Baltimore Ravens: Is the Defense Underrated Now or the Players?

Baltimore Ravens: Is the Defense Underrated Now or the Players? by Jeremiah D. Sater

Study reveals that the Baltimore Ravens fan base ranks Top Five in the NFL.

Every die-hard football fan believes that they are part of the best fan base in the world.

Likewise, every NFL football player, coach and front office staff will verbalize that their team has the best fans in the world.

But what really makes some fans greater than others?

Is it the noise, the willingness to follow their team across the country, creating a home field advantage or maybe how much money one spends on team apparel? The truth is, any one of these could be factored in to an equation to figure out which fans are top dogs in the NFL.

Recently, a study from Emory University was released that ranked all 32 NFL teams based on their fans.

According to Mike Lewis and Manish Tripathi at Emory Sports Marketing Analytics, “the best fans” were defined as “the most avid, engaged, passionate and supportive fans.”

But this three year study didn’t look at how loud fans are or how great the tailgating is on game day. Instead, they used hard data that actually measures fan behavior.

“A lot of marketing research focused on branding issues relies on things like consumer surveys. This is fine in some ways, but opinion surveys are also problematic. It’s one thing to just say you are a fan of a local team, and quite another to be willing to pay several thousand dollars to purchase a season ticket.”

The hard data that was used to formulate their rankings takes into account 15 years of data which includes attendance, prices, revenues, market populations, won-loss records, median incomes and many other factors.

So, where does Baltimore fall in the rankings?

The Baltimore Ravens fan base comes in at fourth best in the NFL.

If you’re a die-hard Ravens fan, you probably read the above sentence and got really mad and started yelling at your screen. Ok, maybe that is over the top, or is it?

Either way, fourth is not so bad. The Ravens fall in behind only the Giants, Patriots and the Cowboys who were crowned with having “the best fans” in the NFL.

In terms of the AFC North division, the Ravens found themselves on top. The Steelers came in at 14, Bengals at 24 and the Browns just escaped “the worst fans” title by coming in at 31 just in front of the Dolphins.

This study gives a great look at which cities make great markets for NFL teams based on population as you can see some of the bigger cities (New York, Dallas, Chicago) rank towards the top.

It’s one thing to just say you are a fan of a local team, and quite another to be willing to pay several thousand dollars to purchase a season ticket

But what this study won’t settle is the never ending love that passionate fans bring when talking about their teams. Even if your team can’t seem rack up the wins, a real fan never stops supporting and never quits believing in their team.

So, if this study uses the same factors next year and releases new rankings how can the Ravens find themselves closer to the top? Well, spend more money on apparel, sell out M&T Bank stadium and don’t just talk about being a fan, be about it.