Ohio State Tops Final USA Today Sports College Football Fan Index – Ohio State Buckeyes
12/11/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 11, 2014
McLean, Va. – Ohio State football fans are No. 1 among all college football fan bases in the country this season, according to the final USA TODAY Sports College Football Fan Index presented by Degree® of the 2014 season.
Ohio State, which took over the top spot for good three weeks ago and never relinquished it, held off No. 2 Alabama to capture the inaugural Fan Index title. Those two teams will also go head-to-head on the field on January 1, when they square off in the Sugar Bowl as part of the first-ever College Football Playoff to determine a national champion.
The College Football Fan Index presented by Degree® is an in-depth ranking of the top college football fan bases as determined through social chatter aggregation and online fan voting across weekly editorial fan-driven themes. The index, launched prior to this season, is measured based on the social activity of each school’s fan base, as well as the voting results of weekly themed polls that ask fans to determine which schools offer the best fan experience.
In addition to consistently ranking among the top five schools each week in overall social activity, Ohio State fans were also active in supporting their school in the weekly themed polls, with the Buckeyes coming in as runners-up in polling for best marching band, best rivalry (with Michigan), and best program tradition.
Ohio State and Alabama are followed, in order, by Tennessee, Oregon and Texas A&M to round out the top five of the cumulative Fan Index for the 2014 college football season.
Among conferences, the SEC was dominant, with its teams, on average ranking 22nd in the Fan Index. Big Ten Conference teams were second, with an average Fan Index ranking of 33rd, followed by the Big 12 (38th), Pac-12 (43rd) and the ACC (55th).
“We’re proud to have succeeded in our attempt to quantify and make some sense of social data around college football fandom,” said Jamie Mottram, Director of Content Development for USA TODAY Sports. “Our congratulations go out to Ohio State fans for rolling the Tide, regardless of what happens in the Sugar Bowl.”
USA TODAY Sports and Degree® will make an official on-campus presentation to Ohio State officials in the coming weeks to honor its achievement as the Fan Index winner.
As the presenting sponsor, Degree® is motivating fans across the country to DO:MORE to support their favorite college football team so they can improve and win throughout the season. Degree® with improved MOTIONSENSE® gives fans the protection they need to give their all for their team, whether they’re cheering in the stands, showing team spirit by posting on Twitter from the pre-game tailgate, or rallying their friends to participate in the weekly-themed USA TODAY Fan Index vote.
There were no limits to the amount of times a fan could vote for their favorite team. Beyond voting on a weekly basis, fans were encouraged to DO:MORE supporting their favorite schools and to be as creative as possible sharing photos and videos in order to achieve a high social ranking as part of the Fan Index chart by using the hashtag #fanindex on social media. The Fan Index created direct alignment with more than 100 NCAA FBS schools and their social media networks (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, etc.). The social activity was tracked weekly, with rankings released each Thursday at the end of the voting period for each week’s poll theme.
