Horse racing is the most commemorated sport when it comes to street names, followed by football and baseball, the study said. Credit: Shutterstock / Lukas Gojda

Texans tend to be nuts about sports, from their cities’ major franchises to those bright Friday night lights.

Little surprise then that it has more streets named after sports heroes than any other U.S. state, according to a new study by sports betting website Betting.com. At least 206 Lone Star State streets and roads are named after athletes, the analysis shows.

To compile the report, researchers analyzed more than 6.5 million streets across the nation, cross-referencing them against a list of some 2,000 athletes across all major sports.

Interestingly, the most popular street name in Texas commemorating an athlete doesn’t even involve a human. Instead, it commemorates a racehorse named Riva Ridge. That horse — which was foaled in Virginia and died in Kentucky — won both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes in 1972 and has 13 streets in Texas bearing its name.

Naming streets after racehorses is pretty common nationwide, actually. Horse racing is the most commemorated sport when it comes to street names, the study found, followed by football and baseball, respectively.

Indeed, the racehorse Secretariat is the athlete whose name appears on the most number of streets.

Pro golfer Ben Hogan — a Fort Worth native — has 10 streets named after him in Texas, coming in as the second-most popular athlete for street names here.

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This article appears in Sep 20 – Oct 3, 2023.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...