One Year Ago, This Upstate NY City Was Barstool’s ‘Best Bar Town in America’

One year ago, an Upstate New York city had just completed its own March Madness Cinderella story run. The city in question was named the best 'bar town' in America, beating out 63 other prominent U.S. cities as part of a 64-town bracket.

With no competition held by Barstool Sports in 2024, one year later, Syracuse still reigns supreme. Here is what we said about this victory back in March of 2023.

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Barstool Sports Named Syracuse, New York 'America's Best Bar Town'

A story from New York Upstate shared the news that Syracuse, New York had officially been named 'America's Best Bar Town' after advancing to the final round of a bracket put together by Barstool Sports.

Barstool's official college brand, 'Barstool U', announced the victory on Saturday night on Twitter just after 9PM. 'Cuse had beaten out Greenville, North Carolina in the Final Four to advance to the finals, where it proceeded to take-down Pullman, Washington for the championship victory.

Each city in consideration was assigned a specific hashtag; in the case of Syracuse, its moniker was #SyracuseBBT. Twitter users would vote for each city using the hashtag, and the votes would be counted up after each round. The city with the most votes would move on to the next round of the bracket, with the other city being eliminated from contention.

As noted by New York Upstate in their story on the victory, Syracuse began the tournament as the No. 5 seed in the Northeast region. They faced-off against other prominent college towns, like State College, Pennsylvania, and Morgantown, West Virginia, taking both down en route to the big victory.

READ MORE: Barstool Sports Ranked 13 Upstate NY Pizzas in 2023, Which Pie is Best? [SCORES]

A Barstool Sports "bar crawl" will be happening in Syracuse in the near future as part of the win, which will be led by Barstool Sports' founder, Dave Portnoy, and be sponsored by High Noon.

Portnoy has visited the Capital Region in the past as part of his viral pizza review videos. Among other locations, he gave the pizza at DeFazio's in Troy an 8.2 score out of 10, after which he gave their Italian Hangover cake a 9.4 out of 10. He also scored the slice at Napoli's Pizzeria in Malta a 7.5 out of 10.

If we borrow Portnoy's scoring system for bar towns in America, it's now fair to say that Syracuse, New York is a perfect 10 out of 10!