Iowa the 15th most popular team in college football?

jkriv said:
Wow. Very cool study. Is neat to see we have more fans than USC and Oklahoma. 15th most popular college football program based on this study.
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It's nice to think that, but just because this study says so, doesn't make it true. As I said above, it also says that Auburn is more popular than Alabama. And Georgia Tech more popular than Georgia. And so on...
 
gonzoJM said:
OK, I waited a few days before I posted anything on this because I wanted to really get my head around what was being said. After reflection, this is one of the most flawed studies I've ever read. I know what they did and how they came to their conclusions, but let's use some common sense here.

An example of their conclusions that fall somewhere between absurd and preposterous:

-Auburn has more fans than Alabama and everyone else in the SEC. Umm...no they don't. The divide between Alabama/Auburn fans in Alabama is roughly the same as between Iowa/Iowa State in Iowa: 70/30-ish. AND Alabama has a much larger national fan base. Not even close. Auburn doesn't have more fans than Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, or Georgia. FACT.

-Clemson has almost twice the fans of South Carolina. Again, this couldn't be more false.

-Georgia Tech is more popular than Georgia. Really? Which fan base spends more money on their team? Which team has a higher attendance? Which team has more fan support? Georgia by a mile. This would be as absurd as saying that ISU has more fans than Iowa.

I appreciate that the author even tries to do a study like this, but there is no way that this can be taken seriously. It's so fundamentally flawed that it ignores common sense in favor of a sample size of 30,000 people. So, this is based on what amounts to a survey of less people than visit this site over the course of a day or two. Sorry man, but that doesn't work.
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In this situation:
"most popular" = how much a team moves the needle on the net. This has nothing to do with # of fans. It simply means more people with internet access search for Iowa than ISU or whoever else is below them on the list. I think you need to take a few more days to try and "get your head around it". :p:D;)
 
gonzoJM said:
OK, I waited a few days before I posted anything on this because I wanted to really get my head around what was being said. After reflection, this is one of the most flawed studies I've ever read. I know what they did and how they came to their conclusions, but let's use some common sense here.

An example of their conclusions that fall somewhere between absurd and preposterous:

-Auburn has more fans than Alabama and everyone else in the SEC. Umm...no they don't. The divide between Alabama/Auburn fans in Alabama is roughly the same as between Iowa/Iowa State in Iowa: 70/30-ish. AND Alabama has a much larger national fan base. Not even close. Auburn doesn't have more fans than Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, or Georgia. FACT.

-Clemson has almost twice the fans of South Carolina. Again, this couldn't be more false.

-Georgia Tech is more popular than Georgia. Really? Which fan base spends more money on their team? Which team has a higher attendance? Which team has more fan support? Georgia by a mile. This would be as absurd as saying that ISU has more fans than Iowa.

I appreciate that the author even tries to do a study like this, but there is no way that this can be taken seriously. It's so fundamentally flawed that it ignores common sense in favor of a sample size of 30,000 people. So, this is based on what amounts to a survey of less people than visit this site over the course of a day or two. Sorry man, but that doesn't work.
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First of all, please dont take this as a Nebraska fan attacking the study because of our ranking. I have no clue how many fans we actually have, and NU and Iowa being similar doesnt surprise me...we both have very loyal fan bases.

As Gonzo stated, this study is incredibly flawed. I would love to see the "real" numbers, but these aren't it (take a look at Gonzo's examples - clearly incorrect assumptions by the study). It looks like they used the google search statistics to decide how many college football fans an area has, and then used the commonCensus statistics to distribute those fans to certain schools. Although not statistically great, at least the google stats have some validity. The CommonCensus stats are absolutely useless. They are taken from am incredibly small sample size. Heck, the very FIRST thing on the CommonCensus page says "Important: this map is highly inaccurate and should be understood only as a demonstration, and not as any kind of reliable data yet".
 
olddude said:
In this situation:
"most popular" = how much a team moves the needle on the net. This has nothing to do with # of fans. It simply means more people with internet access search for Iowa than ISU or whoever else is below them on the list. I think you need to take a few more days to try and "get your head around it". :p:D;)
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Right, sorry. How silly of me to think that "most popular" should accurately reflect number of fans. Typically, if a team is more popular that explicitly means that they have more fans.
 
These numbers reflect not actual fans as much as ''fan units''. That incorporated depth of fan loyalty in terms of money spent and tv viewing habits.

It is fairly close to gross football related revenues, so it is not a attempt at determining this. I do think that the GA Tech number is over-estimated due to an anomaly of being in an urban area that actually likes college football. Atlanta is split among many SEC fan bases,and Ga Tech probably does not have many fans outside of that town,so it is skewed. Auburn and Bama are close,which might reflect the socio-demographic of their average fan...Bama fans might be poorer on average.

I think Silver gets it generally correct. USC has casual fans,but not as many intense fans as Iowa...just look at bowl fan support between the two.
 
JHHawk said:
These numbers reflect not actual fans as much as ''fan units''. That incorporated depth of fan loyalty in terms of money spent and tv viewing habits.

It is fairly close to gross football related revenues, so it is not a attempt at determining this. I do think that the GA Tech number is over-estimated due to an anomaly of being in an urban area that actually likes college football. Atlanta is split among many SEC fan bases,and Ga Tech probably does not have many fans outside of that town,so it is skewed. Auburn and Bama are close,which might reflect the socio-demographic of their average fan...Bama fans might be poorer on average.

I think Silver gets it generally correct. USC has casual fans,but not as many intense fans as Iowa...just look at bowl fan support between the two.
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I guess this is my issue. It seems to me that it would be more accurate to simply look at football-related revenues since that would actually reflect actual fans. Spending money is a much more reliable way to look at fandom. For instance, if you look at football revenue in the SEC, you would get a much more reasonable idea of popularity:

1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Tennessee
4. Georgia
5. LSU
6. Auburn

This, by the way, does not speak to the passion of these fan bases, only the size, which is what this "study" purports to do.
 
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