Cincinnati Bengals fans landed 28th in a new analysis from a study that set out to find the best fanbases in the NFL.
Emory University Goizueta School of Business professor Mike Lewis used quantitative analysis to find these rankings, which accounted for money spent on teams, social followings and road trips by fans with things like market size controlled for.
Bengals fans didn’t fare well, to say the least, with their only mention coming alongside the mention of other teams near the bottom:
“At the bottom of the rankings, we have the Bengals, Jaguars, Titans, Chiefs and Rams. Only minor changes from last year. The Browns have edged out of the bottom 5. These teams all suffer from the same issues – relatively weak pricing power and limited social followings.”
Granted, this seems to be more about brands than anything else and Bengals fans know quite well the brand isn’t spoken too highly of on a national level.
And for Bengals fans, that’s probably just fine. Even while controlling for things like market size, it is hard to think it doesn’t play a role.
With a bold new approach at head coach, the Bengals at least have some hope of starting to rebound on lists like this in the near future, whereas before it seemed like they were gridlocked in place almost no matter what they did on the field.
