Best cities for sports in Montana

BookrGo Best Sport Cities ranking: we rank the cities of Montana by their 0-10 sports score, which combines density of centers per resident, variety of sports, listing quality and real activity. To keep the comparison fair, we measure every city's offering with the same sources of national coverage. An honest way to see where it's easiest (and hardest) to find somewhere to play.

75 scorable cities in Montana.

#	City	Score /10	Centers
1	Missoula	9.0	235
2	Whitefish	9.0	51
3	Billings	8.5	265
4	Helena	8.4	116
5	Kalispell	8.3	103
6	Bigfork	8.2	32
7	Polson	8.0	35
8	Bozeman	7.9	203
9	Great Falls	7.9	106
10	Butte-Silver Bow	7.8	57
11	Hamilton	7.7	38
12	Livingston	7.4	41
13	Glendive	7.4	24
14	Dillon	7.2	16
15	Anaconda-Deer Lodge County	6.7	33
16	Miles City	6.7	17
17	Havre	6.6	21
18	Stevensville	6.6	15
19	Belgrade	6.5	25
20	Lewistown	6.4	16
21	Sidney	6.4	16
22	Big Sky	6.1	24
23	Columbia Falls	5.9	15
24	Libby	5.9	12
25	Fort Benton	5.7	11
26	Laurel	5.6	19
27	Glasgow	5.6	9
28	Thompson Falls	5.6	6
29	Malta	5.5	10
30	Ennis	5.5	8
31	Eureka	5.5	7
32	Helena Valley West Central	5.4	11
33	Shelby	5.2	8
34	Baker	5.2	7
35	Hardin	5.1	7
36	Somers	5.1	5
37	West Yellowstone	5.0	10
38	Deer Lodge	5.0	6
39	Conrad	4.9	6
40	Four Corners	4.8	13
41	Columbus	4.7	9
42	Plains	4.7	5
43	Big Timber	4.6	6
44	Choteau	4.6	6
45	Forsyth	4.4	7
46	Philipsburg	4.3	9
47	Lolo	4.3	7
48	Plentywood	4.3	7
49	Lakeside	4.3	6
50	Corvallis	4.2	6
51	Roundup	4.2	6
52	East Helena	4.2	4
53	Malmstrom AFB	4.2	4
54	Montana City	4.1	6
55	Harlowton	4.1	3
56	Seeley Lake	4.0	5
57	Clancy	4.0	4
58	Sheridan	4.0	3
59	Gardiner	3.9	7
60	Evergreen	3.9	4
61	Joliet	3.9	3
62	Woods Bay	3.9	3
63	Darby	3.8	6
64	Lockwood	3.5	4
65	Red Lodge	3.4	10
66	Colstrip	3.4	5
67	Whitehall	3.4	3
68	Townsend	3.3	5
69	Manhattan	3.1	4
70	Fairview	3.0	3
71	Troy	2.1	3
72	Wolf Point	2.1	2
73	Lame Deer	1.7	4
74	Pablo	1.7	4
75	Bonner-West Riverside	1.3	2

How do we calculate the score?

Variety (25%) — how many different sports the city covers.
Quality (20%) — richness of each center's information.
Activity (20%) — real user interest over the last 30 days.
Scale (15%) — number of centers in the city.
Density (10%) — centers per resident (dampened).
Courts (10%) — total capacity: number of courts.

Each section is measured as a percentile against the other cities in the United States and combined into the final score, on a 0-10 scale. Variety and density are measured with a uniform instrument (only sources with homogeneous national coverage) so that no city is favored by having a more complete open catalog. We only score cities with population data and a presence in those sources.