Daily Caller – Everyone knows that cheering for football teams can get out of hand pretty quickly… However, according to a recent study conducted by Cornell University, some teams’ fans are crazier than others. Specifically, fans of the New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers tend to be much more unstable than their fellow pigskin devotees, reports Fox Sports. Cornell determined fan stability by tracking the swing of emotions displayed by fans on Twitter during games. Fans of these three teams showed overwhelmingly positive emotions after wins, and scarily negative emotions after losses. Raiders fans were the most unstable, with a 47 percent difference in their positive and negative tweets in relation to wins and losses. Steelers fans came in right under them with a 46.5 percent disparity. On the other side of the spectrum, the most stable of all fan bases was the Cowboys fan base, showing only a 4.8 percent difference in positive and negative tweets.
Never underestimate academia’s ability to spend all sorts of time, effort and grant money to prove something everyone with half a brain already knows. What Cornell has done here is to blow countless hours and umpteen dollars researching what I could’ve told you with nothing but a laptop and a Wifi password. In fact, what I have been telling you all season long: That Patriots fans are as intense, passionate and dedicated as anyone in the game.
In case you haven’t picked up on it by now, I’ve turned my Barstool cred, swarthy good looks and undeniable talent into a gig with the legit media, doing Patriots Pre- and Postgame Live on Comcast Sports NE. I wear many hats on the show, including bonding with my new BFFs Troy Brown and Ty Law. But in a nutshell, my job is to monitor Twitter in order to put a rubber-gloved finger on the prostate of Patriots fans. And if I’ve learned anything from 14 weeks of doing so, there’s not a fanbase in the NFL more emotionally invested than we are. In those 14 weeks, the Pats have had no less than 11 games decided by a touchdown or less and it feels like every single one of them has come down to the last two minutes. And no one goes from euphoric to suicidal and back again faster or more often than we do. Oh sure, the Cornell study says Oakland and Pittsburgh fans do, but that data is skewed. For starters the Raiders win like 4 games a year. And those asshats in the skull masks grew up thinking every year was their year so naturally they’re going to overreact on the rare occasion they do pull one out. Steelers fans are still under the delusion it’s the late ’70s and Chuck Noll can hang onto his roster like they’re living under the Feudal System and they’ll never have down years like this one. And they’re still not over the fact they haven’t beaten the Bradichick Patriots in the postseason. So Oakland and Pittsburgh hardly count.
What does count is you can take all the ragtime you’ve heard about Pats fan jumping bandwagons and being complacent not knowing the team existed until they won their first Super Bowl and shove it up the world’s ass. Sure I’ve had my issues with the Beautiful People who go to Gillette on corporate tickets just to sit on their hands. But as far as your average, Joe Six Pack, Johnny Twitterfeed Pats fan, there’s no one in the NFL who wants to win as much and who takes losses as hard as he does. And I speak from 100 times more experience than those Ivy League jabronies at Cornell since I live it every week. How you like them apples?
Daily Caller – Everyone knows that cheering for football teams can get out of hand pretty quickly… However, according to a recent study conducted by Cornell University, some teams’ fans are crazier than others. Specifically, fans of the New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers tend to be much more unstable than their fellow pigskin devotees, reports Fox Sports. Cornell determined fan stability by tracking the swing of emotions displayed by fans on Twitter during games. Fans of these three teams showed overwhelmingly positive emotions after wins, and scarily negative emotions after losses. Raiders fans were the most unstable, with a 47 percent difference in their positive and negative tweets in relation to wins and losses. Steelers fans came in right under them with a 46.5 percent disparity. On the other side of the spectrum, the most stable of all fan bases was the Cowboys fan base, showing only a 4.8 percent difference in positive and negative tweets.
Never underestimate academia’s ability to spend all sorts of time, effort and grant money to prove something everyone with half a brain already knows. What Cornell has done here is to blow countless hours and umpteen dollars researching what I could’ve told you with nothing but a laptop and a Wifi password. In fact, what I have been telling you all season long: That Patriots fans are as intense, passionate and dedicated as anyone in the game.
In case you haven’t picked up on it by now, I’ve turned my Barstool cred, swarthy good looks and undeniable talent into a gig with the legit media, doing Patriots Pre- and Postgame Live on Comcast Sports NE. I wear many hats on the show, including bonding with my new BFFs Troy Brown and Ty Law. But in a nutshell, my job is to monitor Twitter in order to put a rubber-gloved finger on the prostate of Patriots fans. And if I’ve learned anything from 14 weeks of doing so, there’s not a fanbase in the NFL more emotionally invested than we are. In those 14 weeks, the Pats have had no less than 11 games decided by a touchdown or less and it feels like every single one of them has come down to the last two minutes. And no one goes from euphoric to suicidal and back again faster or more often than we do. Oh sure, the Cornell study says Oakland and Pittsburgh fans do, but that data is skewed. For starters the Raiders win like 4 games a year. And those asshats in the skull masks grew up thinking every year was their year so naturally they’re going to overreact on the rare occasion they do pull one out. Steelers fans are still under the delusion it’s the late ’70s and Chuck Noll can hang onto his roster like they’re living under the Feudal System and they’ll never have down years like this one. And they’re still not over the fact they haven’t beaten the Bradichick Patriots in the postseason. So Oakland and Pittsburgh hardly count.
What does count is you can take all the ragtime you’ve heard about Pats fan jumping bandwagons and being complacent not knowing the team existed until they won their first Super Bowl and shove it up the world’s ass. Sure I’ve had my issues with the Beautiful People who go to Gillette on corporate tickets just to sit on their hands. But as far as your average, Joe Six Pack, Johnny Twitterfeed Pats fan, there’s no one in the NFL who wants to win as much and who takes losses as hard as he does. And I speak from 100 times more experience than those Ivy League jabronies at Cornell since I live it every week. How you like them apples?
Thanks to Barstool Sports: Boston.