http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/upshot...0002&abg=1

That jives pretty well with my thinking. Only two surprises:

Not Texas? Actually, that fits well with my thinking, but most Texans (especially on this board) would tell you that football is God in their home state.

I thought Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina would be even lower. I bet if you did a ratio of CFB/CBB, or football/basketball, those would be just as low as the northeast.

It's a blessing and a curse.

(11-10-2014 08:22 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  That jives pretty well with my thinking. Only two surprises:

Not Texas? Actually, that fits well with my thinking, but most Texans (especially on this board) would tell you that football is God in their home state.

I thought Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina would be even lower. I bet if you did a ratio of CFB/CBB, or football/basketball, those would be just as low as the northeast.

Agreed. No way the Commonwealth of Kentucky cares about CFB as strongly as indicated in the graph. Should be a light pink.

(11-10-2014 08:22 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  That jives pretty well with my thinking. Only two surprises:

Not Texas? Actually, that fits well with my thinking, but most Texans (especially on this board) would tell you that football is God in their home state.

The population is so large in Texas (particularly the larger markets in Dallas and Houston) that a lot of the football fandom is much more dispersed. I'm sure you'd find a lot fans there that might just like the Cowboys and/or high school football but not have any college football loyalty. That being said, the fact that Texas has a significantly higher percentage of college football fans than states like California and New York is pretty huge - each percentage point represents a *massive* number in a state with that many people.

Quote:I thought Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina would be even lower. I bet if you did a ratio of CFB/CBB, or football/basketball, those would be just as low as the northeast.

All of those states are still strong college sports markets overall. Plus, remember that Kansas has Kansas State, Indiana has Notre Dame, Kentucky has Louisville, and North Carolina has NC State, all of whom have good (or in the case of Notre Dame, great) football fan bases. College basketball might be the #1 sport in those states, but they can still support college football in good numbers. (Similarly, in the pro sports realm, almost anyone from Chicago will tell you that it's a Bears town first and foremost. However, its support for the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox are as strong as anywhere else, too.)

Gotta say, I find it hard to put much credibility in a survey of fan intensity in various regions based on traffic to FB football pages. If, for example, a school posts most of its content on its general athletics page (instead of a dedicated FB page), you will likely get a distorted sample size.

Not saying that it isn't an interesting study, but I don't believe it should be framed as any kind of authoritative barometer of fan intensity. FB usage by various fan bases perhaps; but only that, IMO.

Just my 2 cents

I'm sorry, baseing fandom of college FB on "facebook likes" is hardly an accurate way, imo, to determine popularity of ANYTHING, even college FB. Believe it or not there are many people in this country that aren't on Facebook.

North Carolina has East Carolina and App State. Both football ball first schools. The ACC schools in NC are all basketball first even NC State.

Shows the difficulty U of Illinois and Colorado have in attracting fans/recruits. Level of interest is not as high

(11-10-2014 11:23 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  I'm sorry, baseing fandom of college FB on "facebook likes" is hardly an accurate way, imo, to determine popularity of ANYTHING, even college FB. Believe it or not there are many people in this country that aren't on Facebook.

Actually, I find that the Facebook data passes the "smell test" better than anything out there (including data from Twitter or polls from entities like Harris). The fact that there are people that aren't on Facebook isn't a good reason to discount the data at all. We're talking about millions of people volunteering information about what they "like" without prompting (which is fairly good proxy for determining a fan of a team, as opposed to many polls that prompt you to pick a favorite team or sport even if it's something that you wouldn't have volunteered yourself), compared to only around a thousand people or less for most of the polls that we rely on this country. For example, Nate Silver was able to predict the 2012 presidential electoral college results for all 50 states using polls that had less than 1000 people per state. If you can extrapolate those results for a country of over 300 million with only a few thousand people, think of how powerful of a data set that Facebook and Twitter can provide when they actually have tens of millions of users.

The "believe or not" factoid is actually that Facebook's average user age is now about equal to the average age of a person in the United States. It's not the young-skewing demo that a lot of people that try to discount this data want to believe.

Is it perfect info? Of course not, as you can't get perfect info unless you get every single person that lives in a particular area to respond truthfully to a poll. However, the Facebook data provides a sample size that completely blows away any type of attempts at polls that we've seen in the past. Out of everything that I've ever seen to attempt to measure sports team popularity, the Facebook data is the best BY FAR.

My takeaway (and what I already knew) was that areas with pro sports teams (especially regions with teams in all 4 major leagues) generally don't give one lick about college sports.

Many Texans love their CFB but it's nothing compared to the sheer numbers of pro and HS fans in this state. Which makes sense. Almost everyone went to a HS with a FB team and anyone can jump on the bandwagon of the Cowboys or Texans with no affiliation. So while college does have its bandwagon element, most of it's fan base are alums and their families with ties to one of the 12 Texas FBS schools.

