What NFL teams have the most liberal and most conservative fanbases?

[traininthedistance]

New England Patriots might be a possibility for most liberal.

No way, too many nationwide bandwagoners.

Pats and the rest of the Boston teams fanbases are not progressive bastions by any stretch anyway...same for New York teams.  Most liberal I'd look west, most conservative Id go with Cowboys.

I think it's a fair bet that the vast majority of non-NBA sports teams have fanbases which skew conservative in comparison to their geographic footprint.  The Patriots are, probably, one of the most extreme examples of this, not just because of their nationwide following but, as you mention, the gap between "NFL fan" and "average citizen" seems to be unusually large in New England.  There definitely also seems to be a pretty wide gap wrt the Jets, whose support seems to stereotypically be concentrated among Long Island whites.

I suspect that Giants fans, while still more conservative than the median New Yorker, have the narrowest gap among those three teams at least.

I think New York City itself has actually turned into a bad sports town in general. Immigrants, many artist types and the sheer number of transplants from other parts of America make a whole lot of people who simply do not care.  Been to Pittsburgh and Indy and several other cities on game day and they just care more. The suburbs are where you find the core support for all NY teams.  
I would actually view the Giants as the more staid and conservative of the fanbases on a personal level.  Jets have more rowdy, partying and loud mouth crowd- probably more extremes either way in terms of politics.

Pretty sure the bolded part is untrue for the Nets, if nobody else.  And the Yankees do plenty well within the city limits.  But, yes, NYC itself is too big and heterogeneous to be a truly great sports town as that phrase is traditionally applied.

I kinda feel like your stereotypical Jets fan can all-too-often be pigeonholed as a Peter King Republican, while the Giants grab a wider demographic swath that includes folks who are often going to be more blue-blooded and staid in their personal habits but also often a notch to the left politically.  Think Westchester vs. Nassau, basically.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Sports culture in the Northwest is an interesting phenomenon: it's very integrated with the Northwestern identity to the point where there is no stereotypical douche Seahawks/Mariners fan. Admittedly, this observation is crude at best but I've noticed that there's a kind of stigma associated with football fandom in other parts of the country that simply doesn't exist in the Northwest. One can be a techie dweeb Seahawks fan and blend in quite seamlessly with the crowd.  

Obvious liberal fandoms:

Seattle Sounders/Portland Timbers - arguably more liberal than any NBA fanbase.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That's the thing about Minnesota too, even though I'm not a football fan I've always chalked that up to personal preference and not a politics thing, being a Vikings fan is part of being a stereotypical Twin Cities liberal. Even the hipsters tend to be Vikings fans, they're not thought of as krazen type white male douches. The Vikings fandom in Minnesota is just more white (due to immigrants not really caring about football) and male than the state at large, but adjusted for that not much politically different from the state at large.

This is definitely true about the Packers in the ultra-liberal parts of Madison too.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also based on that Facebook map, the Broncos are probably up there for most conservative, even if Denver is such a liberal city. And I imagine when they had Tim Tebow they had a very conservative-leaning fanbase for obvious reasons.

And also based on that, the Ravens must also be conservative-leaning, since the city of Baltimore is the only liberal part of their territory. Tennessee Titans must be up there too if Shelby County is for the Cowboys.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Considering every fan base is disproportionately male, they're probably all more conservative than you'd think.

[DC Al Fine]

Obvious liberal fandoms:

Seattle Sounders/Portland Timbers - arguably more liberal than any NBA fanbase.

If we're going for any of the major leagues, I'd suggest the Montreal Canadiens for the most liberal fan base.

[traininthedistance]

Obvious liberal fandoms:

Seattle Sounders/Portland Timbers - arguably more liberal than any NBA fanbase.

If we're going for any of the major leagues, I'd suggest the Montreal Canadiens for the most liberal fan base.

Within the USA I think I'm going to have to seriously nominate the Nets as the most liberal fan base– and yes that includes MLS teams and is also taking into account whatever inroads they've made in the Hasidic community (which is not negligible!)  

[Hatman 🍁]

Obvious liberal fandoms:

Seattle Sounders/Portland Timbers - arguably more liberal than any NBA fanbase.

If we're going for any of the major leagues, I'd suggest the Montreal Canadiens for the most liberal fan base.

[DemPGH]

Looking at that Facebook map, Chiefs could also easily have the most conservative fanbase. But a lot of them could: Cowboys, Colts, Bengals, Broncos all up there.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Looking at that Facebook map, Chiefs could also easily have the most conservative fanbase. But a lot of them could: Cowboys, Colts, Bengals, Broncos all up there.

     I'm a little surprised that Utah has gone for the Broncos now. I remember when it was 49ers country.

[Skill and Chance]

Going purely by geographic footprint, it would be the Giants or the Patriots.  But as others have pointed out, the Northeastern left is uniquely indifferent to football.  So I would look for an area with a high concentration of liberals who are also likely to be stereotypically rugged/manly.  That looks most like the Bears or Vikings to me. 

For most conservative fan base, it's probably a toss up between the Chiefs and the Titans (note that Memphis prefers the Cowboys and TN without Memphis is 60%+McCain).

