Packers fans might be surprised where they fall in ranking of NFL fan bases

Packers fans may think they're number one, but this professor thinks otherwise. 

Producing something that is sure to rile up NFL fan bases across the country, one professor has published his annual rankings of the league’s best fan bases, based on economic and marketing theory.

Emory professor Michael Lewis ranked the Cowboys as the NFL’s top fan base, with the Patriots following at second, and the Eagles, Giants and Steelers rounding out the top five, in order. The top five was unchanged from the past two years, Lewis wrote.

Lewis wrote that he used “data on attendance, revenues, social media following and road attendance to develop statistical models of fan interest.”

Lewis added that he used those models to determine which fan bases “are more willing to spend or follow their teams after controlling for factors like market size and short-term changes in winning and losing.”

Lewis said that he used three measures of fan engagement to craft his list: fan equity (which he described as home box office revenues), social equity (which he described as engagement level in social media communities) and road equity (which he described as measured fan support on the road). Then, using those three components, Lewis generated what he called a “Brand Equity Factor” to rank all 32 teams.

The bottom five teams in order were the Bengals, Jaguars, Titans, Chiefs and Rams.

“These teams all suffer from the same issues,” Lewis wrote, “relatively weak pricing power and limited social followings.”

Lewis is a professor of marketing and faculty director of the Emory Marketing Analytics Center at the Goizueta Business School.

Here is the full ranked list, in order:

1. Cowboys

2. Patriots

3. Eagles

4. Giants

5. Steelers

6. Packers

7. Broncos

8. Bears

9. 49ers

10. Saints

11. Redskins

12. Colts

13. Falcons

14. Dolphins

15. Seahawks

16. Panthers

17. Raiders

18. Ravens

19. Bills

20. Jets

21. Texans

22. Lions

23. Buccaneers

24. Vikings

25. Cardinals

26. Chargers

27. Browns

28. Bengals

29. Jaguars

30. Titans

31. Chiefs

32. Rams

Follow Lorenzo Reyes on Twitter @LorenzoGReyes.