The Washington Redskins have tried to establish themselves as a dominant and ferocious team.
Now, their fans have been recognized as among the most influential in the NFL.
In a new study, the New York-based personal finance technology company SmartAsset has uncovered the NFL teams with the most die-hard fans, with the Redskins faithful landing at number 6.
“This is the first year we completed our analysis of the NFL teams with the most die-hard fans,” said Kara Gibson, a spokeswoman for SmartAsset, which uses financial modeling to power advice on major monetary decisions. “Our study looks at attendance rates and win percentages over a five-year period from 2011 to 2015 as well as average ticket and concession prices from 2015.”
The analysis found that the Redskins haven’t lost any of their mojo despite not winning the Super Bowl in more than two decades.
However, with an average ticket price of $102 and average concessions at $20, Redskins fans also pay some of the highest ticket and concession prices in football.
Despite those costs, the team still boasts an 89 percent capacity attendance rate at its home games played at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland.
“We assumed that fans who are willing to pay more for the experience of watching their team in person can be considered more die-hard,” Gibson said.
When compiling the statistics, SmartAsset noted the face-value price of a single ticket to a game on average. It did not factor in premium ticket prices.
For concession prices, the study considered the total price of the cheapest beer and soft drink available at the stadium, plus the cost of a hot dog, Gibson said.
The attendance rate used in the analysis represented the average percentage of seats that were filled at home games over a five-year period from 2011 to 2015.
Some teams had an attendance rate of more than 100 percent because the advertised maximum attendance numbers didn’t include standing-room-only tickets or extra seats that may have been added to luxury box areas.
The dedication factor used is the difference between a team’s attendance rate and its win percentage, which is meant to measure how dedicated a team’s fans are or how much they continue to show up to games even when their team is less likely to win.
Teams with a higher dedication factor score did better.
“After ranking each team on each of the four metrics, we then gave each team an average rank based on those metrics,” Gibson said. “We applied a score between 0 and 100 based on that average ranking. The highest-ranking team got a score of 100 and the lowest-ranking team got a score of 0.”
The Chicago Bears ranked first, followed by the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers.
The Indianapolis Colts tied for sixth with the Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans and New York Jets rounding out the top 10.
The Cincinnati Bengals, Miami Dolphins, Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinals, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos ranked in the bottom 10 from 32nd to 22nd, respectively.