The Dallas Cowboys have the NFL's 'best' fans -- study
It may seem like a fool’s errand to try and quantify something as inherently nebulous as “fandom,” but that hasn’t stopped NFL analyst Mike Lewis from attempting to do so.
Using nothing but hard numbers, Lewis attempted to rank fandom “driven by data, not by emotion.”
“The analysis is grounded in economic and marketing theory, and uses statistical tools to shed light on the question of which teams have the most loyal or ‘best’ fans,” Lewis wrote in his findings.
Lewis’ “NFL Fan and Brand Report 2018” attempts to look at the league’s “best” (in purely quantitative terms) fans and it’s chock-full of eyebrow-raising claims.
Lewis claims to use tools and statistical models that control factors like market size (obviously, a Dallas market is going to be significantly bigger than a Jacksonville market) and short-term trends in winning and losing.
Judging fan bases on “fan equity” (how much money fans spend on tickets and merchandise), “social equity” (how much a given team is discussed across social media platforms), and “road equity” (how much support a team gets when they play on the road), the Dallas Cowboys came out head and shoulders above the rest.
The Cowboys ranked first in both fan and road equity, and second in social equity.
According to Lewis’ studies, that means Cowboys’ fans spend the most money and travel best of all the NFL teams’ fans. They’re also the second-most talked about team on social media.
Behind the Cowboys’ fans are the New England Patriots’ fans, who rank third in fan equity, first in social equity and fifth in road equity. Patriots fans may be a little overrated in this study, since their No. 1 score for social equity likely has as much to do with people lambasting the Patriots as it does people praising them.
In third place are Philadelphia Eagles fans, who rank 12th in fan equity, sixth in social equity and second in road equity. Twelfth in fan equity is a little jarring considering the team just won a Super Bowl. It’s not clear if the post-Super Bowl merchandise selling spree was factored into Lewis’ study.
The rest of Lewis’ rankings can be viewed below:
There are some other mild surprises on the list.
The lowly Cleveland Browns rank ahead of four other teams despite winning just one game in the past two years. Doubly surprising is the fact that the Browns rank ahead of four playoff teams: the Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams and Tennessee Titans.
Fan bases normally viewed as rabidly passionate, such as the Baltimore Ravens, Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills, are all given rather middling rankings. According to the study, Ravens fans buy lots of tickets and merchandise, but travel poorly. The Seahawks have a very good social media presence, but not much else. The Bills, despite having fans who routinely jump through flaming tables for the sake of all things Buffalo, grade out as middling-to-below average across all three equities.
Another interesting note is that the Chicago Bears jumped the New Orleans Saints in the rankings after finishing behind them in 2017, despite the Saints making a fun playoff push and the Bears doubling down on a rookie quarterback who may or may not ever be good.
This is all to say that the study should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Fandom means something different to everyone. To some, fandom is all about passion. To others, fandom is a reflection of how tolerable another fan base is. To Lewis, it’s all about the numbers.
At the end of the day, a wholly quantitative approach is probably a fruitless endeavor since some things (such as bandwagon fans or teams like the Rams who unceremoniously leave a city) just can’t be accurately reflected in numbers.
After all, it could just as easily be argued that some of the “fans” who purchase all of those Cowboys tickets are socialites who care more about being seen in a status-affirming environment than about seeing the team win games. And if three quarters of all of those Patriots social media posts are overwhelmingly negative, should it really be a credit to a fan base?
For now, Cowboys fans can revel in Lewis’ numbers, but they should be more focused on a different number: 22. That’s how many years it’s been since they last won a Super Bowl.
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