How Widespread Is Your College Football Fan Base?

Here is a neat little project from FiveThirtyEight showing data from Vivid Seats on ticket sales.

Here, using data from Vivid Seats — a Chicago-based ticket marketplace — is a sampling of where college stadiums get their fans. The map below shows 3,000 counties and county equivalents with tickets purchased between 2012 and 2018 on Vivid Seats, and the top three college football programs by share of tickets sold to those programs' home games in each area.

A few things of note:

  • Guessing Hyde County NC is thanks to our ECU series.
  • Our NOVA stronghold isn't as hefty as I thought.
  • Richland County North Dakota Hokies STAND UP!

Of course it's not the end all to end all, but just a neat map.

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Comments

The map below shows 3,000 counties and county equivalents with tickets purchased between 2012 and 2018 on Vivid Seats

Wouldn't that pretty much only account for the second hand market, and maybe the second most popular app at that?

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

Yep, which is why I said it wasn't the end all lol. Just fun to look at.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

I find it funny that nobody in Cumberland bought a ticket to any college game in that time frame. There are a few others as well.

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Keep in mind this is only Vivid Seats. I believe Stub Hub is the official resale partner of VT, so this actually doesn't surprise me. I've bought tickets while living in several states, but never from Vivid Seats.

Understand. But not even an ODU or Duke or Richmond or Notre Dame ticket. Zip. Zero. Nada. Just find that amusing.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
@VTnerf on insta, @BuryHokie on twitter, #ThanksFrank

I can believe it graduated from there in 2011 and my brother in 2006 got out as quickly as we can away from the county.
Not originally from Cumberland, my parents wanted to get land there to live to be away from people after my dad retired from the Coast Guard. Glad they sold the house and leaving the county for all the stuff going on there.

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I found a couple other places this morning, west texas had one. It's a fun chart.

Humboldt County, CA stand up!

Naw, they're all laid back from their self acquired altitude adjustments.

Reel men fish on Wednesdays

> Our NOVA stronghold isn't as hefty as I thought.

I think its just another data point that we can't really think of the DMV as a territory that can be 'owned' by any one school. And you have to settle for pluralities, between the number of schools with alumni, proximity, toeholds, the transient nature of the population, and urban centers relationship or lack thereof with college sports.

And VT, along with UVA, PSU, and like ND are that top tier with VT/PSU clearly in the serious running with UVA not far back, and really a general indictment on UMD for not doing better.

Good points. Can't help but feel like PSU is increasing its presence there lately too.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

How much is that a result of Pennsylvania exporting people? I'm always amazed at the number of Steeler hotspots around the country and I do think a big reason is the number of people that left the state.

I'm one of them; left for VT after hs and ended up in northern Virginia when I left the military as its the most marketable area for my skills and experience. Facebook makes me think there's more folks from my hs class in Nova than in PA.

Agree. Northern Virginia is a cosmopolitan area with alumni from god knows how many schools. That VT has about 2x the share in NoVa of the next best school is actually pretty impressive.

It does however illustrate again that IMO increasing VT enrollment (and thus alumni) may be VT's best and necessary move to hope to compete athletically with bigger schools like PSU, UMd, OSU, etc. in the future and stomp smaller schools like UVa & UNC to the curb (notwithstanding the challenges of increased enrollment).

Also keep in mind 17.7% of tickets sold in Fairfax County might be 5x or 10x the number of tickets sold in smaller county with a 40-50% share.

5.2% Notre Dame tickets in Montgomery County? Come on...

You learn something new everyday.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
@VTnerf on insta, @BuryHokie on twitter, #ThanksFrank

This is skewed by the fact that a lot of people who went to the ND game bought thru Vivid Seats as they are ND's official secondary market partner. The game was sold out but if you go on the ND athletics website they have a ticket exchange which is really just Vivid Seats.

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That's what she said.

Sorry, but that set up was too good.

There is nothing in the world like Thursday night in Blacksburg!

What's even more interesting is seeing the dominance teams like Wisconsin and Nebraska have in their state. While we have a handful of counties >50% Hokies, some teams have >75% in nearly every county. Must be nice

-Stick it in

Same thing with WVU wow that's impressive

-Stick it in

Are there even other teams in those states or even the surrounding states?