The Auburn Tigers are losing fans faster than any other college football team in the country.
Recently released data from sports marketing firm SBRnet and analyzed by the Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University and AL.com shows that the Tigers have seen their football fanbase cut nearly in half in just one year. – a big drop for a team that is one of the top 14 most popular schools in 2021.
Overall, SBRnet shows Auburn losing nearly 950,000 football fans between 2021 and 2022, a 47% decrease. Both figures lead the country.
RELATED: Alabama football loses fans, falls out of top 5 on national list of most popular teams
2022 was a tumultuous year for Auburn’s football team – the Tigers finished 5-7, their worst record in a decade, and fired Head Coach Bryan Harsin midway through the season.
Some traditionally proud fanbases also find themselves near the top of the list. The University of Iowa saw the second fastest year-over-year decline – the Hawkeyes saw a 42% decline. Florida (-26%), Notre Dame (-25%) and Texas (-22%) are also among the 10 fastest-declining fanbases.
[Can’t see the list? Click here.]
In terms of total fans lost, Notre Dame is just behind Auburn, losing more than 860,000 total fans in one year. Third on the list? None other than Auburn’s in-state rival, the University of Alabama. Alabama lost nearly 700,000 fans from 2021 to 2022, knocking the Crimson Tide out of the top 5 most popular teams in the country.
The Tide landed at No. 6 in 2022. Auburn, meanwhile, fell to No. 34 in the country.
About 885,000 of the nearly 1.1 million people who claim Auburn as their favorite team in 2022 are from the South, but even among Southern football fans, Auburn is pretty far down the list of favorite teams. The Tigers ranked No. 24 in the South, behind many other SEC (or soon to be SEC) teams, but also a handful of notable non-SEC teams.
Eight non-SEC teams are more popular than Auburn in the Southern US in 2022: Florida State, Duke, Ohio State, North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland, Clemson and Georgia Tech.
AL.com in collaboration with Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University conducted an analysis of college football fans. All analysis is based on a national survey of 6,330 US sports fans conducted in January, 2023 by marketing research firm SBRnet.
Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Or questions about Alabama that the data might answer? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.comand follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories HERE.