Who Does Your City Secretly Root For? Mapping NFL Fandom in Every State

NFL fandom is supposed to be a matter of geography. You root for the team that plays down the road, you inherit it from your family, and the map takes care of the rest. The search data does not agree. In one state, the local franchise loses outright to a team from 180 miles away, and in dozens of cities, the closest thing to a consensus is an argument.

LiveSportsOnTV.com analyzed search volume for 68 NFL team terms across all 50 states, Washington, DC, and 101 U.S. metro areas, measuring only the offseason months when interest reflects allegiance rather than scores. The team with the widest reach in America turned out to be one that has not won a conference title since 1995.

Key takeaways

According to search interest, the Cowboys have America's broadest fan base.
The Bills have America's most loyal fan base, while the Raiders have the least loyal, according to search interest.
New Jersey roots for Philadelphia: the Eagles dominate search interest over both the Giants and Jets across the state.
The Bears have quietly taken over Indiana, the only state where a hometown team loses out to an outsider in search interest.

The states that root for someone else's team

Every state in the country backs a local franchise where one exists, with a single exception.

U.S. map showing each state's dominant NFL team by search interest, plus a bar chart of America's most-searched teams.

Indiana skips the team it already has. The Bears took 25.5% of the state's NFL search interest against 14.9% for the Colts, who play in Indianapolis, a gap of more than 10 percentage points in favor of a team from another state. Nowhere else in the country does a resident franchise finish behind an outsider.

New Jersey comes close. The Eagles led the state with 16.7%, ahead of the Giants at 12.2% and the Jets at 6.1%, both of which actually play their home games in East Rutherford. Philadelphia outdrew the two local teams individually, though not combined.

States without a franchise divide along familiar lines. Six of them rooted for the Cowboys, more than any other team claims: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Five rooted for the Patriots, and all five sit in New England: Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. One team collects on national reach, the other on regional proximity.

The cities least likely to root for the team that plays there

Hosting a franchise guarantees a stadium, not a fanbase.

Bar chart ranking America's most loyal NFL fan cities and bubble chart showing which teams reach the most U.S. cities.

Buffalo was the most loyal football city in America, giving the Bills 81.4% of its local NFL search interest. Las Vegas sat at the opposite extreme, with the Raiders drawing 10.8%, just over one-eighth of Buffalo's figure. Twelve cities failed to give their own team even 40% of local interest:

Las Vegas, Raiders, 10.8%
Los Angeles, Rams, 11.5%
New York, Giants, 13.9%
San Francisco, 49ers, 15.4%
Tampa, Buccaneers, 20.2%
Indianapolis, Colts, 24.7%
Phoenix, Cardinals, 25.8%
Charlotte, Panthers, 32.9%
Washington, DC, Commanders, 35.2%
Atlanta, Falcons, 37.9%
Jacksonville, Jaguars, 38.0%
Houston, Texans, 38.7%

The Cowboys are the reason the map looks the way it does. They had a presence in five out of every six American cities, clearing one in 20 local NFL searches in 84 of the 101 metro areas we measured.

Who the 50 biggest cities are rooting for

Among the 50 largest cities, the most searched team is often the one that plays there. The interesting cases are the exceptions. Some cities back a team they never hosted, and others still back a team that left.

Ranked list of America's 50 biggest metro areas showing which NFL team each one searches for most, color-coded by whether the local team leads, an outside team leads, or the city has no franchise.

Outside Dallas, the Cowboys also led in seven cities: Riverside, San Antonio, Austin, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Louisville, and Birmingham. That gives them a wide footprint among the country’s biggest cities, stretching from Southern California through Texas and into the Southeast.

The Bay Area produced the biggest hometown upsets. San Francisco and San Jose were the only cities in the top 50 with their own NFL franchise where an outside team came out on top. Both searched for the Raiders more than the 49ers, even though the Raiders left the Bay Area for Las Vegas in 2020 . Las Vegas backed the Raiders, so the franchise now leads searches in both its current home and two of its former neighboring markets.

Cities without their own franchise often followed regional ties, including Providence and Hartford with the Patriots, Milwaukee with the Packers, and Salt Lake City with the Broncos. But the Cowboys repeatedly broke that pattern, turning up as the top team in markets hundreds of miles from Dallas.

What this means for how you watch

A local team does not mean a local audience. In two-thirds of these cities, most fans are following a franchise that will rarely appear on their regional broadcast, which is exactly the position that sends people hunting through apps and provider guides every Sunday. If your city roots for a team it does not host, the question is less about which channel carries the game and more about which service carries your team at all.

Methodology

We analyzed search volume for 68 NFL team terms across all 50 states, Washington, DC, and the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, plus Green Bay, which we added as an NFL home market outside the top 100. The period covers the offseason months of March through July in both 2025 and 2026. Metro-level figures were built from county-level data rolled up using Census metropolitan statistical area definitions. Each team's share reflects its portion of all NFL team searches within that state or metro area.

We measured offseason months because in-season search volume runs roughly five times higher and tracks scores, injuries, and broadcast schedules rather than underlying allegiance. Data was collected in August 2026.

About LiveSportsOnTV.com

LiveSportsOnTV.com brings together one of the most extensive live sports schedules in the U.S., covering thousands of events across leagues, channels, and streaming services in a single place. Instead of bouncing between apps and provider guides, fans can search by team, league, or date to see exactly when a game airs and where to watch it.

Fair use statement

This data and imagery are available for noncommercial reuse with proper attribution and a link back to this page on LiveSportsOnTV.com.

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