Sports

Facebook Survey: Floridians 'Like' a Variety of NFL Teams

WUSF | By Dalia Colon

Published April 16, 2013 at 3:34 PM EDT

Florida is a state divided.

You could draw a map illustrating factions based on our politics, our Cuban sandwich preferences or our favorite NFL teams.

Leave it to a Facebook intern to tackle the latter. Here's some data from a recent report titled "NFL Fans on Facebook."

At Facebook we have about 35 million account holders in the United States who have Liked a page for one of the 32 teams in the league, representing one of the most comprehensive samples of sports fanship ever collected. Put another way, more than 1 in 10 Americans have declared their support for an NFL team on Facebook.

Facebook tracked which team had the most "likes" in each county of the United States. While teams like the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints enjoyed statewide support, things got trickier in Florida, as counties divided their loyalties among our three pro football franchises -- the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins.

For some reason, the top NFL team in Osceola County isn't shaded Dolphin orange, Jaguars teal or Buccaneers pewter : It's the Big Blue of the New York Giants. Must be all those expats from NYC who've migrated to Central Florida.

Nearby Hardee County roots not for the hometown Bucs, but the Dallas Cowboys. And further south, Charlotte County roots for the New England Patriots. Must be the chowdah.

This county-by-county map illustrates the discord:

The above map is from the regular 2012 season. By Super Bowl Sunday, with only the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers left in contention, Facebook recreated the map based on the popularity of just those two teams. You can see that most of Florida's counties followed the East Coast trend of supporting the Ravens.