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Chicago Loses Sports Mecca Status

By Andrew Greiner

| Thursday, Aug 6, 2009 | Updated 8:10 AM CST

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Chicago is losing its sportiness.

When it comes to sports, Chicago is no longer the Second City.

We’re actually fifth.

Chicago lost out to Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Tampa Bay and Minneapolis as a top sports-loving city. When compared to other states, Illinois also ranks fifth behind Florida, Ohio, Texas and Michigan.

The results come from a three week trivia challenge by Buzztime, Inc. a company that makes those console bar games that include sports trivia and picture hunter and all that (if you’ve spent as much time as we have drinking swill in beer soaked juke joints around the city you know exactly what we’re talking about.)

Last year Chicago won the contest, but this year the home of Da Bears and Michael Jordan was knocked off it's perch by Tony Romo's town. We were even beaten out by Vikings, Twins and T'Wolves fans. Yikes!

At least we've got the Willis Tower. D'oh.

The competition played out across the country in more than 3,600 bars. Nearly 150,000 people logged onto the Buzztime system to pit their sports’ nerd skills against one another. Chicago was contending for the top spot all through training camp on July 14, but Florida and Texas charged ahead during the regular trivia season.

The sports trivia competition moves into the individual phase now and representatives from four US regions will play against each other for the chance to compete for Buzztime’s ultimate sports legend at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas which is a really sweet place to visit.

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