Syracuse may be the most popular program in the state of New York, but that's not saying much at all. There is no way they have even a million fans, much less over 3 million. It's absurd.I'd take much bigger exception to Oregon being as high as they are. That's not something I've seen come up before. Oklahoma generally is a bit lower than some people think because their brand recognition is much higher than their actual fanbase, but usually not that low.
This reminds me of the other data that came out that made some sense then had some absolute rubbish in there like Duke being ranked fairly high.
In this case, I can explain Syracuse being as high as they are. They are the most popular football team in New York, a fairly large state, the fans just aren't that enthusiastic. I'm still a bit perplexed by the data because the previous NYT data I saw was based on Facebook likes and for instance Alabama has almost double the likes of Oregon so not entirely sure what's going on there.
Just another data point I guess. You take that, compare it to the other data, you start to get something that makes more sense...
You will note though that there's no Clemson or Miami for what ever that is worth.
I agree Oregon absolutely does not belong on this list.
Frankly I don't think Notre Dame has over 8 million fans, and Texas doesn't have over 7 million. If Texas had that many fans, the Longhorn Network wouldn't have tanked.