Who are the best (and worst) fans in the NFL? New study has the answers

[Pat5775]

(06-22-2017, 10:16 AM)packerbacker Wrote: I think Bengal fans are loyal and great fans! They stick with their team.

Very true, they didn't take loyalty into consideration either. Being a lifelong Bengal fan is not for the faint of heart! It's incredibly easy for anyone with low self-esteem and a small d*** to jump on the steeler or patriot bandwagon and feel good about themselves. It takes some real gumption to cheer for a team like this 

[MasonDT70]

(06-22-2017, 09:55 AM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: That's because it's literally impossible to be a bandwagon Bengals fan. There's never been a bandwagon to jump on. Just a heavy drinking wagon to get you to the point where you're numb enough to laugh it off.

I remember in 2013 seeing a few people wearing AJ Green jerseys popping up every now and then. Though that could've just been Bengals fans coming out of hiding. Though they probably would've hopped off after the playoff loss that year if they were bandwagoning.

On a side note, I'm surprised the Seahawks are as low as they are.


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[sandwedge]

(06-21-2017, 11:02 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I just gave a cursory glance, but this seems more like a measure of each team's equity as a brand rather than the mettle of the fans themselves.  The Bengals have the following things going against them:

smaller market
new-ish team/no history of success to fall back on
an owner who doesn't build brand equity

The Bengals have been either disappointing or an outright on or off the field joke for most of their existence.  The Bengals are also an unattractive option for a "secondary team" as well.  I've seen a lot of Steelers/Seahawks or Packers/Giants fans in my day because they like the idea of having a secondary team in the other conference that they feel shares their toughness and attitude (aka, bandwagon and winning).

Fair or foul, stuff like that kills our ability to attract casual or out-of-market fans which is a big part of what people decide "good fandom" to be.  I personally understand this because I'm from Pittsburgh and I'm a Celtics fan (no local NBA team, and it was the 80s and many of my friends who started watching in the 90s are Bulls fans), Cubs fan (they stunk like the Pirates but did so in a more lovable way and they didn't get rid of players the second you started to like them) a Bengals fan (it was the 80s and I wanted to be different and I picked the team that was beating the local favorites).  

The Bengals look very much like any other business that is built by a first generation and then middlingly maintained or sold by subsequent ones.  If the Bengals were a widget-producing factory founded by Paul Brown in Cincinnati, Mike Brown would have moved the plant to Mexico by now and/or sold it in some sort of merger.

Bingo, the front office has failed to make the Bengals a brand. Many of the loyal fans are fans because they had a family member pass that on to them. You don't find to many true fans that just wake up one day and say, "I'm going to be a Bengals fan". I became a fan in the early 70's because I was a Reds fan. I didn't even know Cincinnati had a football team, all I knew was baseball.  

[coachmcneil71]

(06-22-2017, 07:44 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: It's got to be inaccurate. No way we score higher than Chiefs and lower than Lions.

Exactly HD.

[Whatever]

(06-22-2017, 01:34 AM)coachmcneil71 Wrote: I find it pretty hard to fathom that a fan base that has stuck by the Bengals during this ridiculous drought is so lowly considered. I can't agree with this information. I think some of it is accurate, but this fan base is pretty freaking loyal.

It's hard to objectively argue that we should be higher, though.  I mean, every team has its die hards that will stick with their team through thick and thin.  We are probably one of the smallest fanbases, and we probably spend less per fan on the team than the vast majority of fans.  The only argument that really needs to be thrown out there to shut down the "long suffering" argument is 6 playoff appearances in the last 8 years.  Despite reasonable reason to hope and a good product on the field for going on a decade, the fanbase hasn't grown and spending hasn't really increased.

[Murdock2420]

The worst fans is simple...pitt. Bandwagon riding, life revolving around the teams success, only validation in their pathetic lives is the team having won Super Bowls, and to top it all off they have more homer-vision bs than any fan-base in any sport around the world. Any other group of fans at least has some rational members who can call out the teams bad players, but the ****-boy fan boys from pitt...nope...they do no wrong. Yet the national media just worships those self absorbed asshats.

[J24]

The owner doesn't give two shits about weather the franchise is great or how it is perceived. He screws the city of Cincinnati every chance he gets because of Paul Brown Stadium.we went through a terrible decade in the nineties and we still haven't won a playoff game in 26 years. So I'm I suprised that were ranked so low no.

[StoneTheCrow]

(06-22-2017, 03:21 PM)Murdock2420 Wrote: The worst fans is simple...pitt. Bandwagon riding, life revolving around the teams success, only validation in their pathetic lives is the team having won Super Bowls, and to top it all off they have more homer-vision bs than any fan-base in any sport around the world. Any other group of fans at least has some rational members who can call out the teams bad players, but the ****-boy fan boys from pitt...nope...they do no wrong. Yet the national media just worships those self absorbed asshats.

For the win.

[*Nately120*]

(06-22-2017, 03:21 PM)Murdock2420 Wrote: The worst fans is simple...pitt. Bandwagon riding, life revolving around the teams success, only validation in their pathetic lives is the team having won Super Bowls, and to top it all off they have more homer-vision bs than any fan-base in any sport around the world. Any other group of fans at least has some rational members who can call out the teams bad players, but the ****-boy fan boys from pitt...nope...they do no wrong. Yet the national media just worships those self absorbed asshats.

It's a one-two punch.  We have no SB teams and only a single HOFer but Mike Brown does nothing to recognize or promote the Bengals teams of the past...rather, we have a large amount of former players who are outright hostile towards what the Bengals brand has become in the past 25+ years.  Mike Brown's methods not only hamper our current success, but they damage the perception of the Bengals since even the crappiest of professional teams (the Pittsburgh Pirates, for example) trot out the stars of yesteryear when their current product fails to impress.

So when you look at NFL teams as longstanding brands the Bengals seem a bit lacking compared to many.  We as current fans don't have many good things to say about most players who aren't currently on the roster, so we don't give much of a damn about the Bengals beyond the current regime and we actively dislike or merely tolerate a number of the most highly-tenured and important people in the franchise.

Ouch.