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Where each NFL team ranks in popularity
May, 26, 2012
May 26
3:15
PM ET
By Mike Sando | ESPN.com

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We know where NFC West teams stand in popularity among Americans.

"Where are the final tallies for most popular teams (across the league)?" @ChrisLoces wants to know.
2012 Fan Favorites: Teams
Rank Team Pct.
1 Cowboys 8.8
2 Packers 7.2
3 Giants 7.1
4 Steelers 7.1
5 Patriots 6.8
6 Bears 4.2
7 Saints 4.1
8 49ers 4.0
9 Eagles 3.9
10 Broncos 3.8
11 Colts 2.8
12 Raiders 2.5
13 Redskins 2.4
14 Vikings 2.2
15 Lions 2.2
16 Dolphins 1.9
17 Chiefs 1.6
18 Seahawks 1.6
19 Jets 1.5
20 Chargers 1.5
21 Browns 1.4
22 Bills 1.4
23 Ravens 1.3
24 Texans 1.2
25 Buccaneers 1.2
26 Falcons 1.2
27 Titans 1.1
28 Panthers 1.0
29 Cardinals 0.8
30 Bengals 0.8
31 Rams 0.7
32 Jaguars 0.4


Chris was surprised the Oakland Raiders didn't crack the top five most popular teams in the latest survey from ESPN Sports Polls.

The Raiders ranked 12th in polling for 2012's first quarter.

Pollsters conduct 1,500 monthly telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans age 12 and older. They have reached 390,000 Americans since 1994 via land lines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.

The San Francisco 49ers were the highest-ranked NFC West team at No. 8.

I was a little surprised to see the Detroit Lions ranked among the top 15, above the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets. The Baltimore Ravens (23rd) ranked lower than I would have expected relative to their on-field performance.

The Indianapolis Colts (11th) and Raiders were the highest-ranked teams to have relocated to another city in the past three decades.

Seven of the 10 least popular teams were relatively new to their cities, either through relocation or expansion. Those teams were Baltimore, Houston, Tennessee, Carolina, Arizona, St. Louis and Jacksonville. Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Cincinnati ranked among the bottom 10 despite longer tenures in their current cities.

Unhealthy franchises tend to move. Once they do move, they start fresh with a new fan base. It then takes time to build up equity with multiple generations of fans.

In the Cardinals' case, the fan base includes quite a few transplants with loyalties in other markets.

The chart shows which percentage of respondents said they favored particular teams. There were no ties (I rounded to the tenth for readability). Note that 10.3 percent of respondents did not identify a favorite team.

Doesn't surprise me most of the teams in the top five had a span of success that attributed to a new fans joining the ranks. The Top six are not surprising at all, the only one that surprised me was the Saints. I swear the Saints might be the biggest case of bandwagon fans ever.

Here's the big problem, Atlanta started booming in the 1970's and 1980's. People from all over the country moved here. A lot of those people never really adopted the local teams as their favorite teams. I, myself, was a Bears fan until Deion Sanders was drafted. In the last 10 years, the population of the metro area has increased by 25%. That's a lot of new people with ties to other sports teams. It really shouldn't be a big surprise that there's not a lot of support for our teams. Give it another 10 years. By then, we will have several generations that have lived here all of their lives, and hopefully, the team will give those folks something to cheer about.

I like rooting for the bad guys. I'm a Heat fan for crying out loud and people started hating on them when Shaq came to the team. No problem with me who people like, its all about who wins and when my team wins, I smile and tell people look what happened. Jet fans telling "oh your team scored 2 points in the playoffs" well look who actually make the playoffs.

I agree with Robert and the best point was " and hopefully, the team will give those folks something to cheer about."

We've had hopelessly conservative football with the exception of June Jones "run and shoot" that was radically flawed!!

Vick might have been exciting but the letdown was not worth it!!

In short you almost have to love Pro Football & the Falcons to hang with them!!

I love the Falcons!!!!!

Why should they like us? What have we done except embarrass ourselves when it mattered most (Divisional playoffs, Wildcard, and MNF against the Saints last year.)

If we can make a deep playoff run, maybe at least get to the title game and play well therin, then we'll get some outside love.

I mean, we've got loveable guys. Spoon, Matt Ryan, Roddy, Asante. We just haven't won big games and football fans are kinda like grammar school kids, if you get punked, you get treated like crap by all the other kids. But if you send the bullies home crying, you get celebrated.

We're just not there at this point.