Jacksonville becomes a center of the college basketball world Thursday afternoon as the NCAA tournament tips off at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
But most of the time, Jacksonville occupies a middling spot in the sport, according to one survey.
Personal finance website WalletHub last week issued a report on the best cities for college basketball fans, posting ratings for 289 cities.
Jacksonville ranked almost in the middle, at 141.
WalletHub came up with a score for every U.S. city that has at least one team competing in Division I, the highest level of college basketball.
It used nine metrics, including measures of teams’ performance and fan interest.
Jacksonville has two Division I teams, the University of North Florida and Jacksonville University, and WalletHub ranked the city 171st for the performance level of those teams, based on a combined winning percentage of 49.7 percent over the past three years.
The two schools have combined for four regular-season conference championships in their histories, which also ranked Jacksonville at 171st.
While JU made it to the NCAA championship game in 1970, the city has no tournament championships to brag about.
But there aren’t many cities that have celebrated championships, so Jacksonville was tied with many cities at 34th in the championship metric with its total of zero.
Jacksonville ranked low in social media engagement by fans of the teams, at 257th, which was determined by Twitter followers and Facebook “likes” for the two teams.
The worst metric for Jacksonville was arena seating capacity, determined by looking at the number of available seats divided by the city’s population. WalletHub said Jacksonville’s score was 0.8 percent, ranking it 278th.
On the positive side, coaching stability at Jacksonville’s two Division I universities gave it a high ranking of 49th.
That metric looked at coaches over the past 10 years and since 2009, UNF has had one coach, Matthew Driscoll. JU has had two, Cliff Warren and since 2014, Tony Jasick.
Not surprisingly, two nearby cities with big-time college basketball programs ranked higher than Jacksonville. Gainesville, home of the University of Florida, ranked 83rd and Tallahassee, home of Florida State University, ranked 123rd.
Tallahassee has a second Division I school, Florida A&M University.
Two nearby cities with smaller Division I programs ranked below Jacksonville. DeLand, home of Stetson University, ranked 247th and Daytona Beach, home of Bethune-Cookman University, came in 287, the third worst city on the list.
Hopefully, fans arriving in Jacksonville for the games this weekend will be impressed with the city, but seven of the eight home cities of teams coming to the arena rate ahead of Jacksonville in WalletHub’s survey.
Only Abilene, Texas, home of Abilene Christian University, is ranked lower than Jacksonville at 156th.
Lexington, Kentucky, is ranked eighth, but University of Kentucky fans will probably find Jacksonville a more affordable basketball destination.
Lexington ranked last in the country in minimum season ticket prices, meaning it has the highest prices.
Kentucky fans should know that HomeToGo rated Jacksonville Beach as the nation’s most affordable beach destination.
Win or lose, hopefully fans will enjoy their visit.
