Tiny Northern Michigan Town is Smallest To Ever Host a Major Pro Sporting Event

When you think of small towns and major pro sports, perhaps your first thought is the vaunted Green Bay Packers playing in the smallest city to current host a professional sports team.

But for the record of the smallest city to ever host a major professional sports event, you're in the right part of the country, just head a little further north from Green Bay.

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The city of Negaunee, Michigan, is the smallest town to ever host a major pro sports event - a 1952 NBA basketball game between the Milwaukee Hawks and Baltimore Bullets.

Further, the game was also likely the first NBA game to be played in Michigan. The Pistons were still playing in Fort Wayne in 1952, there was no NBA team in Michigan that season. (Detroit teams did play in NBA precursor leagues, the Falcons in the BAA and Gems in the NBL.)

With the Upper Peninsula's sports fandom split between Wisconsin and Michigan, it's not overly surprising a team from Milwaukee would schedule a game in the UP. Although, Baltimore rather than Milwaukee appears to have been considered the home team for the neutral site game.

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Perhaps Negaunee was the choice for the game as the city's school district had recently completed a new gymnasium - now at Lakeview Elementary - that is considered the finest high school gym in the UP.

According to league historians:

The game was to be played on January 14, 1952, but heavy fog rolled off of Lake Superior and caused travel difficulties for both teams. The Hawks hosted the Pistons the next day and made their way to Negaunee where the Bullets, who had played the Pistons just prior, were waiting for them.

The game was played in the gymnasium of Negaunee High School, which sat about 1,800 fans. The weather was cold that day so fewer than that actually showed up to the game.

Check out a bit of history on an NBA team that Michigan can claim just a bit of hometown pride in, the Milwaukee Hawks:

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