NFL Fandom Maps

I don't know if anyone else has seen these maps put out by Twitter and Facebook (I think MyFace will soon be coming out with one), but despite some obvious methodological issues, they provide some interesting data concerning the popularity of various NFL teams. The Bleacher Report website compares the Twitter and Facebook maps and gives you the ability to cursor over the counties to see which three teams are most popular in each county, as judged by Facebook likes. The Patriots pop up as second or third most popular in a number of places outside of New England.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ows-nfl-fandom-by-county-in-the-united-states

The Atlantic article on the maps allows you to click on the baseball version of the map. It's interesting to compare the relative success of the Patriots and Red Sox in gaining the allegiance of Connecticut fans.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/the-geography-of-nfl-fandom/379729/

Lastly, this Facebook page compares changes in the map from the 2012 regular season through the playoffs. The Patriots look like America's team.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/nfl-fans-on-facebook/10151298370823859

Note: At various times, the Jets have not been the favorite team in even one county in the U.S.

Looks to me like Dallas is still well and away America's team. Now that they're suddenly the potential best football team in the NFL, expect that bandwagon to swell again.

That graph is right. Everyone knows Dallas fans. I don't understand for the life of me how you can be born and raised in Massachusetts and be hoping for Dallas Superbowl rings. It's insanity.

Don't forget that most of the nation's population is on each coast, so when you look at a map (like the twitter one on B/R), the visual gives an implication of a higher percentage of the population as a whole than what is actually accurate.

The other thing to remember is that starting in 1960, Dallas was the only NFL team in the entire southern United States (outside of southern California). And without a salary cap or free agency, most of the new teams (New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa Bay) were not worth following for fans that were not in the immediate vicinity of those teams. In the northeast you travel 150-200 miles and you find yourself in another fan base; in the south you have to go two or three times that far before you are close to another team.

Yes, the AFL added Houston at the same time, but the rest of Texas chose to follow the team in the established league - as did fans in Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, and the entire southeast. Couple that with the NFL and CBS (and later FOX) marketing the Cowboys as America's Team in the seventies and beyond, and it's not surprising that people outside of Texas became Cowboy fans - especially with the success they had over those years.

PATS16N0 said:

Looks to me like Dallas is still well and away America's team. Now that they're suddenly the potential best football team in the NFL, expect that bandwagon to swell again.

That graph is right. Everyone knows Dallas fans. I don't understand for the life of me how you can be born and raised in Massachusetts and be hoping for Dallas Superbowl rings. It's insanity.

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I have lived in the Washington area for 40 years and I have always been surprised at the support the Cowboys get around here and throughout much of Virginia. In some Virginia counties they are number one and in most others they have support in the double digits. This for a team that is the chief rival of the Redskins. Compare this with New England, where, with the exception of CT, support for the Giants or Jets is in the single digits and only a tenth of what the Pats get. And, one shouldn't forget, that before expansion and the creation of the Cowboys, the Redskins were the team of the south and actively marketed that way by their owner, George Preston Marshall.

NormZauchin said:

And, one shouldn't forget, that before expansion and the creation of the Cowboys, the Redskins were the team of the south and actively marketed that way by their owner, George Preston Marshall.

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One of the many reasons Washington hates Dallas.

In 1960, ALL teams had to approve of an expansion team...Washington was not about to sign off on Dallas. So owner Clint Murchison brought the rights to "Hail to the Redskins" and told Marshall he would never be allowed to play it unless he allowed his expansion team. After a few profanities, he relented.

NormZauchin said:

I have lived in the Washington area for 40 years and I have always been surprised at the support the Cowboys get around here and throughout much of Virginia. In some Virginia counties they are number one and in most others they have support in the double digits. This for a team that is the chief rival of the Redskins. Compare this with New England, where, with the exception of CT, support for the Giants or Jets is in the single digits and only a tenth of what the Pats get. And, one shouldn't forget, that before expansion and the creation of the Cowboys, the Redskins were the team of the south and actively marketed that way by their owner, George Preston Marshall.

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The primary reason is that Marshall was famous for saying that he would never allow black players on his team. He lost much of DC's fan base with that, and they purposely chose the team's #1 rival in response. A conversation with any native born and raised black guy in DC over the age of 50 will get you this information. It literally took pressure from the President of the United States to get the Redskins integrated.

http://espn.go.com/page2/wash/s/2002/0305/1346021.html

betterthanthealternative said:

The primary reason is that Marshall was famous for saying that he would never allow black players on his team. He lost much of DC's fan base with that, and they purposely chose the team's #1 rival in response. A conversation with any native born and raised black guy in DC over the age of 50 will get you this information. It literally took pressure from the President of the United States to get the Redskins integrated.

http://espn.go.com/page2/wash/s/2002/0305/1346021.html

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I am aware that Marshall was a racist, but what is interesting about the Twitter and Facebook data is that it should skew towards a younger demographic with little, if any, recollection of Marshall, but still shows strong Cowboy support. I would have thought that the many black Redskin stars of the past 40 years like Larry Brown, Doug Williams, Art Monk, Darrell Green, and currently RGIII, would have erased any bias due to a long dead owner. On a personal note, most African-Americans with whom I worked in DC were Redskins fans; heck, in my first job, one of my co-workers was the wife of Manny Sistrunk, a Redskins defensive lineman.

When I travel and interact with kin across America, am amazed at the negativity towards the Pats in general. Usually it boils down to anger over BB's alleged arrogance or the Patriots high level of success...

After a while it usually progresses into a discussion regarding how can this team be this good this long, inow jealousy... most are amazed at what we have accomplished.

The maps show a lot of closeted fans across the US...

DarrylS said:

When I travel and interact with kin across America, am amazed at the negativity towards the Pats in general. Usually it boils down to anger over BB's alleged arrogance or the Patriots high level of success...

After a while it usually progresses into a discussion regarding how can this team be this good this long, inow jealousy... most are amazed at what we have accomplished.

The maps show a lot of closeted fans across the US...

Click to expand...

Particularly, the third site which showed the Pats a lot more popular than San Francisco, Atlanta, and Baltimore.

I'm a Pats fan living in Dallas and I'm amazed at all the Cowboys fans around the country. I realize they are the most popular and are worth the most but still. It's surprising considering Dallas is big but not that big and many here are transplants like me. Overall, I say the Cowboys fans here are bandwagoners more than anything.

Oh and also, keep in mind that the JFK assassination made Dallas infamous and the Dallas tv show was huge. Those would have definitely influenced a large fan base