San Diego ranks 30th as baseball city

WalletHub, which crunches numbers about cities, metro areas, and states, is out with its ranking of the best baseball cities. To no one's surprise, St, Louis comes in first, and the others in the top five (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Cleveland) are well behind.

San Diego ranks 30th of 272 cities. Here are the variables that went into the computers: number of major league and NCAA division-one teams, performance of those teams, number of championships, value of the pro franchise, average ticket price, number of sports bars per capita, Facebook and Twitter positive traffic, stadium accessibility, average home attendance, and TV viewership.

The Padres rank only 65th in fan-engagement (attendance, TV viewership, etc.). Good news (perhaps) for fans: Padres tickets are cheapest in the majors. As a double-check, I looked at the fan cost index published by Team Marketing Report. It says the Padres have the cheapest average ticket in the majors at $16.37, the same as the previous year, while major league ticket prices increased by 3.3 percent over that time.