(11-10-2014 11:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-10-2014 11:23 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  I'm sorry, baseing fandom of college FB on "facebook likes" is hardly an accurate way, imo, to determine popularity of ANYTHING, even college FB. Believe it or not there are many people in this country that aren't on Facebook.

Actually, I find that the Facebook data passes the "smell test" better than anything out there (including data from Twitter or polls from entities like Harris). The fact that there are people that aren't on Facebook isn't a good reason to discount the data at all. We're talking about millions of people volunteering information about what they "like" without prompting, compared to only around a thousand people or less for most of the polls that we rely on this country. For example, Nate Silver was able to predict the 2012 presidential electoral college results for all 50 states using polls that had less than 1000 people per state. If you can extrapolate those results for a country of over 300 million with only a few thousand people, think of how powerful of a data set that Facebook and Twitter can provide when they actually have tens of millions of users.

The "believe or not" factoid is actually that Facebook's average user age is now equal the average age of a person in the United States. It's not the young-skewing demo that a lot of people that try to discount this data want to believe.

Is it perfect info? Of course not, as you can't get perfect info unless you get every single person to respond truthfully to a poll. However, the Facebook data provides a sample size that completely blows away any type of attempts at polls that we've seen in the past. Out of everything that I've ever seen to attempt to measure sports team popularity, the Facebook data is the best BY FAR.

I agree about some broad facebook data. But a lot of it is pretty obscure. Most people I know only "like" 3 or 4 things, so when you get to more and more detailed items the survey becomes less and less accurate. They may like "football" without bothering to delve into which level of football they like. This is going to be more common in areas where there are several levels of football and people actually enjoy them all (like Texas or big cities). They may "like" their team without bothering to like "college football" in general, and again, this is going to be more common in some areas than others.

This doesn't even account for other factors. For example, UC wasn't included in the NYT survey of college football fanbases because we just have 1 page for our athletic department - we don't separate it out into football and basketball. Pardon my French, but it was quite a douchy thing for NYT to neglect to include us in their survey, and then specifically call us out in the article for not carrying any zip codes.

(11-10-2014 11:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-10-2014 11:23 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  I'm sorry, baseing fandom of college FB on "facebook likes" is hardly an accurate way, imo, to determine popularity of ANYTHING, even college FB. Believe it or not there are many people in this country that aren't on Facebook.

Actually, I find that the Facebook data passes the "smell test" better than anything out there (including data from Twitter or polls from entities like Harris). The fact that there are people that aren't on Facebook isn't a good reason to discount the data at all. We're talking about millions of people volunteering information about what they "like" without prompting (which is fairly good proxy for determining a fan of a team, as opposed to many polls that prompt you to pick a favorite team or sport even if it's something that you wouldn't have volunteered yourself), compared to only around a thousand people or less for most of the polls that we rely on this country. For example, Nate Silver was able to predict the 2012 presidential electoral college results for all 50 states using polls that had less than 1000 people per state. If you can extrapolate those results for a country of over 300 million with only a few thousand people, think of how powerful of a data set that Facebook and Twitter can provide when they actually have tens of millions of users.

The "believe or not" factoid is actually that Facebook's average user age is now about equal to the average age of a person in the United States. It's not the young-skewing demo that a lot of people that try to discount this data want to believe.

Is it perfect info? Of course not, as you can't get perfect info unless you get every single person that lives in a particular area to respond truthfully to a poll. However, the Facebook data provides a sample size that completely blows away any type of attempts at polls that we've seen in the past. Out of everything that I've ever seen to attempt to measure sports team popularity, the Facebook data is the best BY FAR.

Facebook skewing older than it was early on is also one reason why "the kids" are all fleeing to Instagram and Snapchat.

But you're right about this being an imperfect proxy, but probably about as good as any other single survey/dataset would be. People are voluntarily sharing their likes as you note - which is why Facebook is worth so much, even as many companies clumsily try to exploit it with their own pages.

You're also right further above, where you note that states like Kansas have avid football fan bases alongside avid basketball fan bases. K-State alumni are extremely engaged in their football program since Snyder miraculously raised it from the near-dead. There's PowerCat (their fierce marketing logo) paraphernalia all over the place around here.

Then there are some schools that go, "what's college football?"

(11-10-2014 11:45 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  Many Texans love their CFB but it's nothing compared to the sheer numbers of pro and HS fans in this state. Which makes sense. Almost everyone went to a HS with a FB team and anyone can jump on the bandwagon of the Cowboys or Texans with no affiliation. So while college does have its bandwagon element, most of it's fan base are alums and their families with ties to one of the 12 Texas FBS schools.

Longhorns and Aggies coming together, doesn't get any better than that.

