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Redskins fanbase per Twitter


Dub70s

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We looked at the official Twitter handle for every NFL team and used their followers as a signal of allegiance (as opposed to, say, mentioning a team when watching an interesting matchup or talking about your rival). Click on the image below to explore the interactive map, which shows you not only which teams dominate states and counties, but also how their reach spreads across the country.


https://blog.twitter.com/2014/nfl-fan-map-where-are-your-team-s-followers


 


The primary view shows you which team is most-followed in every county in the country: https://interactive.twitter.com/nfl_followers2014/#?mode=team&team=all


 


and the Redskins:


20t2hvr.jpg


I wonder if this is the Dan Snyder affect?


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Completely inaccurate?  (no offense to OP)

 

I see Skins fans just about every time I go out in public.  I'm in The Southern Tier of NY and I see fans young and old right here in the middle of Jets, Bills, and Giants country.

 

There is not even a blip on the map.  There was an ES map a while back that I added my address to, that was way more than what's shown above.

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A couple of interesting points on this-

 

Keeping in mind the point already made that twitter users skew younger, and are thus represented more on this, I still think my home state of North Carolina is under-represented on this map. I see Redskins fans all the time in NC (I live in central NC). In fact, Two of my neighbors are diehard Skins fans!

 

Another interesting trend...Redskins fans in Oklahoma and New Mexico-both states with high Native American populations.

 

Edited to add that even Alaska (highest percentage of Native Americans) has some Redskins fans!

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The question isn't how many skins fans there are in a particular region, its how many of those skins fans (i) have twitter accounts and (ii) follow the skins account on twitter.

 

I'd guess that the people who follow the Skins on twitter are more the die-hards like us, not the typical Skins fan who will only talk sports at a bar or at the game or possibly in the office.

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Using twitter is a completely flawed measurement metric. Many of us do not have twitter accounts. I am a diehard Redskins fan living in NC and have purposely refused to get involved in twitter. In my opinion it's one of the single dumbest and most narcissistic, self indulgent parts of the social media explosion. 

 

Need to find a better metric. 

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I think a couple of you hit this on the head.  This is indicative of the number of fans that use twitter, which in by large is the younger generation.  The number one team in the area I grew up according to this (northeastern nc), the Patriots.  I think if you polled the general public, the pats would probably be no better than #4.  Growing up there it was mostly skins, dallas (unfortunately), steelers, and then random other teams, with a good number of older people pulling for the colts, remembering the old days.  But the patriots have been prominent the last ten years, putting them in the wheel house of the socially connected generation.  A good number of the population in this area do not use twitter.

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Let's face it, all fans, including Redskins fans are "bandwagon" fans. Teams see huge spikes in popularity when they are good. Now what you hope is that once a fan "chooses" you that they stick it out, which is generally the case.

The Redskins have a loyal and strong base of 35 year old+ fans because they were awesome during childhood, young adult years of that group. I started rooting for the Redskins in 1982... I was five and lived in Oklahoma. Hmmmm.... I wonder why?

There are two teams (Cowboys, Packers) that I believe thrive in large part due to brand, almost regardless of on-field success. But even those teams are affected by winning and losing.

When I was in Arizona, the fans there said that the Redskins, Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, Niners, etc all had huge followings.

See the trend? Each franchise has had a major dynasty type run over the past 30-40 years, which translates to huge throngs of fans.

The Redskins have already lost a generation of fans for sure I'd say. 10-15 years from now I don't think we will see that 35-45 age group particularly well represented. But if they are ever good again the cycle will turn.

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Whats funny is the number of lightly shaded Virginia counties, and in general the shade of VA. I'd think it'd be darker red. but I guess that comes with losing seasons and a hated owner and very few real stars.

Though it is flawed because it is based on the amount of users of a social media app and, on top of that, the number of those users who happen to follow a Pro Football team, one thing that needs to be kept in mind when looking at the Virginia "shades" is the number of people from New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey that have moved to Virginia over the past couple of decades. In the Hampton Roads area alone, it is just as easy to find someone from New York as it is to find someone who is from the area. 

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It's probably 75% about winning and losing and 25% everything else-- iconic players, big market, etc...

 

I've been a close follower of the NFL for over 30 years-- from about 1990-1998 before I got Sunday Ticket I watched games at sportbars in different regions....and as I've gotten older I've done a lot more traveling across the country. Just as a random example, in all of that time I have literally NEVER met an Atlanta Falcons fan. Never. Not even someone from Atlanta. Same with the Chargers. Same with the Titans. Same with the Jaguars. Same with the Cardinals (prior to actually being at the game two weeks ago).

 

In contrast, I've met tons of Eagles, Bears, Packers, Cowboys, Giants, 49ers, Steelers, and Broncos fans. The trend there is clearly sustained success and/or large market.

 

As a kid, I never even knew Patriots fans existed... now, I have met several and see Pats gear routinely in airports. And in the past couple of years I've started to see Seahawks stuff pop up-- even here in OKC.

 

This isn't rocket science. I do think you have a handful of brands that are close to unbreakable. The Packers are thriving as a fanbase despite about 25 years of irrelevance from the late 60's to early 90's. The could sustain based on their history and the unique experience of having a team in a community like GB. Dallas is similar, although they've done a good job of never being truly irrelevant-- always at least watchable. Same with the Steelers-- from the early 70's until now, they have been somewhere between average to great. That's a good way to keep fans invested.

 

We have a fairly strong history and play in a large market that has represented a region for many years. That region shrunk with the expansion SE although many fans stuck with the Skins. Now, new generations of fans have no real incentive to do so. If I was a five year old kid in OK today, why would I choose the Redskins? People want to root for a winner.

 

Maybe someday if I'm so inclined I'll root for someone else too. Who knows.

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I started following the Redskins in 1981 when i was 8-9 and they sucked the first part of that year and I remember wondering if I really HAD to be a Redskins fan lol. Then they started winning most games from game 6 in 1981 until 1992 so I never had to think about it again (but maybe I should have lol).

 

I'm not so sure that if they had kept losing for a couple years if I wouldn't have become a 49ers fan when we moved to California. Or maybe I would have just given up on football altogether like I did when the Orioles stopped winning after 1983, but baseball was always a lot less fun to watch too and I never picked up a California team anyway.

 

Twitter isn't going to give real numbers though. I once used twitter for a while and never did I decide to find a way to link my account to a team and they never asked either so I doubt these are large numbers being tracked by those twits.

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I am from eagles territory, oldest brother is a cowboys/titans fan (lives in nashville now), 2nd oldest is a raiders fan, I am a... redskins fan lol, youngest is a falcons fan.  None are on twitter. 

 

It's surely misleading when it's only twitter followers, but then again it's an indicator of what I would assume is overall the more younger and more social media inclined fans.

 

I'm actually surprised it's that high as opposed to low.  It goes to show what type of true devoted fans we have that through all the muck we still have what I would consider a healthy young fanbase relative to the hardship most young fans have had to deal with.

 

I turned 28 recently so I could very easily do the twitter thing, but for profession related reasons I choose not to, and I am pretty much the cutoff age of conscious fans that missed the SB era.  I literally became a fan the year after when the cowboys won the SB because they had more SBs than the cowboys ( because my dad told me and is a diehard cowboys fan from childhood on his own) and I loved yellow and cool reds (burgundy has blue on the color wheel, not "cool" like cool, although burgundy is cool... nm lol). 

 

Tiger striped redskins hats were like crack to me as a child.

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