Football returns: these are the states that care LEAST about the new NFL season
- Study of each state’s searches for NFL terms finds Alabama registers the nation’s lowest interest levels in the league
- Oklahoma and Arkansas also rank in bottom three for NFL enthusiasm
- Delaware is the most obsessed with the league, while Nevada ranks second and Maryland places third
The return of the NFL is only weeks away, but some places are gripped with pro-football fever much more than others, a new study has revealed.
The research by onlinecasinos.com, which helps players find the best online casinos worldwide, analyzed Google searches for 50 different terms related to the National Football League, such as “NFL”, “NFL scores” “NFL schedule” and “NFL draft” to discover which states had the highest and lowest rates of searches for the league.
These are the top three least NFL-obsessed states in America:
50. Alabama
Alabama registers the lowest search levels for NFL-related terms, on a monthly average of just 19,348 per 100,000 people. The low ranking for interest in the NFL is likely due to the state being one of the country’s college football hotbeds, and home to the all-conquering Alabama Crimson Tide – winners of six national championships in the past 15 years.
49. Oklahoma
Oklahoma, another state with a proud NCAA football history, ranks in 49th for NFL obsession. The state is home to around four million people, and there are an average of 894,347 NFL searches each month, which adds up to 22,248 searches per 100,000 people.
48. Arkansas
Arkansas is in 48th place with 24,363 searches per 100k, while Kentucky is 47th (25,153 per 100,000) and Louisiana is 46th (30,060 per 100,000).
1. Delaware
The First State’s nickname is appropriate in this case, as it topped the rankings with a massive 60,582 searches per 100,000 people, making it America’s most NFL-obsessed state, despite the fact it isn’t home to an NFL team. In total there are 616,974 searches for the top 50 NFL-related terms on average every month.
Out of the 50 search terms that were used in the analysis, the most common search in Delaware over the past 12 months was “NFL score”. That makes it just one of six states where the top league-related search is for “NFL score”, rather than simply “NFL”. The other states that follow the same pattern are South Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia, Montana and Wyoming.
2. Nevada
Second place in the NFL-obsession top ten goes to Nevada, whose population of around 3.17 million produce a monthly average of 1,871,688 NFL-related searches – that equates to 58,899 per 100,000 people. The state is set to hold the Super Bowl for the first time ever in February 2024, when the Allegiant Stadium in Nevada will host the showpiece event.
3. Maryland
Maryland takes third place when it comes to NFL interest, with 56,891 monthly searches per 100,000 people. The top three most common National Football League searches are for “NFL”, “NFL scores”, and “NFL schedule”.
4. Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is fourth overall, based on 54,402 average monthly searches per 100,000 people
5. North Dakota
North Dakota is in fifth with 54,389 per 100k, making it the second state in the top five which isn’t home to an NFL team.
The lowest ranked state which also has an NFL team is Tennessee. Despite the Tennessee Titans calling the state home, the seven million population produced 2,179,055 NFL-related searches on average over the past 12 months, which works out at 30,902 per 100,000 people – the 45th lowest in the country.
A spokesperson for onlinecasinos.com said: “NFL is America’s favorite league, so it was interesting to delve into the data and find out where it’s loved more than anywhere else. Nationally the figures show that there each month there is an average of 137,621,053 searches for the top 50 most common NFL-related terms. The true scale of the country’s love for NFL becomes even clearer when you consider that those 50 search terms don’t even include any team-specific searches.”
Methodology
The study used Google Keyword Planner to find the 50 most Googled terms relating to NFL in the US. It then used the planner to find each state’s number of searches for each term and totalled them before comparing against population to reveal each state’s rate of searches per 100,000 people.