Earlier this season, Facebook data already confirmed the obvious: The Miami Hurricanes are the most popular college football team in South Florida. Duh. But that was just amongst people who liked any college football on Facebook, and it didn't provide context on how big of a percentage of the local population has clicked "like" on any team's Facebook page.
Well, the New York Times is back with more data, and apparently college football is not that popular down here. Which should be obvious to anyone who has seen the attendance at Hurricanes games.
You can click here for the full interactive map, but lighter colors indicate lower concentrations of college football fans on Facebook.
In fact, in Miami-Dade County just 7 percent of all Facebook users have bothered to like a college football team's page. That increases to 9 percent in Broward County and 10 percent in Palm Beach.
That's slightly better than the West Coast. Only 5 percent of people in Los Angles, home to both UCLA and USC, have liked a team's page. It's also better than Northern urban areas. Just 2 percent in Manhattan like a team.
Though, it's pretty small potatoes compared to the rest of the South.
But the Times picked up some trends about college football fandom that seem obvious and help explain Miami's low interest.
- College football fandom tends to be smaller in areas with professional sports teams, and Miami has four.
- College football is also more popular in rural areas, and Miami-Dade is decidedly not.
- Recent success has some effect on popularity, and the Miami Hurricanes haven't even won a division championship since Facebook came into being.
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