Introduction

1 - Comparison Between Overall Attendance Among Teams from 2010 to 2022

1.1 - Comparison of Average Attendance Per Team Each Year (Not Including 2020)

• Because of the pandemic, attendance for the year 2020 was an extreme outlier.

• To make the data look more interesting and to more clearly see the general patterns among the years and between teams, I decided to remove the year 2020 from the original data set and create a new dygraph.

2 - How Did COVID-19 Affect Team Revenue?

2.1 - Team Revenue from 2019 to 2022

• The 4 teams had noticeable losses in revenue because of the pandemic.

• To look more closely I decided to focus the line plot on the 3 years before, during, and after the pandemic to note the specific hits that were seen.

• It is interesting to see how the individual teams’ revenue was affected differently .

2.2 - Kansas City Chiefs Revenue

2.3 - Philadelphia Eagles Revenue

2.4 - New England Patriots Revenue

2.5 - San Francisco 49ers Revenue

• While sticking with the specific 4 teams I added the information into individual bar charts to view with an easier comparison of numbers.

• It can be seen that the Kansas City Chiefs had the lowest revenue during Covid but it was the San Francisco 49ers that lost the most revenue from 2019 to 2020.

• It is important to note that the 49ers were also the team that was able to make the most revenue after the huge 2020 hit.

2.6 - NFL Total Revenue

• To further show the affects Covid had on NFL revenue, I made a bar chart with all NFL teams revenue in the last 10 years.

• By viewing the NFL as a whole I think it is fascinating to see how there were very large scale losses during the peak year of Covid but overall, the NFL is still growing on a positive rate.

3 - What is the Relationship Between Franchise Value and Success Rate?

• Each repeat instance of a team on the scatter plot represents a different year in that team’s history.
• When calculating the correlation coefficient for this scatter plot, we determined that there is basically no correlation between franchise value and success rate, as the value was 0.00009.
  • R-Squared = 0.00009. A very weak positive correlation.

4 - Heat Map of Search Popularity for Each of the 4 Teams

• These maps show the regional intensity of search popularity across the continental U.S. for each of our four NFL teams. The data was sourced from Google Trends and spans a three month period from September 2023 through November 2023.
• The results are what you might expect: each team is most popular in its home state with some intensity in the surrounding regions.
• However, the Kansas City Chiefs still cover a great deal of territory in the central U.S.; they’ve been very popular lately.

4.1 - Which of the 4 Teams is Most Searched in Each State?

• This combined map is a little bit different. It uses the same data as the last map, instead showcasing which of our four NFL teams had the highest search popularity in each state.
• If all NFL teams were included, it’s likely that the most popular team in each state would be their own home team. But by limiting the set to just four teams, it’s even easier to see the Chief’s growing popularity. For example, people in New York are more curious about the Chiefs than they are the Eagles or the Patriots, two neighboring teams!

• Furthermore, Alaska and Hawaii were intentionally not included in the popularity map. It was simpler to summarize those states’ data in the table above. The San Francisco 49ers were the most popular teams in each state.

5 - Which Streaming Platforms Do NFL Fans Utilize the Most?

• ESPN is the most popular platform

5.1 - NFL Viewership on ESPN

• Over the last 11 years, ESPN has fluctuated, but trended down.

5.2 - NFL Viewership on NBC

• NBC has trended up in the last seven years

5.3 - NFL Viewership on FOX

• FOX’s viewership has been very volatile, with a slight downward trend.

6 - External Factors Affecting NFL Engagement: The Swifties Storm the Stadium

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• Taylor Swift made a surprise appearance at Arrowhead Stadium on Week 3 of the 2023 NFL season.
• The 12-time Grammy winner was in attendance to support Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, with whom she had been romantically linked.
• During a survey in the United States in September 2023, over 60% of respondents knew who Travis Kelce was, which is an increase on the 38% of U.S. adults who were aware of the NFL star just over a year earlier.
• Swift’s appearance at the game led to a growth in engagement of over 85 percent on posts on the Chiefs’ Twitter page.
• Twitter 85.05% ; Instagram 34.40% ; Facebook 26.67%

6.1 - External Factors Affecting NFL Engagement: “New Heights”

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• Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce, an Eagles player, co-host a podcast called New Heights, within the last couple of months has reached goal numbers in engagement.
• This domino effect between Taylot Swift fans, to higher viewership for the NFL, is also benefitting the Kelce’s thriving podcast.
• There is an interdependent relationship between social media and pop-culture and NFL engagement and player endorsements.

6.2 - External Factors Affecting NFL Engagement: The Most-Followed NFL Players

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• Odell Beckham Jr. takes the lead as the most followed NFL player; however, those who share the leaderboard also have a huge influence, and are clearly admired by many fans.

6.3 - External Factors Affecting NFL Engagement: Odell Beckham Jr.

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• Odell’s Rise:
  • Soon after starting his NFL career with the New York Giants in 2014, Beckham Jr. was propelled into the spotlight by pulling off a one-handed touchdown catch against the Dallas Cowboys.
  • Beckham Jr.’s feat has since been considered one of the greatest catches in NFL history.
  • The youngest player to ever make an appearance on the cover of a Madden video game.
  • Beckham Jr. went on to become the second Giants player with the most receiving yards ever.
  • Beckham Jr.’s involvement in the media limelight - including a 20 million U.S. dollar lawsuit against Nike over alleged breach of contract and numerous injuries have played a part in consolidating his fame.

6.4 - External Factors Affecting NFL Engagement: Athletes in the Influencer World

• Athletes have entered the influencer-world as individual sponsors, brand deals, and personal life updates fuel their overall success and engagement for their team.

• The biggest players tend to be members of winning teams, and this is no coincidence. There is a symbiotic relationship between individual and team success due to social media.

Data Credits and Info

All data was taken based on the team insights of the Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, and the San Francisco 49ers. The main data sets used for each panel are listed below:

• Average Attendance per Team Data - ESPN

• Team Success Rate

• To determine popularity, we used Google Trends to determine which of our four teams is the most searched in each of the 50 states

• NFL Revenue Over the Last Ten Years

• The Audience Disparity Of NFL Games And Everything Else Widens