Kicking. Squealing.
Razib Khan again with the goods. This time with a map created by Sean Taylor of Data Science showing the geographical spread of NFL fans.
A couple of interesting patterns:
1. Hawaii is full of Steelers fans. The Troy Polamalu effect. It will be interesting to see how long Hawaii remains Steelers fans decades down the road when Polamalu is long gone.
2. The Dallas Cowboys are the most dominant team geographically. In the West, absent geographic proximity, the Cowboys are the default favorite. They are the generic “America’s Team”. This reminds me of the many times I heard announcers comment on the dominance of blue and silver in the stands when the Arizona Cardinals hosted the Cowboys. Of course, the Cowboys had that territory before the Cardinals moved from St. Louis to Arizona. I also used to hear a lot of comments that Mexicans love the Cowboys.
3. Upper Michigan is an interesting case study. Team allegiances are usually confined to state boundaries, but the upper peninsula is attached to Wisconsin. The strange allegiance is probably partially a function of media exposure which is more easily transmitted by land than over water. Perhaps this model of team allegiance tells us something more than what teams people are fans of. In this instance it tells us that residents of the upper peninsula are more Wisconsinite than they are Michigander. As a southerner that’s something I’ve never much thought about, but it makes sense. We could take this lesson a bit further and apply it to our understanding of why imperialism often fails.
4. It’s interesting how team allegiances fit patterns we’d see on a battlefield map. The Houston Texans are blocked from fans by the hegemonic Dallas Cowboys. The Packers are confined to Wisconsin by three entities: Minnesota to the west, Illinois to the south, and Michigan to the east. The Patriots have a lock on the northeastern states – they’re the only team with the name of a region rather than a state or a city – and the only way they’d cede control is if they flanked by an upstart in Maine (not going to happen).
5. Northern Virginia is Redskins country, and southern Virginia is Cowboys country. This could be an effect of the Cowboys being America’s default, but it could also be a manifestation of the tension between NoVa and SoVa. Being a fan of the Cowboys is the most rebellious act a Virginian can commit against a person living near the Maw on the Potomac.
As Khan goes on to argue, the people who have access to our intimate interactions have a lot of new information in the sense that they are breaking new ground in terms of data collection. Our understanding of tastes, preferences, opinions, and other subtle behaviors are largely gathered either by government agencies or people conducting huge academic surveys. There is also an element of bias in these types of studies. But Facebook and Google can grab information about our natural interactions. It’s a more meaningful peek into our brains.
The Skins are a DC-area team, and have been supported by Northern Virginia for a long, long time because Northern Virginia is a part of the DC region. There isn’t that much that Northern Virginia and Southwest Virginia actually share in common other than being parts of the same state — completely different cultural landscape — Southwest Virginia is more like western NC, and southern WV than it is anything like Virginia north of I-64. Basically if you draw the line roughly along I-64, that marks the cultural divide in Virginia.
Just a quibble — the Pats have a lock on the *New England* states. New York is definitely a Northeastern state as is New Jersey, The Mid-Atlantic really begins in Delaware.
Are there a few tiny pockets of Jets fandom in eastern Pennsylvania, or is that just an artifact of the compressed graphic? If not, it looks like the Jets have not a single county. I thought Queens would still support them from the days when they played at Shea Stadium, and that a minority of New York and New Jersey would also be behind them.
North and South Carolina used to be Redskins country before the arrival of the Carolina Panthers. The new ownership group tasked new head coach Dom Capers with winning right away in order to help erase those bonds; the team went to the NFC Championship in its 2nd year of existence led by QB Kerry Collins.
The Pittsburgh diaspora continues asunder. They are everywhere. Doesn’t hurt to have won 6 Super Bowl titles, either. National franchises continue to get stronger, not weaker; see the Packers, Steelers, Cowboys, etc.
The map for New England would’ve looked different prior to the Brady-Belicheck Pats teams because the Giants were the default fan favorite of many people due to the Giants being the standard NFC match up shown on TV and having great teams in the ’80s and early ’90s.
Giants-Jets fandom probably switches by whomever is winning at that time. It would be interesting to see the sports split for NY through the years. Going to college in NY, I knew a lot of NYers who were Mets fans because of the great Mets teams fo the ’80s, when the Yanks were floundering.
I went to a superbowl party at a friend’s house in the heart of Ravens country and it was a lot of fun. That team has some of the best fans in the league. For my part, I wanted Baltimore to win for Flacco’s sake. Plus I didn’t like the looks of the other qb.
