Every NFL team's popularity, in interactive map form

Twitter
Twitter

Baseball may be America's pastime, but football is America's religion. The country basically shuts down on Sundays to worship at the altar of touchdown and its patron saints (not to be confused with New Orleans Saints) Manning, Brady, and Rodgers.

Of course, not all teams are created or followed equal. The Cowboys, for example, are known as "America's Team", while the Jaguars are basically nobody's team.

To figure out who's popular where, the data-crunching folks at Twitter analyzed official team handles and their followers to geolocate fans nationwide, as opposed to just who's talking smack or reacting to plays they see on TV. And they dropped that data into a handy-dandy (and super addictive) interactive map.

Along with showing a team's popularity across the country, the interactive allows you to compare two teams' followings, or to see which team is most popular in a given county. You can even see which teams are second-best in a given market. In that case, the Cowboys and Texans flip in the state of Texas. And Raiders and Jets fans have their inferiority complexes confirmed.

The real surprises come from seeing a team popular outside its reign, like the Steelers dotting counties in Arkansas, Montana, and Utah, or the Broncos outpacing the Seahawks right outside Seattle. Too bad that didn't translate into points in Super Bowl XLVIII for Peyton and his friends.

Check out the full data breakdown on Twitter's blog.


Ryan Craggs is Thrillist's Travel Editor. He basically only talks to his brother about the Steelers during football season. Follow him on Twitter @ryanrcraggs.