Who's the most popular college football team_The Athletic

[SNAFU]

So who’s the most popular college football team?​

Teams had to place in multiple categories to be included so as to eliminate outliers, which left us to focus on 12 schools that separated themselves from the pack.

With those teams selected and data assembled, we assigned point values for each category: 10 points for first place, 9 for second and so on. In categories with multiple sets of related rankings, we averaged the two. Here’s how each category was scored:

Scoring by category

Team	TV	StubHub	Google	Social	Attendance	Merchandise	Revenue	BetMGM	Alumni
Michigan	7	10	7	8	10	9	8	0	8
Ohio State	8.5	5	9	7	8	4	4	6.5	5
Alabama	10	9	10	10	5	2	3	7.5	0
Georgia	8.5	7	8	6	4	3	9	9.5	0
Texas	5	8	3	4	6.5	7	10	6	0
Penn State	6	4	0	0	9	6	0	2	9
Tennessee	4	0	0	5	1	8	6	5.5	0
Notre Dame	2.5	1	6	2	0	10	7	0	0
LSU	1.5	2.5	5	9	0	0	0	5	0
Texas A&M	1.5	2.5	0	0	2	0	0	0	6
Florida	1.5	0	4	0	0	5	0	0	0
Oklahoma	1	0	0	1	3	0

 

[NighthawkVol]

How is Tennessee a 1 for attendance?

 

[ButchPlz]

How is Tennessee a 1 for attendance?

I'm guessing it's because The Athletic has gone the way of the rest of the media and just makes stuff up at this stage.

 

[sami]

How is Tennessee a 1 for attendance?

Makes the entire exercise irrelevant in and of itself.

 

[ChismsHeadband]

This makes zero sense without knowing how "data" was gathered, rated, and weighted.

The order of Michigan, Ohio St, Bama, UGA, Texas, PSU, then us does seem pretty reasonable. But what does 0 for alumni mean? 1 for attendance? Who cares about the sports betting, and what does that mean in relation to all this?

Glad I cancelled my Athletic membership way back when if all it is, is this slop now.

 

[Doctor Bart]

Just read the article, which was actually pretty interesting.
The attendance numbers included total attendance but factored in percent capacity over the last 3 seasons, which is what dropped the Vols in the rankings.
As a fan who lives in Southern California, the rankings comport well with reality.
Tennessee has less of a national brand than other programs, most of whom have either had a long history of success, or are THE state school of a more populous state.
Ranking as high as we do after 2 decades in the wilderness is actually impressive!

 

[SNAFU]

The beginning of the article states that it is an inexact study so interpret the data as you wish. With the question on alumni, this seems to be the most inexact and subjective data in this article. Here is the explanation for the ranking in this category-

"Attending a school doesn’t automatically make someone a diehard college football fan. Similarly, programs like Michigan, Notre Dame and BYU have large international fan bases that aren’t limited to alumni of those schools. However, it stands to reason that attending a school makes it more likely someone will become a fan, meaning the schools with the most living alumni deserve a bump.
Based on available data for programs we searched — which is admittedly inexact — the Power 4 school that claims the most living alumni is Indiana, which boasts 790,033 graduates worldwide. Penn State isn’t far behind at 775,000. The Nittany Lions have a higher percentage of those graduates in the stands on football Saturdays, but Indiana closed the gap a bit thanks to a surprising 2024 season that included a trip to the College Football Playoff.
“All boats rise when football does well,” said Patricia Riveire Stumpf, CEO of the IU Alumni Association.

I wouldn't take this information too seriously myself. I could care less other than I'm a fan of all Tennessee sports. I thought it was an interesting read.

 

[Voltopia]

*sniff sniff*


What's that I smell? A Chat-GPT generated "study" that gathered random sets of data from publicy-available data on the internet, and then collated and ranked them based on operator instructions? Lightly edited to give the appearance of compelling content creation even?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Horsepoop in, horsepoop out.

These guys way over-complicated a pretty simple question. Want to know what programs are most popular? Look at attendance numbers (not percentages, raw numbers) combined with TV viewership in nationally televised games. Teams with the highest total viewership, live and remote, are--practically by definition--the most popular.

There's really nothing more to it. The other variables they created are second-hand versions of viewership (like "stub-hub" being entirely redundant with "attendance") or have more to do with profit than popularity ("merch," "revenue," "bet-MgM").

I don't know if simplifying things would raise Tennessee higher on the list or drop us lower. But it would actually make more sense, either way.

These guys blew it by thinking too hard.

Go Vols!

 

[SNAFU]

I’ll simplify it further… you like the Vols? Then they’re your most popular team. Everything else is irrelevant. Go Vols!

 

[utvolpj]

.
The attendance numbers included total attendance but factored in percent capacity over the last 3 seasons, which is what dropped the Vols in the rankings.

Which of those last 3 years had attendance issues?

 

[Volgraduate1992]

How is Tennessee a 1 for attendance?

Because there are several stadiums larger than ours now.

 

[Volgraduate1992]

Makes the entire exercise irrelevant in and of itself.

No, there are several college stadiums larger than ours.

 

[NighthawkVol]

Because there are several stadiums larger than ours now.

Your answer makes no sense. Alabama got a 5. Georgia got a 4.

Neither are larger than Tennessee. Both had smaller attendance than Tennessee last year.

I’m not asking why Tennessee isn’t a 10. I understand that we’re not the biggest. I’m asking why Tennessee is a 1. And there is no reasonable answer.

 

[Lawrence Wright]

0-12

 

[rdk4121]

Because there are several stadiums larger than ours now.

We're still 6th overall. Which is what it has been for awhile now. Not sure what your point is

 

[rdk4121]

Which of those last 3 years had attendance issues?

I don't know. I'm pretty sure almost every game over these last 3 years have been a sellout. A little confused by that

 

[Tin Man]

Tennessee fans travel better than the rest of ‘em. GBO!