Most Engaged Fans!

New Study Names Michigan as College Football's Most Engaged Fans

BY 

RANDY CHAMBERS

 (FEATURED COLUMNIST) ON JULY 22, 2013

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It looks like Alabama isn't No. 1 at everything after all. The Tide have the national titles and terrific recruiting classes they can brag about, but Michigan has the most engaged fanbase in the country.

There is now a celebration scheduled in Ann Arbor.

TicketCity recently released the results of its first annual overall ranking of the most engaged fanbases in college football. The goal was to discover which teams had the most engaged fans online and offline.

The information was used from the 2012 season only and bowl games were excluded. Many metrics went into this research and some weigh more than others.

Each metric can be seen below, along with its corresponding weight, per TicketCity:

• Average total attendance, all games (5)
• Average home attendance (10)
• Average ticket price, all games (5)
• Average home game ticket price (10)
• Percentage of stadium capacity filled at home games (10)
• Facebook likes & Facebook "talking about" (6)
• Twitter following (3)

TicketCity weighs home attendance and average ticket prices higher "because they are a better direct reflection of home team behavior."

Michigan led the way with an overall score of 100. It had the best home attendance in the country with an average showing of 112,252 people, and the most Twitter followers with 149,498.

The University also finished second in Facebook "talking about" and Facebook likes, while finishing third in highest average total attendance and fifth in average median ticket price.

It's no secret that Michigan has some of the most passionate fans in the country, and some would consider this honor to mean more than anything else. Having loyal fans who go nuts over a program and are involved on and off the field is all anybody can ask for from a fanbase.

While Michigan comes out on top, the SEC was also well represented with five programs rounding out the Top 10. The Big 12 and Big Ten were the only other two conferences with at least one team mentioned within the first 10 teams.

The overall Top 25 rankings can be viewed below, per TicketCity:

Overall Rank	Conference	Institution	Overall Score
1	Big 10	University of Michigan	100.00
2	SEC	Louisiana State University	95.43
3	SEC	University of Alabama	95.18
4	Big 10	Ohio State University	92.94
5	SEC	Texas A&M University	88.91
6	Big 10	University of Nebraska - Lincoln	87.88
7	Big 12	University of Oklahoma	82.77
8	Big 12	University of Texas - Austin	82.11
9	SEC	University of Georgia	81.83
10	SEC	University of Florida	79.86
11	Big 10	Penn State University	75.68
12	SEC	University of South Carolina	72.13
13	Big 10	University of Iowa	72.08
14	Pac 12	University of Southern California	71.97
15	Pac 12	University of Oregon	70.53
16	Big 10	Michigan State University	70.52
17	SEC	University of Tennessee	68.57
18	Big 10	University of Wisconsin - Madison	68.29
19	SEC	Auburn University	66.40
20	ACC	Clemson University	65.85
21	Big 12	West Virginia University	65.53
22	ACC	Florida State University	63.92
23	SEC	University of Missouri	63.82
24	SEC	University of Arkansas	60.88
25	ACC	Virginia Tech University	59.51