#NFL fan map: Where are your team’s followers?
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Think you know where #NFL fans are located? You may be surprised by some of the findings in our new NFL Twitter fan map, which shows the followers of all 32 U.S. teams.
We looked at the official Twitter handle for every NFL team and used their followers as a signal of allegiance (as opposed to, say, mentioning a team when watching an interesting matchup or talking about your rival). Click on the image below to explore the interactive map, which shows you not only which teams dominate states and counties, but also how their reach spreads across the country.
The primary view shows you which team is most-followed in every county in the country:
Click image to explore interactive map
The map illustrates where one team’s fan base ends and another’s begins; see how Texas is divided between the @DallasCowboys and @HoustonTexans. Many regions have divided loyalties, so you can also explore which teams have the second-highest number of followers in each county (which you can explore by clicking the ‘which team has the most followers button’). You can see that the Texans and Cowboys flip in this second-place view:
Click image to explore interactive map
To find where your favorite team’s fans are clustered, click on your team’s pin or select it from the drop-down menu. You’ll see the spread of your team’s followers across the country. Each view of the interactive visualization has its own unique URL for you to share — for example, take a look at this map for the @Seahawks, the reigning Super Bowl champions.
There are several other ways to view and explore the map:
Here are a few trends we noticed during our own exploration of this visualization:
Click image to explore interactive map
Florida’s NFL loyalties are divided more than any other state: gold for the @Jaguars, red for the @TBBuccaneers and turquoise for the @MiamiDolphins. The patterns for Twitter followers mostly follows regional lines around the team’s home – with a few exceptions. The state’s panhandle leans more toward supporting the nextdoor neighbor Louisiana’s New Orleans @Saints. And that little patch of dark blue right in the middle? That is Osceola County where the no. 1 team is actually the @Patriots – based in Foxborough, Massachusetts, over 1,000 miles north.
Click image to explore interactive map
The @DallasCowboys’ stadium may be in Arlington, Texas, but their fan base spreads across the entire country. It dominates almost all of the counties in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas, and is strong from coast to coast. Compared to its rivals the @HoustonTexans, you can see how pervasive the Cowboys’ presence is except in the counties around the Texans’ home stadium in Houston.
Click image to explore interactive map
Click image to explore interactive map
Pennsylvania sees another in-state rivalry between two teams: the Pittsburgh @Steelers and the Philadelphia @Eagles. At first glance, zooming in shows what you might expect: the highest concentration of Steelers’ fans surrounds their home base in Pittsburgh, and the highest percentage of Eagles’ followers are near Philadelphia. But check out the full map to see how Steelers’ followers are more present in counties across the U.S. than those of the Eagles. Meanwhile, the Eagles have the most followers in some counties in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.
Click image to explore interactive map
@NFL fans can also explore the conversation around the season with this other interactive guide, which we update every week.
Each view of the interactive map can be Tweeted or embedded by clicking either the ‘Tweet this view’ or ‘Embed this view’ buttons at the top of the screen. This interactive map was built by Twitter Data Visualization Scientist Krist Wongsuphasawat.
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