As if Patriots fans needed yet another reason to feel good about themselves, a new Emory University study has ranked New England as tops among the NFL’s 32 fan bases. At the opposite end of the spectrum: the Chiefs, Raiders, and Jaguars.
The study, conducted by Dr. Mike Lewis of Emory’s Goizueta School of Business, measures teams’ brand equity—broadly defined, the level of support each team enjoys in the form of dollars spent, miles traveled, and social media assaulted by its fan base. You can dig into the methodology here, but in basic terms, if a team’s fans spend more money than expected on a team, that team ranks ever higher.