(11-10-2014 11:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-10-2014 11:23 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  I'm sorry, baseing fandom of college FB on "facebook likes" is hardly an accurate way, imo, to determine popularity of ANYTHING, even college FB. Believe it or not there are many people in this country that aren't on Facebook.

Actually, I find that the Facebook data passes the "smell test" better than anything out there (including data from Twitter or polls from entities like Harris). The fact that there are people that aren't on Facebook isn't a good reason to discount the data at all. We're talking about millions of people volunteering information about what they "like" without prompting (which is fairly good proxy for determining a fan of a team, as opposed to many polls that prompt you to pick a favorite team or sport even if it's something that you wouldn't have volunteered yourself), compared to only around a thousand people or less for most of the polls that we rely on this country. For example, Nate Silver was able to predict the 2012 presidential electoral college results for all 50 states using polls that had less than 1000 people per state. If you can extrapolate those results for a country of over 300 million with only a few thousand people, think of how powerful of a data set that Facebook and Twitter can provide when they actually have tens of millions of users.

The "believe or not" factoid is actually that Facebook's average user age is now about equal to the average age of a person in the United States. It's not the young-skewing demo that a lot of people that try to discount this data want to believe.

Is it perfect info? Of course not, as you can't get perfect info unless you get every single person that lives in a particular area to respond truthfully to a poll. However, the Facebook data provides a sample size that completely blows away any type of attempts at polls that we've seen in the past. Out of everything that I've ever seen to attempt to measure sports team popularity, the Facebook data is the best BY FAR.

it may give an idea about what is popular, but i still think it misses the mark. I would like to see more data from the study. Mostly demographics, particularly age, race and sex. Does facebook appeal more to a certain group, for example young males, more so than another group that might be more likely, or less likely, to be a college fb fan? Would that skew the data? I would agree that college FB isnt as popular in the northeast as in the southeast as the study supports. However i didnt need to count likes on facebook to figure that out

Frank, I understand your view but, IMO, you are missing a fundamental point. Silver's 2012 election prognostications were based on voting samples throughout the country. Presumably, he applied universal rules in determining each state sample in making his analysis.

This survey uses FB "likes" to draw conclusions. That would be fine if every school set up its FB football page in the same manner and utilized it in the same manner. However, the use and emphasis on FB differs by each school. Some schools heavily use their FB football page to draw fans. Other schools put most of their FB content on their general athletics page, or on other sites altogether. My issue with this survey is that it presumes that every school uses FB in the same manner, which I don't believe is accurate. Sure, FB is a great tool! But the presumption here that this tool is used identically by all the schools is incorrect, IMO.

Just look at the heat map. For example, do you really think that the West Coast (especially California) has the same Football fan intensity as the Northeast?

(11-10-2014 11:56 AM)jdgaucho Wrote:  

(11-10-2014 11:45 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  Many Texans love their CFB but it's nothing compared to the sheer numbers of pro and HS fans in this state. Which makes sense. Almost everyone went to a HS with a FB team and anyone can jump on the bandwagon of the Cowboys or Texans with no affiliation. So while college does have its bandwagon element, most of it's fan base are alums and their families with ties to one of the 12 Texas FBS schools.

Longhorns and Aggies coming together, doesn't get any better than that.

Some of us went to the other State of Texas programs, and could care less about the Horns or Ags unless they are playing our team.

(11-10-2014 09:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-10-2014 08:22 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  That jives pretty well with my thinking. Only two surprises:

Not Texas? Actually, that fits well with my thinking, but most Texans (especially on this board) would tell you that football is God in their home state.

The population is so large in Texas (particularly the larger markets in Dallas and Houston) that a lot of the football fandom is much more dispersed. I'm sure you'd find a lot fans there that might just like the Cowboys and/or high school football but not have any college football loyalty. That being said, the fact that Texas has a significantly higher percentage of college football fans than states like California and New York is pretty huge - each percentage point represents a *massive* number in a state with that many people.

Quote:I thought Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina would be even lower. I bet if you did a ratio of CFB/CBB, or football/basketball, those would be just as low as the northeast.

All of those states are still strong college sports markets overall. Plus, remember that Kansas has Kansas State, Indiana has Notre Dame, Kentucky has Louisville, and North Carolina has NC State, all of whom have good (or in the case of Notre Dame, great) football fan bases. College basketball might be the #1 sport in those states, but they can still support college football in good numbers. (Similarly, in the pro sports realm, almost anyone from Chicago will tell you that it's a Bears town first and foremost. However, its support for the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox are as strong as anywhere else, too.)

Frank, Texas is pretty much where I believed they would be. We all forget the % of Hispanics who culturally don't follow college ball the way African Americans and Caucasians do. Add to them the number of others who are not interested because of personal choice and that fairly well explains Texas.