Excellent and believable list there, cmkeller, at least as far as TN and AL are concerned. Have any of you seen the online map of fanbases for the NFL teams? I have been unable to locate it again after seeing it several months ago.
It was a USA map with colored areas showing the zones of support for the nearest pro football team. It didn’t try to take into account the support or fandom of people outside the geographical area, like somebody in Nashville who was a Jets fan, nor did it extend the coverage out too far from the city where the team is located. For example, the Titans zone didn’t get too far south into Alabama, and (as best I can recall) had hardly any showing in Mississippi (which tended to be for the Saints).
As I can remember, the Florida zones for the Dolphins, Jaguars and Buccaneers were fairly small and didn’t come close to covering the state.
Anyway, that’s a neat map if anybody knows where to find it.
Obviously, the list I posted isn’t as detailed as the full poll. Your comments are certainly valid: the Bengals are less popular than the Titans by only one percentage point in the poll (14%-13%), and the Lakers’ rank is only supported by 12% of Kentuckians, 44% saying they have no favorite (I made such comments for some states, but only when the favorite had less than 10% and it was the only team mentioned in its category.) On the other hand, second to the Reds in baseball is not the Cardinals, but the Cubs. All the page says about the poll area is “Harris Interactive poll, conducted online, of 402 Kentucky residents who identified themselves as sports fans. Margin of error +/- 5%.”
Anyone who wants to see more specific breakdowns can go to this page and click their state on the map, then click “See our coverage of this state” on the resulting page.
There’s some really interesting stuff there. Probably the biggest surprises for me were that the White Sox are not second-favorite baseball team in Illinois (the Cardinals rank ahead of them), and that Alaskans don’t seem to think of the Canucks as their favorite NHL team. (Not a surprise was the non-mention of the Devil Rays in Florida’s poll.)
I did note on the SI page that “No favorite” actually out-polled both the 49’s and the Chargers in SoCal. Most of us would rather ignore football than root for a team from San Francisco.
Living in New Mexico, It seems like about 25% of football fans follow Denver, another 25% follow Dallas, and the other 1/2 root for take yer pick. At least in Albuquerque, the UNM Lobos have a huge following. I was raised in Denver, and can’t recall nearly the buzz over college sports. I suspect that the lack of local major league pro teams results in a lot more support for college sports and minor league teams.
Niners and Raiders for football. Chargers to a more limited degree. Because of the military transfer population, you find fans of every team, though.
Interestingly enough, there were a lot of Steelers fans for last years Super Bowl. The theory was since so many had grown up in the 70s, lots of people were elementary school fans of the Steelers dynasty.
I was a big Braves fan up until a couple years ago, which I attribute to TBS showing their games all the damn time. I spent an entire summer watching their games and learning baseball. And to be honest, I loathe or am indifferent to California teams (even though I live there now).
I never really noticed a strong following for any particular teams strictly based on geography. As far as I can tell, Hawaii people rooted for either 1) whoever is really big at the time, 2) whoever we have local ties to, 3) whoever is televised the most locally or at the most convenient times, and 4) no one.
I never really got the vibe that Hawaii was big on American professional sports. We had (have?) an arena football team, but I knew no one who said they watched or cared about them. We have home-grown players and players with Hawaii ties in most professional sports, and there’s enthusiasm for them-- they’ll get mentioned in the news when stuff happens to them. Hawaii is like that with any local product, though; for a while no one could shut up about Jasmine Trias on American Idol.
Sumo is pretty popular, which isn’t really surprising given the number of Japanese people and the fact there are/were 2-3 prominent names with Hawaii ties.
Generally, the strongest enthusiasm is for our college sports-- specifically our football and men’s and women’s volleyball teams. The other sports, like baseball and basketball, will enjoy occasionally enjoy seasons of popularity, but nothing gets the spotlight like UH football and volleyball.
Louisville is obsessed with University of Louisville sports and University of Kentucky sports. Cincinnati’s pro teams get a passing glance, but I can’t remember being THAT fired up back when the Bengals were competing for Super Bowls. And I think there’s some sentiment for the St. Louis Cardinals thanks to having had their Triple-A affiliate for a long spell, but now we’ve got the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate.
Even though we’re closer to Indiana than Ohio, we don’t pay much attention to Indiana’s pro teams. We are barely 100 miles away from Indianapolis, but the coverage of the Colts’ Super Bowl victory in the Courier-Journal is kind of modest. It didn’t even get the entire front of the sports section. And no one cares about the Pacers.
Oregon has no pro football team, but there’s a fair-to-middlin’ Seahawks population, and a lot of people (myself included) have imported their favorites from wherever they moved in from. There’s some love for the Niners, too.
No, man. No way do people care more about the Panthers than they do about college football. I’d be willing to bet that in the vast majority of the South, not just people with no nearby pro teams, college football is totally king.
If taken literally, this statement is essentially true. I’d say it’s definitely true in Alabama. I’d be less certain of the typical Tennessee fan, though. There’s a fairly strong support for UT’s Vols statewide, but the Vandy Commodores don’t get a lot of support off-campus. And even the Memphis and Murfreesboro teams aren’t all that heavily supported.
At least the Middle Tennessee fans I know of are considerably more Titans fans than college fans, and I suspect (but can’t really say for sure) that that support drops off as you go east towards Knoxville. UT is king in the east of the state.
If I had to rank the SEC states in terms of college-vs.-pro fandom, going from highest college to highest pro, as a percentage of statewide football paid support (based on actual attendance at games and not just nominal TV-watching support), I’d start with this list and then adjust it by way of actual data (which I don’t know even exists ):
Alabama (no in-state pros to support)
Florida (too many teams to consider, but by far the biggest football state)
Arkansas (this is mostly a guess)
Georgia (Falcons not as big as UGA and Tech combined)
Louisiana (LSU way more than the Saints)
South Carolina (agreeing with Zsofia here)
Tennessee (Titans probably get 40-50% of the state’s paying loyalty)
Kentucky (pure guesswork, UK and Louisville aren’t as well supported as AL and FL teams)
Mississippi (until Ole Miss and MS State start winning, their fans are pretty blase’)
I’d love to hear arguments from residents of SEC states as to how far my guesses miss the mark. As I have tried to say, I can’t quote any actual stats, and these are mostly gut hunches. Just trying to respond to Zsofia’s comments.
In WV, it’s split by region. I grew up in southern WV, and I heard the most about Cleveland teams. In northern WV, there’s definitely a lot of support for Pittsburgh teams, and over in the eastern panhandle you get quite a few Redskins fans.
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