Buffalo likes football. A lot. Buffalo ranked No. 1 in Nielsen's inaugural NFL Fandom Index, which measured fan engagement across 30 NFL markets using everything from television ratings and game attendance to merchandise purchases and social media. And Buffalo didn't just edge out the competition. Buffalo had an average index score of 208, more than twice the benchmark of 100 for the average NFL market. Kansas City was second at 194, followed by Green Bay/Appleton at 172, Cincinnati at 160 and Philadelphia at 151. At the other end of the rankings were two of the country's biggest markets. Los Angeles ranked 29th with an index of 86, while New York finished last at 85. Nielsen's study isn't simply a ranking of which NFL team has the "best fans." The index measures the intensity of NFL fandom within each television market across eight different behaviors: apparel purchases, general interest, live-event attendance, betting intent, social media engagement, radio listenership, streaming habits and traditional television viewership.
Buffalo was particularly strong in some of the more traditional ways fans follow football. Nielsen said Buffalo joined Green Bay and Kansas City among the markets with the highest rates of listening to games on the radio. Buffalo was also among the leaders in broadcast and cable television viewing and live-event attendance. The results showed what Nielsen called a "small market, concentrated loyalty" pattern. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland all ranked in the top 10, with Nielsen finding that smaller, one-team markets with strong local identities tended to have greater per-capita engagement. Buffalo topped them all. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo named the most passionate NFL market in America and it's not even close