It’s more about fans behavior as consumers.
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By combining those methods, Lewis has created the aforementioned “Dynamic Fan Equity” method of calculation. The DFE measure leverages the best features of the two measures. The Chiefs struggle because the fan support doesn’t match the team’s performance. He had previously utilized two measures of engagement – Fan Equity and Social Media Equity – to come up with his conclusions.
According to Lewis: “The Patriots victory is driven by fans willingness to pay premium prices, strong attendance and phenomenal social media following”. I will spare the technical details on the blog but I’m happy to go into depth if there is interest.
In the study – conducted annually by Dr. Michael Lewis of Emory University – Broncos fans ranked No. 3 of all the NFL’s fans in 2016 through what Lewis calls the “Dynamic Fan Equity” (DFE) methodology of caluclation. But Lewis ranks the Patriots over the Dallas Cowboys for similar reasons (some 700K more Twitter followers).
This is interesting because it dovetails nicely with the idea that the Cowboys and Patriots also have the least popular teams when you ask the whole world what it thinks. “Of course, this is all relative a team like the Jaguars has just 340,000 followers”.
With one of the NFL’s most polarizing figures in Chip Kelly entering his third-year as head coach and first-year with personnel control – after making a slew of controversial transactions to boot – the Eagles were among the most intriguing teams heading into 2015.
“The Eagles are also a good example of how the analysis works”, wrote Lewis. The Raiders fans again finish low in our rankings. This latter point is a critical shortcoming. While Eagles fans might not be happy they are supportive in the face of mediocrity. Last year, CBS notes, Eagles fans were ranked 11th overall.
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That would be the Oakland Raiders (31st) and Kansas City Chiefs (30th), two teams known for having highly passionate fanbases. The aforementioned Jacksonville Jaguars sat at the very bottom of the list, which isn’t much of a surprise.
