Dallas Fan's Guide

Dallas may be best known for its football team, but the city offers everything from auto racing to hockey for avid sports fans.

Matt Nager/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Written by Victor Medina

Instead of longhorns and Walker, Texas Ranger look-alikes, visitors to Dallas find a more diverse, sophisticated community reflected in the sports culture. Dallas may be, first and foremost, a football town, but the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is also big enough to support professional teams for baseball, hockey and basketball, as well as a NASCAR track.

Not only do these non-football sports survive here, they thrive. Each has developed its own subculture of committed backers: There are the MFFLs (Mavs Fans For Life), the Ranger Faithful (who meet at Rangers Ballpark, aka "The Temple") and the "Mo-Men" (Mike Modano /Dallas Stars fanatics). North Texas has three local minor-league baseball teams, a minor-league hockey team, and a high school hockey league with dozens of schools participating. Dallas has managed to produce a number of NBA players throughout the years, including Chris Bosh and Kenyon Martin.

True to the Texas ideal, sports in Dallas/Fort Worth are always bigger and better. Rangers Ballpark is one of the game's finest fields, and even the minor-league ballparks are impressive (check out the Dr. Pepper ballpark in Frisco). The American Airlines Center, in the shadow of downtown, is home to both the Mavericks and Stars, and when the games end, the crowd spills out into Victory Park and the party continues.