A study that used data to rank NFL team brands and fan bases shows that the Minnesota Vikings have some work to do.
The analysis was conducted by Michael Lewis at Emory University, and it says the Vikings have the 24th-best brand/fan base.
- The top five: Cowboys, Patriots, Eagles, Giants, Steelers
- The bottom five: Bengals, Jaguars, Titans, Chiefs, Rams
Lewis explains that he creates the rankings by analyzing data on attendance, revenues, social media following and road attendance, which essentially determines which city’s fans are “more willing to spend or follow their teams.”
He also takes into account short-term changes in winning in losing, so the data can pick out how bandwagon a fan base is, apparently.
More on the three main factors he incorporated:
“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 Vikings rank 21st in Fan Equity, 27th in Social Equity and 15th in Road Equity.
The Packers (6th), Bears (8th) and Lions (22nd) all finished with higher rankings than the Vikings.
Does anyone really care?
We seriously doubt that Zygi and Mark Wilf are worried about branding and fan base rankings when they sell out U.S. Bank Stadium on game days and can look at the annual Forbes NFL valuations and be reminded that they bought the team in 2005 for $600 million and it’s now worth more than $2.4 billion.
Plus, Vikings fans know they reign superior to Packers fans, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters.
