In our recent analysis examining the 43 US TV markets with professional sports teams, we looked at how fans shook out when it came to the fan bases for local versus out-of-market teams. Here we wondered which teams score big with fans in markets with more than one team for a given league and tackled that here. With the playoffs and World Series on the horizon, we first took a look at Major League Baseball.
Examining responses in the four US TV markets with more than one MLB team shows that Chicago had the largest share of MLB viewers who were fans to both teams at 30%, based on results from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan's US MediaCensus survey. Chicago MLB viewers also stood out in that only 6% indicated they were not a fan of either Chicago team, compared to 18% in New York and 24% in both Los Angeles and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose. Only 7% of MLB viewers in San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose were fans of both the Athletics and Giants, while Giants fans made up the lion's share of viewers at 57%.
For the other four leagues surveyed, Los Angeles and New York were the only markets with more than one team.
For the NFL, over half of league viewers in Los Angeles were fans of an out-of-market team at 51%; most likely this is because the Rams and Chargers only relocated to LA in 2016. In New York, a third of NFL viewers were fans of out-of-market teams (34%) while 23% were fans of both the Giants and Jets. In their respective markets, the Rams were more popular than the Chargers (22% versus 8%) and the Giants more popular than the Jets (30% versus 13%).
Among NBA viewers, the Lakers were more popular than the Clippers (43% versus 11%) in Los Angeles, while the Knicks were more popular than the Nets (47% versus 7%) in New York. Los Angeles NBA viewers were more likely to be fans of both teams at 25%, compared to 9% in New York. On the reverse, 37% of New York NBA viewers were fans of out-of-market teams, compared to 21% in Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, 39% of NHL viewers were fans of the Kings, while only 13% were fans of the Ducks. In New York, the Devils and Islanders were less popular than the Rangers, at 13%, 10% and 30%, respectively. New York NHL viewers were more likely to be fans of more than one of the local teams at 23%, compared to 15% among NHL viewers in Los Angeles.
About a quarter of MLS viewers in both Los Angeles and New York were fans of both the local teams at 24% and 23%, respectively. Viewers in New York were more likely to be fans of out-of-market teams at 44% compared to 28% of MLS viewers in Los Angeles.
Data presented in this post is from the general population sample of the MediaCensus survey conducted in the first quarter of 2024. This sample included 9,984 US internet adults matched by age and gender to the US Census. The survey results have a margin of error of +/-0.98 ppts at the 95% confidence level. Survey data should only be used to identify general market characteristics and directional trends.
For more information about the terms of access to the raw data underlying this survey, please contact support.mi@spglobal.com.
Consumer Insights is a regular feature from S&P Market Intelligence Kagan.