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Miami has earned a bit of an undeserved reputation as a town with a lot of bandwagon sports fans. Though, you can’t say that about the Marlins.
According to a study by researchers from Emory University, the Miami Marlins have the third least bandwagon-y fans in Major League Baseball. They’re only behind perennial fan favorites the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. But unlike those two teams the Marlins achieved their ranking because no one likes them. Even when they’re good.
“We develop our fan sensitivity rankings using statistical models of consumer demand (attendance),” write the researchers. “These models are built to estimate team-level response to price and winning percentage. We use data from 1998 to 2013.”
So for the Marlins that includes not only the season they won their second World Series, but also the season after they won their first.
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“Our first analysis looks at the responsiveness of fan demand to team winning percentage. This can be thought of as a measure of how demanding fans are of their teams. In other words, we are looking at the tolerances fan bases have for losing (or maybe we could view this as insight into which cities are the most prone to bandwagon behavior).”
And here’s the bottom five:
“This group of non-demanding fans bases probably includes two types. We have the loyal and passionate fans of the Yankees, Cardinal and Red Sox. But, we probably also have the apathetic fans of the Marlins and the Diamondbacks.”
Ding! Ding!
We’re not bandwagoners! We’re apathetic! At least when it comes to baseball.
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