[Skill and Chance]

Looking at that Facebook map, Chiefs could also easily have the most conservative fanbase. But a lot of them could: Cowboys, Colts, Bengals, Broncos all up there.

That would surprise me.  It's likely that more than half the population of the Broncos are is still in Colorado.  And Denver liberals are probably much more into football than Eastern liberals.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Liberal: 49ers, Seahawks, Patriots, Giants, Jets
Conservative: Chiefs, Panthers, Titans, Cowboys, Cardinals

[Mr. Illini]

New England Patriots might be a possibility for most liberal.

No way, too many nationwide bandwagoners.

Eh true. How about the Raiders though? Unlike the 49ers their fanbase is probably limited to just the East Bay.

In regards to the Packers fanbase in the Twin Cities too, an interesting phenomena I only recently discovered is that there are indeed "Packers bars" in Minneapolis, aka sports bars that actually cater to Packers fans. I remember walking down a street in Uptown one afternoon and was surprised to see a bunch of people sitting outside in green and gold jerseys, but yes, this bar right in the heart of Minneapolis is frequented mostly by Wisconsin transplants. Curious if any such "Vikings bars" exist in Madison, since even the western Wisconsin Twin Cities exurbs are Packers territory.

Also interesting is areas where the fanbase of different sports has a different overlap. For example as mentioned above the Packers are a de facto Wisconsin team and are the dominant team everywhere, the only area in Wisconsin that isn't a Packers stronghold are the areas south of Milwaukee which are about evenly split between Packers and Bears. But the western Wisconsin area are fans of the Twins instead of the Brewers, and the south of Milwaukee areas are definitely for the Brewers over the Cubs or White Sox. Kind of skewed by divisions no doubt and that the Brewers are actually a Milwaukee team, but still interesting.

This is a big thing in Chicago for college sports as well due to our decently-sized transplant population. There are bars that represent just about every college team you could think of, teams as far away as Kansas State and Florida. There are also Steelers bars and Packers bars. They've found it a successful marketing strategy to try and draw in all fans of a particular team and "make them feel like home."

I know my Illini have bars in other cities as well. I've heard of self-declared "Illini bars" in Milwaukee, DC, New York, San Francisco, etc. The marketing strategy sure would work for me, as if I wanted to watch an Illini game and I was living far away, I would want nothing more than to watch it with fellow Illini fans in the area and in an Illini-friendly climate.

As for the political leans of NFL teams, I would have to go...

Liberal: Patriots, Eagles, Raiders
Conservative: Cowboys, Cardinals, Chargers

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Liberal: 49ers, Seahawks, Patriots, Giants, Jets
Conservative: Chiefs, Panthers, Titans, Cowboys, Cardinals, Colts

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

Really tough to say because the black population skews what would otherwise be very conservative regions (atlanta, New Orleans)

Not just the black population but also the fact that a lot of white Southerners really aren't "fans" of any NFL team, preferring to devote their energy to college ball.

[justfollowingtheelections]

A study by Resonate Insights on the issue:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2014-10-27/the-nfls-most-republican-and-democratic-fan-bases


Fans of 23 teams identify with the Democrats:


But most of them vote for a Republican candidate more often:


And the teams with the most swing voters:
http://media.gotraffic.net/images/i53i8dpAYU9M/v10/-1x-1.jpg

[TJ in Oregon]

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This doesn't answer the question at all and is something an Atlas Forum goer could have done in a few hours. Measuring the partisan lean of the Congressional districts that make up a team's media market tells us nothing about which people are actually fans of that team. The article presents the result as if it is some grand finding that NFL fans are mostly Democrats in spite of a broish stereotype when all it really says is that major metropolitan areas skew Democratic, which every reading this site at least has to have already known. I'm not saying NFL fans are Republicans, either, just that this doesn't answer the question at all.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Easiest way to find this would be to match the male vote (sports fans are probably disproportionately male and, from my anecdotal experience, White or Black, but that'd be harder to figure out) with the areas that those teams are popular.  Sure, Illinois votes Democrat, but what percent of its male vote went Democrat?  That'd be more relevant to the "liberalness" of the Bears fan base, as an example.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Yep, looking at that map, you'd have to argue Eagles or Bears, I'd think. You can't forget that even though all those rural Illinois counties have some conservatives, there are just as many suburban white liberals in northwest Indiana and Eastern Iowa (usually more north, but surely a bit in the south).

The problem with the Eagles is that south Jersey is very conservative. Surely the populations of Philly/Camden outweigh a lot of that, but don't underestimate how much the shore folks love their Eagles.

Bengals and Bills probably have a good deal of right wingers for northern teams.

Most of South Jersey actually voted for Obama even in 2012– even Salem County.  I mean, that territory is kinda conservadem in some ways, but one can get far more right-wing than "conservadem".  Cape May is pretty small, and Ocean/Monmouth are actually in the NYC metro. TBF I guess Ocean is one of those places where the relative popularity of the Eagles means they cross over and take some border territory– but looks like it's actually plurality-Giants.

The West Coast teams (49ers/Raiders/Seahawks) probably win this, but the Eagles might in fact be the most liberal Eastern team.

No.  South Jersey is not in any way "conservadem".  Just have to slink in and mention that.