You'd think that with Texas being one of the biggest states in the United States, we'd have more cities with more major league sports teams. But....no. Only the cities of Dallas, Houston & San Antonio have a major league sports team (most of them have won a championship) from Texas.

But if you look at the most populated cities in the United States, there is ONE city that pops up that DOESN'T have a sports team in any of the biggest 4 sports leagues: the NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL. That particular city IS in fact in the state of Texas.

Which Texas city is the biggest in the United States that's WITHOUT a big 4 sports team?

This question was actually asked by the folks at Barstool Sports on Instagram, where they asked "what's the biggest city without a big 4 sports team?". Some people gave some good guesses, like Fort Lauderdale, St Paul, Annapolis, Knoxville.

Some people even gave El Paso some mentions in the video.  Which YES...El Paso doesn't HAVE a major league sports team at the moment but there are other bigger cities. El Paso has the El Paso Chihuahuas, the Locomotive FC, the El Paso Rhinos, our UTEP Miners sports teams but nothing in the NFL, MLB, NHL or NBA.

The answer came later in the people when the city of "Austin" came up. Sure enough...that IS the answer. With a population of over 1,000,000 people, the city of Austin, Texas, at the time of this writing, does NOT have any major league sports teams in the NHL, NFL, MLB or the NBA.

Austin DOES have their share of sports teams

Yeah just because they don't have a sports team in any of the big 4 I just mentioned, don't think that you can enjoy sports in the Austin area.

  • Austin has their own major league soccer team (MLS), the Austin FC, which was founded in 2021.
  • They have their own AHL team, the Texas Stars, the minor league hockey affiliate to the Dallas Stars in the NHL.
  • They also have the Round Rock Express, the minor league baseball affiliate to the Texas Rangers.
  • And of course who can forget about the Texas Longhorns, arguably THE BIGGEST college sports program in the entire state of Texas. There are several more sports teams that exist in the city that you can read about here.

Other major Texas cities with no big 4 sports teams include Corpus Christi, Plano, Lubbock & Fort Worth (typically they're paired WITH Dallas but the city itself doesn't have its own sports team).

So given the amount of sports team that already exist in Austin, it's possible the city doesn't really NEED a sports team in any of the big 4 sports organizations. Still... I personally think it'd be pretty neat to add another Texas city in the Big 4 in the future.

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