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Jaguars have 29th “best” fan base according to Emory Sports Marketing Analytics

By Daniel Lago

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The Jacksonville Jaguars have historically been an easy target for people looking relocate an NFL franchise. It used to be Los Angeles and now it’s London, but regardless of the destination, people have felt the need to single Jacksonville out as a city that can’t support an NFL team.

Over last several years, new Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan has done his best to disperse the notion that the team is on the move. Investing a rather sizeable amount of money in stadium renovations, the world’s largest scoreboards, and now developing the shipyards around the stadium, Khan has put his money where his mouth is to cement his commitment to Jacksonville.

The other piece to the puzzle is fan commitment, and quite frankly that has never really been in question. While there was a small lull in attendance early in the 2000s, the Jaguars haven’t had a local TV blackout since December 13, 2009. The team has one of the most passionate young fan bases (see Bold City Brigade, Teal Street Hooligans, Generation Jaguar, etc.) and the Twitter contingent might be one of the most formidable of any team in the NFL.

The perception still doesn’t match reality however. In their most recent ranking of fan bases, Emory Sports Marketing Analytics had the Jaguars ranked 29th. In 2014 they rated the Jaguars the 29th best fan base as well, and they had them as the 27th ranked fan base in 2013.

This isn’t surprising given the lack of national popularity of the Jaguars, but it still made me want to delve a little deeper in the rankings. Emory Sports based the rankings almost entirely on hard data they could quantify, which means they really only took into account attendance, revenue, ticket pricing, etc. They openly admit they haven’t incorporated other factors like social media and other non-financial factors.

The Jaguars will likely never find themselves near the top of this list, but quite frankly it doesn’t matter. The team has an unwavering fan base in Jacksonville, and they have by far the most substantial international footprint with their recurring series in London. It’ll be interesting to see how high the Jaguars climb on the list when they start winning games.

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