Maryland is funny in how there is a sharp demarcation line between Redskins and Ravens fans based on an informal observation of jerseys people wear.
The two fanbases don’t mix well. There is much hate in Baltimore for the Redskins since 1983 when Colts had left and the Redskins organization made a hamhanded effort at coopting the Baltimore fanbase.
Among whites in the region Redskins tend to be the more yuppie/UMC type of fans and Ravens more the high-prole.
I root for the Redskins to lose because I don’t ever want the scum in Washington, D.C. to be happy even in that little way. It’s the same reason I root against the L.A. Lakers — so the Hollywood vermin don’t get what they want.
I suppose I should root against New York teams to stick it to the bankster criminals, but then hey, I live here. I would think banksters would naturally be more Yankees/Giants as those are elite monied teams, but I also have the impression that Jews lean more Mets/Jets. Not that there’s any overlap between Jews and banksters.
Another takeaway: Nobody loves an Oakland Traitor. Except LA, I guess.
In Northern California, being a 49ers fan vs a Raiders fan is a matter of social class, not geography. Blacks and working-class whites are Raiders fans, middle-class whites are Niners fans.
RE: “Uppr Michigan is an interesting case study. Team allegiances are usually confined to state boundaries, but the upper peninsula is physically attached to Wisconsin. This is probably partially a function of media exposure which is more easily transmitted by land than over water. “
Perhaps, but I’d bet it’s more because Detroit hasn’t defeated Green Bay at home since 1991; and has only won against them once in more than 17 meetings, and that was a couple of years back when QB Aaron Rodgers got a concussion in a game at Detroit and didn’t play the last three quarters.
I’m a bit suspicious of that map; I’ve heard from announcers both local and national, that the Green Bay Packers are sort-of the former and regained current “America’s Team,” though I concede the Cowboys were that for much of the 70s and 80s. And when they play rivals in Chicago and Minneapolis, you’d swear half of those in attendance are cheering for the Packers and are waving Green-&-Gold memorabilia.
Also surprised there aren’t as much as a few token Bears fan in SE Wisconsin, around the Kenosha area.
I just looked for a similar graphic last month before visiting Omaha, a non-NFL city, to gauge the chances of seeing my team’s game on a random bar’s TV during the wild card round. I ended up in a sports bar that showed every game simultaneously and got a good cross-section of the fandom.
The crowd seemed to be split fairly evenly for Packers/Vikings; some Chiefs fans lingered, obviously not watching their team that weekend, and there were the requisite Cowboys (expected by geography) and Steelers (expected anywhere) fans there as well. Perhaps also Denver.
Omaha’s an interesting case because it is mid-size, reasonably separated from several NFL hotspots and so college football-centric. I would say this map comes out a winner.
Raider Nation, vato. Commitment to excellence. If L.A. got its own team again, I wonder if the Mexicans and working-class whites would change allegiances. If not, the team would sink because football just isn’t a huge draw for the middle-class and SWPLs in the Greater L.A. area. Too many other things to do.
The Minnesota-Wisconsin border is much fuzzier than shown. The Wisconsinites that live on Wisconsin’s western border (at least the lower part of it) are horrendous bandwagon fans. They’re a 30-45 minute drive away from Minneapolis/St. Paul, while it would take them a little under four hours to drive to Green Bay. They swing back and forth based on which team is better (usually the Packers, to be fair but their allegiance is fickle).
I’m a bit suspicious of that map; I’ve heard from announcers both local and national, that the Green Bay Packers are sort-of the former and regained current “America’s Team,”
Generally speaking, the Cowboys usually lead the world in sports merchandise sold each decade, even though the Cowboys and Yankees (at about 2 billion each) aren’t worth quite as much as Manchester United or Real Madrid. The Cowboys’ lead in apparel sold may be eclipsed by the Steelers once in every 7-8 years, with Green Bay creeping into the mix recently, though. Rustic 3rd world people who don’t even know who many points a touchdown counts for have still heard of the Cowboys.
I’d say that logo-bearing items sold are a pretty reliable estimate of who is truly “America’s Team”
The Cowboys are easily the most profitable and valuable NFL team, by a longshot. (primarily due to Jerrah’s marketing genius and ability to cook up private schemes that make money for the franchise). Maybe he needs to stop down as General Manager and function only as CMO (chief marketing officer).
New Cowboys Stadium is a truly amazing venue.
So the majority of the south likes a garbage team, apparently.
I think people in Missouri flip-lop between the St. Louis Rams and KC Chiefs quite a bit, depending on which team is better. Of course, the Chiefs have been consistently dreadful for most of the past ten years.