Analytics are increasingly used for everything these days. If you made your breakfast choice without consulting an algorithm, you likely forfeited a 0.7% chance at having a better day than you are currently having.
In sports, analytics are everywhere.
While analytics increasingly have an important role in the on field decisions every professional sports team makes, they are also being used to value matters that were previously not able to be valued.
Recently, Emory University published its rankings of all 32 NFL fan bases. Now this is a subject that would typically be debated on sports radio with fan bases just shouting insults at each other but was now the subject of a complex analytical methodology that aimed to quantify the passion of a teams fan base and rank them accordingly.
The ranking took into account a teams fan equity (how much a fan base spends on supporting their team), social equity (how much a fan base spends being mad online about their team basically) and road equity (how much a fan base supports their team on the road).
Where did the Cardinals rank?
25th.
Ahead of the Chargers, Browns, Bengals, Jags, Titans, Chiefs and Rams.
Anyone that's followed the Cardinals pre-Larry Fitzgerald knows this team's support has come a LONG ways locally over the years.
Being ranked ahead of the Chiefs and Browns fan bases may be one of the biggest wins in Cardinals history even if we all agree that debating fan bases may be dumb but trying to quantify a fan base's passion through an algorithm is even dumber.