself.

[6a]

El Paso metro has over a million... Ciudad Juárez has over a million itself.

Yeah that's a whole different twist on the idea. Several years ago the company I was working for opened a location in El Centro, CA. Never heard of it. Wiki told me it had 50,000 people or so, seemed a bit small for a mall the size of the one we were going into. Looked around, saw Calexico, okay that has around 40,000, we're getting there, but something didn't click. It still seemed weird for our first California location to go in the middle of nowhere. Then I saw some numbers on Mexicali and it all made sense. 

[DTComposer]

El Paso metro has over a million... Ciudad Juárez has over a million itself.

El Paso metro is 831,036...the CSA (including Las Cruces) is 1,044,496. I'll give you that the border-straddling urbanized region (with Ciudad Juárez) is well over two million. I don't know how that would factor into feasibility of locating a team there.

[golden eagle]

With Juarez being that close, could El Paso, perhaps, support an MLS team?

[DTComposer]

With Juarez being that close, could El Paso, perhaps, support an MLS team?

There was an interesting story on NPR this weekend that involved Juarez and soccer...although it focused on one player, I also got the perception that the city is so plagued with violence that MLS (or any major league) - and their sponsors - might think twice about getting involved in such a city.

https://soundcloud.com/snapjudgment/the-hometown-crowd-snap

[golden eagle]

The violence is a concern, but if it were on the El Paso side, maybe, the violence could be curbed.