What's your state's sporting event of the year?

Watching Tennessee at Vandy, which is a matchup of 8-8 basketball teams, but Memorial Gym is electric. The thought occurred that this game, when it is in Nashville, is the best sporting event in that state that reliably shows up on the calendar every year, especially with the decline of popularity of NASCAR at Bristol. It means everything to Dores fans, but enough Vols get in the building to boost up the energy both ways. (The games in Knoxville never have this kind of atmosphere.)

So what's the event of the year for your state? Some are more obvious than others (Iron Bowl, Indy 500, Masters Sunday) but some aren't. What say you?

 

Dodgers-Giants, I guess?

 

Masters first, followed by Georgia vs Ga Tech football, followed by the rest of Georgia's home games (though maybe not next season when the home sked is wretched), followed by Georgia spring football game, followed maybe the Peachtree Road Race.

 

For California, I nominate the Rose Bowl.

 

Maryland has to be the Preakness.

And I'd say lacrosse season is a distant second.

Official state sport is jousting. Jousting? There were bills in the General Assembly to replace jousting with lacrosse, but it never happened. Some kind of odd jousting lobby kept blocking it.

So, somebody got the bright idea to name the "official state TEAM sport" and lacrosse finally passed while leaving jousting alone to play with their little holes.

 

I am from Wisconsin but live in North Carolina and used to live in Missouri.
For those three, I will say:
Wisconsin - Packers opening day
North Carolina: Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend
Missouri: Baseball opening day, especially Cardinals home opener

 

When I lived in the Triangle, the race barely registered as a big deal locally. I'd say it's Duke-UNC at Cameron for North Carolina.

 

The jousting lobby fucks up everything.

It's slim pickings in Virginia. Maybe the night race at RIR?

 

Massachusetts 1. Boston Marathon. 2. Red Sox opening day. 3. Beanpot hockey tournament. Look, obviously the four pro teams are the biggest things in town, and due to historic success, the Pats rule the roost here as they should. But I interpreted the question to mean annual events that are big deals no matter what.

 

Right. A pro team can have the biggest event (Reds opening day would be my guess for Ohio) but not always.

 

People don't realize how big Virginia is. Part of the state is west of Detroit.

So, there's a lot of statewide indifference.

In Northern VA, I know the Marine Corps Marathon is a big deal.

And, in college football, the Commonwealth Cup between VaTech and UVa used to be a big deal, and more so now that VT is in the ACC, but it's tarnished by how much the Hoos suck lately. I miss George Welsh.

 

Anyone who's ever driven I-81 knows Virginia's bigger than they thought. That's one of the issues with this question. A good number of states are so big, they have different big events for different regions of the state. Philly and Pittsburgh don't share a common main event, just to cite one example. What one thing unites Texas sports? High school football maybe?