Largest College Football Fanbase?

[Carl Pickens]

Just anecdotally that cannot even be close to accurate. I look on the third party sites quite a bit. Tennessee tickets the last 3 years have been higher than Bama, Florida, and LSU. I’ve seen single digits for west coast teams like UCLA and USC

I agree as I’ve done and seen the same

 

[dobre_shunka]

Just anecdotally that cannot even be close to accurate. I look on the third party sites quite a bit. Tennessee tickets the last 3 years have been higher than Bama, Florida, and LSU. I’ve seen single digits for west coast teams like UCLA and USC

Ticket prices used for that comparison are face value not aftermarket resale prices

 

[Brave Volunteer]

And yes, folks there follow football. Basketball is #1 to Syracuse fans, of course, but football is a bigger draw for them than many of us seem to think.

Yes, I should have realized this from their gargantuan 42.7k capacity football stadium dome.

 

[adam.vol]

Yes, I should have realized this from their gargantuan 42.7k capacity football stadium dome.

Right up there with Tiger High in Memphis.

 

[TNnative]

Syracuse??? How??

My opinion? I have no idea of who does Syracuse play by play radio. That might be something to look at. He might be very good. Whereas the guy we had doing it for 25 stinkin years? Boring as Hell. If you want to build a national following, rather than sponsoring the old buddy system and hiring someone your press folks like? You get someone that creates excitement.

John Ward had it. I hope Mike Keith has it. Bob? Never had it.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Yes, I should have realized this from their gargantuan 42.7k capacity football stadium dome.

Hey, I wouldn't do all the crap you gotta do to drive semi-safely around Syracuse in November (full tank? snow tires/chains on? extra tank of gas in back? blankets in case we get stuck? shovels to dig out? 17 layers of clothing, just to get from the car park into the stadium? emergency contacts established? flight plan filed with the FAA? etc. etc. etc.) to get to a game. It's not a surprise they only need seats for 43k lol.

It's called lake effect snow. And it's brutal..

But even if a higher percentage of them are watching on TV rather than braving the elements, that doesn't mean they don't have a decent fan base.

I'm not saying they're our level. I do believe we're probably 5million+ these days. And they're certainly not as rabidly devoted as we are. I'm just saying don't undersell them. They probably do belong on that list.

Go Vols!

 

[volmanjr]

Quality outwieghs quantity.....

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Yeah but do they really care about college sports?

Yes, especially by the alumni from NE schools who settled in the area. The identity though is with the plethora of major professional sports' teams in the area

 

[Nash Buckingham]

I've seen ND & Ohio State. I believe it

 

[J C Higgins]

Whoever is winning

Correct.

It depends on the year. I've lived in 5 widely scattered states over the past 83 years and found that there are loads of bandwagon fans of all stripes across the country. You'll see team logo gear sales change from year to year depending on who's winning.

Addendum:

The last sentence at the top of the graph shown on the initial post is most important.

"High-demand teams that are engaged in successful turnarounds may be even more attractive, given the lagging nature of data."

 

[VolTom1]

I've seen ND & Ohio State. I believe it

I'm not talking about the top being wrong, I'm talking about Tennessee and Georgia being too low.

 

[NeverWe'llSever]

I have a really tough time buying that Auburn has a bigger fan base than Tennessee.

 

[rocketskates]

I would say that's pretty close to being correct. Tennessee doesn't have the population of some of the other states who support their flagship university. OSU has a ton of bandwagon fans, Notre Dame will always have a national following and Texas is obviously a huge state.

 

[salutethehill]

Does anyone have the real numbers or meaningful data on this? This is all I could find and at first I was shocked until I noticed It says Synthesis of 2011, 2014, and 2019 studies.. Those were not our best years. I assume half our fans were hiding at this point, but maybe I am bias? But look at how low Georgia is, how can a state with 11 million people and two recent natties have fewer fans than Wisconsin? I looked and found an article by Sports Illustrated that I think was regurgitating the same data but instead of Syracuse it had Stanford, so is this whole thing is a joke? This would mean that over half of the people in our state are fans of another team, while other sates like Louisiana the entire state is loyal to LSU, I just don't believe this. This would mean that 8 million people are fans of Alabama and Auburn 3 million more people than the state population... But Tennessee can't even get half of their own state population, I just don't buy that.
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Seeing as how there are a billion catholics in the world and the state of Texas has 3 times the population of Ohio, I wouldn't be surprised if OH St is not the true #1 here. What is considered a fan? There's a million people never even heard of a buckeye that are "Notre Dame fans".