Sporting News Tells the Rest of the Country What We Already Know, Names Dallas 2011 Best Sports City

SPORTING NEWS - You’re driving south on I-35 from Oklahoma (maybe for Texas-OU football) and come to Sporting News’ 2011 Best Sports City. It’s a sports-mad place that has world champions and World Series participants, BCS bowl winners and if not the NFL’s most popular team, then certainly its grandest venue. Where are you?

Not just Dallas, though that’s on I-35E and where the Mavericks’ NBA championship parade drew 200,000. Not just Fort Worth, though that’s on I-35W and where 13-0 TCU celebrated its pulsing Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin. (Right about now is when Arlington—Texas’ seventh-largest city—pipes in: Hold on, Hoss, we’re on I-30, and the AL champion Rangers and America’s Team Cowboys call us home.)

You get the picture. The whole of the athletic area exceeds the sum of its sports parts, and in these parts it’s all about winning. The Cowboys’ collapse and Stars’ ownership struggles were merely the quarter-teaspoon of lemon that heightened the sweetness of championships won.

Don’t sleep on MLS Cup runner-up FC Dallas and MVP David Ferreira, Texas Motor Speedway and postseason bowl games, high school football and palatial Cowboys Stadium, which has also played host to an NBA All-Star game. SMU football is back (legally) and though college hoops takes a back seat, you could fill out a dang good five with talent from the area. And did we mention Texas-OU football?

Move your ass, Boston. Couldn't have written a better story myself. Will definitely be an easier argument once the Rangers hoist the World Series Trophy in a few weeks, but throw in the trophy chicks struttin' around town, and Dallas wins in a landslide.