A Study Proves Scientifically That Patriots Fans are the NFL's Best
Introducing Professor Mike Lewis of Emory University. Who not only has a keen sense for choosing the right people to work with:
…has a developed a mathematically accurate, scientifically objective method of measuring the quality or awfulness of NFL fanbases:
Who has the best fans in the NFL? For the business folks, maybe we phrase this as – What are the best brands in the NFL? It’s a simple question that requires some complicated analyses. First, we have to decide what we mean by “best”. What makes for a great fan or brand? Fans that show up even when the team is losing? Fans that are willing to pay the highest prices? Fans that are willing to follow a team on social media? Fans that show up to see the team play in other markets? All good options. …
Similar to past years, I use three measures of fan engagement: Fan Equity, Social Equity and Road Equity. Fan Equity focuses on home box office revenues (support via opening the wallet). Social Media Equity focuses on fan willingness to engage as part of a team’s community (support exhibited by joining social media communities). Road Equity focuses on how teams draw on the road after adjusting for team performance. …
The top five fan bases (team brands if you prefer) are the Cowboys, Patriots, Eagles, Giants and Steelers. This is unchanged from the last two years – leaving me with little to say. The Cowboys have long been NFL royalty and the Patriots are now firmly established at the top of the league. It remains to be seen if the Patriots will remain near the top when Brady and Belichick move on.
Just to answer the complaint you’re undoubtedly making, yes, I admit my headline doesn’t exactly match Prof. Lewis’ findings. But I stand by it. Because to me, when you’re No. 2 to only the Cowboys, you are basically No. 1. Because Cowboys fans got about a 50 year head start on us and had it a million times easier for multiple generations. Saying you’re No. 2 to them is like saying Sir Edmund Hillary was “only” the second guy to climb Everest because Tenzing Norgay made it up a few seconds ahead of him. It’s technically true. But it ignores the fact Norgay was born halfway up the slope and Hillary lived his life at sea level in Auckland. You’ve got to grade on the curve sometimes.
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New Englanders had to endure decades of the sorts of misery and suffering that only existed in Heironymus Bosch paintings and Patriots games. They spent the 1960s in the AFL. They didn’t have their own stadium for 11 years, playing in run down college stadiums at BU, Harvard and BC. They once had a home game in Birmingham, AL. One time the stands caught fire in the middle of the game. And the way they played the Fire Chief’s report might as well have said, “Cause of Fire: Metaphor.” Their first “pro” stadium was Fenway Park, which is such a uniquely bad layout for football that they had to put both benches on the same sideline, in front of the Green Monster. Meaning they just drew an imaginary line between the two teams and told them not to cross it, like a mom trying to get her kids to stop fighting in the back seat. Everyone ignored it and just routinely went over and listened to each other’s sideline meetings.
When they finally did get their own place, it was the concrete toilet seat known as Schaefer Stadium, the worst venue appropriately named after the worst swill ever brewed and bottled. The first time it opened, the toilets didn’t flush and there was raw sewage everywhere. People were sent into empty rooms to piss against the wall and grown men were seen taking shits in cardboard boxes. This was 2,000 years Aqua Appia successfully brought running water into Rome. No sooner had they built this boondoggle did the rumors begin that they’d be moving to some other, NFL-less market. And the franchise existed in that state really up until Gillette opened – not only with working urinals but with a banner ceremony – in 2002.
And in all the time I’m describing, the Cowboys were living in a palace. With teams challenging for titles in just about all the years they weren’t actually winning them. For people around Dallas, the Cowboys were a constant source of joy that made life good. For us and our forefathers, the Patriots were mostly something to be endured. Something you tried to outlast. Until they finally were bought by someone who wasn’t financially and morally bankrupt. A coach who wasn’t taking the job because he couldn’t get anything better. And franchise players who weren’t getting stabbed by their pregnant wife in a restaurant in the middle of the playoffs or crashing their car leaving the stadium … at halftime.
So yeah, you’ll have to forgive me if this one time I count coming in second as winning the championship.
As far as the the study’s findings, I agree with them. No fanbase in the world is as actively engaged and emotionally invested in their team as Patriots fans. The TV ratings will bear that out. The crowds at training camp, where they have room for tens of thousands but have to turn thousands more away. To watch practices. In the heat of July and August. The way Pats fans travel should be the envy of every BCS football factory, more than any other NFL franchise, I promise you. And nobody, but nobody works the social media the way Patriots fans do. It’s not even close.
I’ll conclude with this. The irony in all this is that we have the rest of the country to thank for this. I firmly believe that at one point – about three championships in – we were in danger of growing complacent. Worse, we were becoming entitled. The Patriots were heading down the path of being a boutique team. Where it was fashionable to be seen at the stadium and whether you made any noise, stayed to the end or gave a shit was secondary. And what put an end to that in a hurry was all the hatred. The Cheatriots stuff. The “asterisk” talk. Draft picks being taken away. Getting rules changed to stop them. All of it. The more the media and Ginger Satan has come after them, the more motivated, attached and internet savvy we’ve become. The harder you tighten your grip, Governor Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
So thanks, for making us No. 2. Which I consider No. 1. Keep it up and we’ll make it official next year.