How to Make the Most of Your Trip to Virginia as a Sports Fan
As with many of the southern states, no big league teams call Virginia home. While Virginians have largely adopted the professional teams of neighboring Washington D.C., this makes the Commonwealth itself a haven for college sports and other events like NASCAR races that rest outside the scope of North America’s “Big Four” professional leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL). Here’s a look at some of the must-see sporting attractions on a trip to Virginia.
College Basketball
Led by head coach and defensive savant Tony Bennett, Virginia basketball is a perennial contender. The ‘Hoos (+2200 at Virginia’s BetMGM Sportsbook) are ranked No. 6 in the latest AP poll and are tied for the seventh-best odds at winning the 2023 NCAA title for men’s basketball.
The VCU Rams have a 16-6 record. At second place in the A-10, they’re on the outside looking in if the tournament began today, but they’re only a game out of first place. The Rams have a crucial stretch coming up with a Friday game at St. Louis, which leads the conference.
College Football
One of the biggest sporting events in Virginia each year is the Commonwealth Cup, where Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, fierce rivals, play each other to decide who the de jure best team in the state is.
While the Hokies and Cavaliers have been the best football teams in the state traditionally, James Madison University is a rising star. The Dukes won the FCS National Championship in 2016 and were runner-up in two of the next three years, prompting their promotion to the FBS, the upper tier of Division I football, in 2022. JMU didn’t miss a beat in their debut season, playing in the Sun Belt Conference and going 8-3, making them a team to keep an eye on as the program continues to grow.
Baseball
The Old Dominion hosts five Minor League Baseball teams, occupying three of the four A-classifications for players on the road to the show: the Salem Red Sox, Lynchburg Hillcats, Richmond Flying Squirrels, Fredericksburg Nationals, and Norfolk Tides.
Minor league games are a great opportunity for fans to get involved. They’re about an hour shorter than the average major league game, thanks to the inclusion of a pitch clock (which MLB adopted this offseason) and shorter breaks between innings. They’re affordable for the entire family (tickets behind home plate can go for $20 or less) and—by virtue of smaller stadium sizes—provide an intimate atmosphere where it’s easier to hear what players and umpires are saying on the field, easier to get selected for fan prizes and minigames.
They’re also a great excuse to explore the state, traveling to cities one might never visit otherwise as part of a quest to see all 120 teams in the minor league system.
College baseball is popular in Virginia as well. The Hokies led the ACC with a 45-14 record in 2022, while the Cavaliers were fifth with a respectable 39-19 margin, good enough for both of them to earn a place in the NCAA tournament.
NASCAR
Martinsville, Virginia is one of the smallest independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with a population of just 13,517 people as of the 2020 US Census. That hasn’t stopped it from hosting major NASCAR races with ticket sales that nearly quintuple the size of the city itself: the Martinsville Speedway, built in 1947, is the only original course still in operation in the NASCAR Cup Series. Much like the city of Martinsville, the speedway is the smallest course in the series, just over half a mile long. As with Virginia’s MiLB teams, Martinsville’s races provide an excellent opportunity to explore a unique environment in a part of the state that one might never visit otherwise.
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