As we wait for the college football season to get underway, there are a seemingly infinite number of ways to judge teams against one another. It will all be played out on the gridiron soon enough, but until then, fans and analysts will be looking through the lenses of preseason polls, recruiting classes, and more.
Another fun way to look at things is by tickets sold, and StubHub provided an interesting territorial map that gives an unofficial look at the geographical layout of which teams are most popular based on tickets sold in each state.
Here's how it looks:
Here's a look at each state's most popular team based on the tickets sold:
Here is a look at the fanbases by number of states they led, ordered by the sum of estimated populations of those states.
Some other key callouts:
- The Colorado Buffaloes are drumming up interest in their home state as well as in North Dakota
- Purdue beats out Notre Dame in Indiana.
- The Penn State Nittany Lions and the Navy Midshipmen were dominant in the Northeast, taking seven and three states, respectively.
- The best geographic travelers are the Oregon Ducks, who are separated by 2,560 miles as the crow flies (using state capitals).
- The best continental U.S. travelers are the South Carolina Gamecocks, separated by 752 miles as the crow flies (using state capitals). They won Rhode Island, but not their home state (Clemson won there).
College football kicks off later this month, and fans can't wait to see how it pans out under the new era of conference alignment.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Map by Tickets Sold Tells Interesting Story About Most Popular Teams.
