Lets take the nfl as an example. There are 13 football teams that play in a state bordering the east coast, compared to 4 teams that play in a state bordering the west coast. I know there are more people in the east compared to the west, but all four major sports (and even college sports to an extent) have way more teams in the eastern half in the country, especially compared to the west. Are there too many teams in the east, too few in the west, both or neither?
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The are just more cities out East
Because there are disproportionately more people in the east compared to the west
There are more people and more cities in the east. NHL and MLB teams were established in the early 1900s, when transportation was also a concern. LA and San Francisco didn’t get a team until the late 50s.
The east coast has far more people. I once read if a state the size of California was on the east coast it’d have something like 90 million people in it.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/US_population_map.png/750px-US_population_map.png?20111212123159
OP, when you go camping how soon do you lose cellular reception before you reach your campsite?
When most sports teams were created there was even more disparity in population between the west and east coast than there is today.
A city being capable of supporting a sports team (and also accurately, an arena) requires a large population nearby. (ticket sales for arena and team costs) The western US is, generally speaking, much less population dense than the eastern. Therefore, I would say it is proportional albiet inequal. Also, in medium size cities, arenas may be multi-use unlike in large cities where a stadium/arena can be dedicated near exclusively to a single sport.
Yes because more cities
It wasn’t practical to have teams out West until the jet airliner was invented.
More people, longer history.
The dry line (100th meridian west) roughly divides the lower 48 in half. Out of 340 million Americans, 250 live East if this line.
Yes because the east is more densely populated
There are also disproportionately more large cities in the East vs the West so