Where's our football team?

San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the United States. That’s right, seventh. We have an estimated population of 1,256,509 that just bumped us ahead of San Diego for the No. 7 spot. That means that there are only six cities in the U.S. that can claim to be bigger than San Antonio: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and Phoenix.
That’s it. Everyone else is smaller, including San Diego, Dallas and San Jose which fill out the top 10. Detroit even got bumped down to No. 11.
I’m just blown away by this fact. My wife is not impressed because she grew up in Houston, the No. 4 city. But I grew up in small-town South Texas so I feel like I am in a metropolis.
The nice thing about San Antonio is that even though it is so large, it still has a small-town feel to it. But this also leads to a lot of disrespect from other parts of the country. For example, there is the anamoly that San Antonio has been short-shrifted on professional sports teams. Lets look at the professional sports teams (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) in each of the top 10 largest cities (I include Anaheim with L.A. because it is practically a suburb, the same with Arlington and Dallas.):

New York Yankees
New York Mets
New York Giants
New York Knicks
New York Islanders
New York Rangers

Los Angeles Dodgers
Anaheim Angels
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Kings
Anaheim Ducks

Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
Chicago Bears
Chicago Bulls
Chicago Blackhawks

Houston Astros
Houston Texans
Houston Rockets

Philadelphia Phillies
Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia Flyers

Arizona Diamondbacks
Phoenix Cardinals
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Coyotes

San Antonio Spurs

San Diego Padres
San Diego Chargers

Texas Rangers
Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Mavericks
Dallas Stars

Is there anything wrong with this picture? Los Angeles doesn’t currently have a football team, but they’ve had two in the past and San Diego is less than two hours away.
San Antonio, on the other hand, doesn’t have a baseball, football or hockey team. All we have is a basketball team, which just happens to be the reigning NBA champions. There is no question that San Antonio could support at least one and probably more professional sports franchises. The overwhelming response to the brief stay of the New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina proved that. But for now we are a one-team town with no prospects for change in the near future.