Forbes: Red Sox fans are America's best
What is the essence of a sports fan? Richard Gilman, a literary and theater critic who died in 2006, came as close to anyone in defining it: “Being a sports fan is a complex matter, in part irrational but not unworthy, a relief from the seriousness of the real world, with its unending pressures and often grave obligations.”
Put another way: Sports mean nothing, so they mean everything.
Some people take fandom to the extreme. They attend games, they buy apparel, they live and die with each pitch, pass or shot. English soccer fans may be the most notorious in the world, traveling with their teams, singing at the top of their lungs and sometimes causing mayhem on the streets. But American sports fans are catching up, lighting up Internet fan sites, traveling huge distances to see games and even brawling at the ballpark.
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Just look at the fans all over the country who follow every pitch of their beloved Boston Red Sox. They pack Fenway when the team is in town, and fill other stadiums when they’re on the road. They stayed true throughout an epic dry spell, when the Sox went 86 years without winning a World Series – and when the team finally broke that drought in 2004, they grew even more fanatic. Today, the team is No. 2 in MLB merchandise sales (behind their hated rivals, the New York Yankees). And members of "Red Sox Nation" are so devoted, they top our list of "America's Best Sports Fans."
Behind the numbers
To produce a list of the best fans in U.S. sports, we looked at every team in the “Big Four” U.S. professional sports leagues: football (NFL), basketball (NBA), baseball (MLB), and hockey (NHL).
For each team, we gathered three different metrics. First, we measured their home and away game attendance, which indicates a team’s drawing power in its home market and nationwide. Then we counted their merchandise sales (Numbers for the NFL, NBA and MLB were provided to us by Sportsonesource, a sporting good industry analyst, and the NHL gave us their own data). Finally, we ranked each team’s in-market popularity, based on surveys of American sports teams by Turnkey Sports and Entertainment. We ranked all of the teams, then took the top four from each of the four leagues.
Around the country
Coming close behind the Red Sox is another nation of fans – although members of “Steeler Nation” would be quick to point out their nickname was coined 11 years before “Red Sox Nation.”
These passionate football fans are everywhere; The Steelers built a big fan base in the 1970s, when they dominated the National Football League, racking up four Super Bowl championships. And as Pittsburgh's steel industry died, those fans moved all over the country, taking with them a love for the Black and Gold. (Just ask Washington, D.C., and Denver, two proud NFL cities that were aghast at being overrun by Steelers fans at games in their own stadiums in the last two years.)
No. 3 on our list: The Detroit Red Wings. In a city that has seen its share of trouble in recent years, the Red Wings provide relief for fans. The team has made the playoffs the last 19 seasons in a row, the longest such streak in the “Big Four” professional sports leagues. That’s a lot of dead octopi.
The highest-rated NBA team on our list is the Boston Celtics, at No. 7. The team has won 17 NBA championships, the most in league history, led by legends like Bill Russell and Larry Bird.
Right behind the Celtics at No. 8 are the San Antonio Spurs. Like their team leader, Tim Duncan, the Spurs are quiet champions. They’ve made the playoffs the last 13 seasons. Fan devotion is may be increased by the fact that they are the only big pro team in town.
Fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers have been through a lot in recent weeks, but there's good news; they still rank among the best fans in the country, coming in at No. 13. Of course, all of the data we used is year-to-date, when LeBron James was still a member of the team.
You might assume that since "King James" left to play for the Miami Heat, the Cavaliers' popularity might tank – if nothing else, they may not win as many games. But so far fans have seemed to make the defection a rallying point. Last week it was reported that a group of little girls was selling lemonade to help team owner Dan Gilbert pay off a $100,000 fine, incurred by the NBA for his rant about LeBron leaving town.
The top five:
1. Boston Red Sox: Slideshow
2. Pittsburgh Steelers: Slideshow
3. Detroit Red Wings: Slideshow
4. Indianapolis Colts: Slideshow
5. New England Patriots: Slideshow
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