Boston’s professional sports teams have won a lot of games over the past few years, and they’ve looked really good doing it.
There’s no debating the first part of that sentence. But ESPN’s “Uni Watch” validated the second part Wednesday, crowning The Hub as the “best-dressed” sports city in the country.
So what exactly does that mean? Author Paul Lukas used a specific set of criteria to rank the attractiveness of every Big Four jersey on a scale of 1 to 10 and averaged those numbers for each city with at least three pro sports teams.
Boston crushed the competition with a 9.13 average rating, easily beating out Pittsburgh (8.83 average rating), Chicago (8.5) and Philadelphia (8.38) to take home the crown. The uniforms of all four Boston sports teams — the New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics — received an “8” rating from Lukas, and the city also received some bonus intangible points for Fenway Park, the Celtics’ parquet floor and Bill Belichick’s “signature style.”
Lukas also admitted Boston’s rating could have been even higher.
“Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no denying that Beantown’s pro teams are very easy on the eyes,” he wrote. “In fact, Boston’s UNI score would have been even higher if the Patriots still had their Pat Patriot throwback in their wardrobe, or if the Celtics hadn’t trotted out that miserable ‘pride’ uniform last season.”
Ugly alternates aside, Boston was well ahead of New York, which couldn’t crack the Top 5 and finished sixth with a 6.94 average score.
On the bright side, though, at least the Big Apple isn’t Atlanta. The Georgia capital brought up the rear with a brutal average score of 2.67, thanks in large to the Hawks’ hideous new neon uniforms, which drew a 1.5 ranking on Lukas’ scale.
Click to see Uni Watch’s full rankings >>
Thumbnail photo via Stew Milne/USA TODAY Sports Images
