Sports in New Orleans, Louisiana

Not only is it fun to participate in a wealth of indoor and outdoor sports in New Orleans, it’s also a lot of fun to watch them! The Crescent City is home to a host of professional and college sports teams, enough to keep even the most avid sports fan happy. From football to basketball and everything in between, there are a wide variety of spectator sports to enjoy in New Orleans and, in many cases, tickets can be quite affordable.

Football

Home to the 2010 Super Bowl champion Saints, New Orleans boasts a proud football legacy. Now, of course, tickets to a Saints game are harder to score than they used to be, but with a little advanced planning, nabbing a few seats for a prime game shouldn’t be a big problem.

The Saints play at the wonderful Louisiana Superdome, opened in 1975. The Super Bowl has been played here many a times as well and will be played here again in 2013. One of the premiere sports venues in the South, the Dome holds some 73,000 spectators for a Saints game. It’s the largest fixed dome structure in the world!

The NCAA Division 1 Tulane University football team also plays at the Superdome. Tickets are quite affordable and visitors can see promising college players in action.

Basketball

If basketball is more your style, you can enjoy the skills of the NBA New Orleans Hornets during your visit to The Big Easy. The Hornets play at the New Orleans Arena, which sits beside the Superdome and was built in 1999. It seats 18,500 spectators and is modern and comfortable with state-of-the-art scoreboards, sound, and more. There are lots of concessions, too. This venue also hosts the Nokia Sugar Bowl Basketball Tournament.

College basketball can be enjoyed at the University of New Orleans or at Tulane or Loyola Universities. The tickets are readily available during the basketball season and the venues are convenient to the city center.

Baseball

If you want to get in on some baseball action, you won’t find an MLB team in New Orleans but there is a minor league team located here. The New Orleans Zephyrs play in the Pacific Coast League (operating in the West, Midwest, and Southeastern U.S.) and are a Triple A affiliate of the Florida Marlins, though they’ve been affiliated with a host of other teams during their 100+ year history as well. They came to New Orleans in 1993 after their most recent stints in Kansas City and Denver. 

The Zephyrs play at the appropriately-named Zephyr Field in Metairie, Lousiana, just outside the city. It’s a 10,000-seat park that opened in 1997 and has become a favorite with locals.

Golf

The PGA holds their Zurich Classic in New Orleans each April. It’s been a annual event since 1958 and is now held at TPC (Tournament Players Club) Louisiana. Named by Golf Digest as the 4^th Best Upscale Public Golf Course in the United States, it’s a venue that is popular with local golfers as well. Ticket packages are available online for those who wish to attend the event. (http://zurichgolfclassic.com)

Other Sports

The colleges in New Orleans offer visitors the chance to view the whole gamut of NCAA sports from swimming to volleyball to cross country and much more. A schedule and tickets are available by visiting each college’s website or the campus box office.

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