Rejoice, fellow sports fans. September is almost here, delivering us from the slow and ploddingly uneventful summer months. Soon enough, we'll welcome the NFL back into our homes and hearts when the league's regular season kicks off on Sept. 5.
But let's play a fun game in the meantime. Which NFL teams have the best fans bases? Which NFL teams have the worst fan bases? Such topics are nearly impossible to truly answer -- after all, fandom is felt more than figured -- but one tech company thinks it's found a way to quantify the question of quality support.
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Online ticket broker TicketCity recently used an algorithm to rank the most engaged fan bases in college football, and now it's applied the formula to the pro ranks.
Its secret sauce analyzes fans by both online and IRL metrics to spit out a list of rankings. Twitter follows, Facebook Likes and "talking about" data, game attendance, ticket prices and percentage of stadium capacity filled at home games are all taken into account.
Is this formula the ultimate and final measure of team fandom? No way. Is it a fun way to account for both digital and real-world support, while possibly giving you some bragging rights over your NFL-addicted friends? No doubt. Here below is TicketCity's rankings of NFL fan bases from top to bottom:
Dallas Cowboys
New England Patriots
Green Bay Packers
New York Giants
Pittsburgh Steelers
Chicago Bears
Denver Broncos
New Orleans Saints
Houston Texans
Philadelphia Eagles
Baltimore Ravens
San Francisco 49ers
Washington Redskins
Seattle Seahawks
New York Jets
Atlanta Falcons
Indianapolis Colts
Carolina Panthers
Tennessee Titans
Detroit Lions
Minnesota Vikings
Arizona Cardinals
San Diego Chargers
Buffalo Bills
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Oakland Raiders
Jacksonville Jaguars
Miami Dolphins
Kansas City Chiefs
St. Louis Rams
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
How does your team stack up? Let us know in the comments.