Whenever you see news reports that begin with “a new study says…” — and it’s not a front-page story about an asteroid that’s about to crash into the Earth — it’s always best to take it with several grains of salts. See: 95 percent of news stories from the past 50 years about the various things that cause cancer.
The metrics often seem a little hinky and many just seem to be clickbait for some financial website or other. If you read this website with any regularity, you’ve likely seen stories about the latest study that ranks Cincinnati as the worst or best place for something or other. When there are multiple studies about essentially the same topic, you can really see the way data can be interpreted differently, making the whole ranking exercise seem fairly arbitrary.
For example — late last year, the website FanSided determined that the Cleveland Browns had the best fanbase in all of professional sports.
But a new study that has just released its findings determined that Browns fans are the sixth worst of all NFL teams.
Before all of you Cincinnati Bengals fans get all high and mighty and laugh at the Dawg Pounders (Pound Dawgs?), you might want to sit down and take a deep breath. Because, in the same ranking, the Bengals fanbase was determined to be the fifth worst in the NFL.
The new NFL Fandom Report has a little more cred than, say, the latest ranking from WalletHub or SaveyThrifty or BedBugsRUs or whatever. It comes from researches at the Emory University Marketing Analytics Center, meaning the numbers are crunched in more exacting and scientifically sound ways, taking into account everything from team revenue to social media followers to fans’ willingness to travel to see their favorite team.
Here’s the basic introductory explanation (an exhaustive and exhausting rundown can be found at the study’s website).
The fundamental question that guides the analysis is simple – 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.
Browns fans aren’t happy about their rank, but they should look on the bright side — last year’s study from the Emory researchers had the team in the Bengals’ current position, so they’ve actually moved up a whole spot. The Bengals made it all the way to seventh worst on last year’s ranking.
The Browns scraped and scrapped their way out of the bottom-five cellar and weren’t in the group called out in the study’s graphics as “The Losers.” The Bengals on the other hand…
So Bengals fans (and the team — maybe try being competitive this year?) need to step up their game. Actually, all local teams and fans need to step it up — the10and3.com’s latest ranking of the most miserable sports cities in North America has Cincinnati as the second worst, beaten only by Winnipeg.
A similar study from ESPN determined that the Cincinnati Reds has only the seventh most miserable fanbase out of all U.S. pro sports teams. And, in that ranking, the Bengals’ fans were only the 45th most miserable.
Sooo… yay?
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 3, 2019.