The University of Alabama soundly defeated Notre Dame, 42-14, to win the BCS national title for the 2012 college football season, but was ranked No. 3 behind Michigan and LSU when it came to having the most engaged college football fans.
The 2013 college football season begins with 17 games on Thursday, Aug. 29, and kicks off in earnest with nearly 50 games on Saturday, Aug. 31.
To get the debates and parties started, online ticket broker TicketCity’ has compiled its first overall ranking of what it is calling “the most engaged fan bases in college football.”
TicketCity said the list was based on an “algorithm designed to identify the fan bases that engage the most frequently with their team both online and offline.” Fan engagement here is based on the 2012 season, but excludes Bowl games. The rankings include such metrics as average total attendance, average home attendance, average ticket price, percentage of stadium capacity filled at home games, Facebook likes and Twitter followers.
According to TicketCity, the 25 most engaged college football fan bases are located at (in order): Michigan (Big 10), Louisiana State (SEC), Alabama (SEC), Ohio State (Big 10), Texas A&M (SEC), Nebraska-Lincoln (Big 10), Oklahoma (Big 12), Texas - Austin (Big 12), Georgia (SEC), Florida (SEC), Penn State (Big 10), South Carolina (SEC), Iowa (Big 10), USC (Pac 12), Oregon (Pac 12), Michigan State (Big 10), Tennessee (SEC), Wisconsin-Madison (Big 10), Auburn (SEC), Clemson (ACC), West Virginia (Big 12), Florida State (ACC), Missouri (SEC), Arkansas (SEC) and Virginia Tech (ACC).
According to TicketCity, the universities with the most Facebook likes are: Florida (Big 12), 1.09 million; Michigan (Big 10), 1.04 million; LSU (SEC), 867K; North Carolina-Chapel Hill (ACC), 697K; and Penn State (Big 10), 662.7K.
On Twitter, the universities with the most followers, per TicketCity are: Michigan (Big 10), 150.4K; LSU (SEC), 107.3K; Nebraska-Lincoln (Big 10), 94.1K; Alabama (SEC), 84.4K; and Tennessee (SEC), 69K.
These numbers do not reflect other college football-related Twitter activities, where many head football coaches have their own Twitter accounts. The coaches with the most followers are: Les Miles, LSU, 111.8K; Brian Kelly, Notre Dame, 93.5K; Butch Jones, Tennessee, 82.5K; Mark Richt, Georgia, 69.7K; and Bret Bielema, Arkansas, 64.4K.
By comparison, John Calipari, head basketball coach at Kentucky, leads all college coaches with 1.24 million Twitter followers.
According to TicketCity, the college football teams with the “Highest Average Home Attendance” were:
Michigan (Big 10), 112,252
Ohio State (Big 10), 105,330
Alabama (SEC), 101,722
Texas - Austin (Big 12), 100,884
Penn State (Big 10), 96,730
And the teams that had the “Highest Percent Of Stadium Full” were:
Oregon (Pac 12), 106.5%
Nebraska (Big 10), 105.5%
Texas A&M, 105.4%
Oklahoma, 103.8%
Ohio State, 103%
See the full statistics at TicketCity.
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