"What team has the most avid, engaged, passionate and supportive fans"
This was the criteria used by Emory University in Atlanta for quantifying which NFL team has the best fans. The result was the Dallas Cowboys taking the top spot.
Here is more on how Emory came to that conclusion:
By hard data we mean data on actual fan behavior. In particular, we are focused on market outcomes like attendance, prices or revenues. A lot of marketing research focused on branding issues relies on things like consumer surveys. This is fine in some ways, but opinion surveys are also problematic. It's one thing to just say you are a fan of a local team, and quite another to be willing to pay several thousand dollars to purchase a season ticket.
The rest of the teams fell as follows:
Emory noted that the Patriots could likely take over the top spot next year, as their calculations used here did not include stuff that happened during the Deflategate saga.
[h/t Dallas Morning News]
