That Amazing Map Of NFL Fans Tells Us A Lot About American Regionalism
It's based on which team has the most Facebook likes in each county. It's not perfect, but it still gives you a feel for where the territorial lines of each NFL team are.
In a way, this map also serves as a crude outline for the boundaries of America's dozens of cultural regions.
Geography is a hugely important factor in determining team allegiance. But that's a little misleading. There's nothing magical about being born in a specific place that makes you a fan of one team or another, it's more about culture than place.
Fandom comes out of cultural pressure — you become a fan of Team X because your friends and family are fans of Team X and Team X is a prominent fixture in the lives of the community in which you live.
That's culture, and in a way, you can view this as a cultural map — a map of like-minded clusters of people.
There are some pretty interesting things you can learn from it:
- Most of Pennsylvania identified with Pittsburgh, whereas Philadelphia only influences the extreme eastern portion of the state
- Arkansas is more influenced by Texas than Louisiana
- The upper Midwest is divided almost exactly along state lines
- West Virginia is a lot like West Pennsylvania
- The divide between eastern New York and New England is stark
Again, this isn't perfect. We doubt there's some cultural factor that makes northern California profoundly more pro-49ers than pro-Raiders.
But it's interesting anyway:
