Popularity contest? Fan map by county in SEC states

We’ve seen recruiting heat maps and diagrams displaying most popular teams by state, but the New York Times has taken it one step further this week and determined the largest number of team-specific college football fans by county.

The map was created ‘using estimates of team support based on each team’s share of Facebook “likes” in a ZIP code.’ An algorithm was applied to ‘deal with statistical noise and fill in gaps where data was missing.’

As you can see, there’s a small pocket of Ole Miss and Auburn fans in their respective states, but Mississippi and Alabama are dominated by Bulldog and Crimson Tide supporters.

In Tennessee, even Nashville (Vanderbilt’s home) is Volunteer-heavy.

The state of Florida, home to seven FBS programs, is Gator-rich for the most part with the majority of Florida State fans in the Panhandle, UCF supporters in Orlando and Hurricane fans down south.

You can view the full interactive map by county here.