New study reveals biggest fan bases in college football

Your look at which college football teams have the biggest fan bases.

It's always been hard to count just how many fans each big-time college football team has, but one recent study may have given us a hint of which fan bases are the biggest.

A new study by strategy consultant TJ Altimore revealed some data on the subject. 

Among their findings was that around 92 percent of college football fans follow Power Five schools, and that around half of fans cheer for the top 16 teams in the country.

Who are the schools with the biggest fan bases? Let's take a look, according to the data.

College football programs with largest fan bases

Ohio State leads all college football fan bases in size, according to a new study / USA Today Images

1. Ohio State — 11.26 million

2. Notre Dame — 8.21 million

3. Texas — 7.82 million

4. Penn State — 6.36 million

5. Michigan — 6.26 million

6. Florida — 5.89 million

7. Oregon — 5.45 million

8. Alabama — 5.34 million

9. Wisconsin — 4.57 million

10. USC — 4.46 million

11. LSU — 4.02 million

12. Georgia — 3.99 million

13. Texas A&M — 3.87 million

14. Stanford — 3.45 million

15. Auburn — 3.27 million

16. Tennessee — 3.27 million

Oregon ahead of Alabama? Sixteen schools ahead of Oklahoma? Stanford ahead of two SEC powers? There's plenty of disagreement to be found in these rankings.

How it breaks down by conference

USA Today Images

1. SEC — 54.1 million

2. Big Ten — 44.6 million

3. ACC — 23.5 million (31.7 million when adding Notre Dame)

4. Pac-12 — 23.5 million

5. Big 12 — 11.6 million

6. Mountain West — 4.9 million

7. AAC — 3.3 million

8. Sun Belt — 1.8 million

9. C-USA — 1.1 million

10. MAC — 0.7 million

All others — 2.3 million

Bad times for the Big 12

The one big loser in college football realignment and expansion appears to be the Big 12 when looking at the data.

Back in 2010, the Big 12 had an estimated 27.32 million fans. By losing Nebraska in the first realignment in 2010, the conference lost an estimated 2.55 million fans.

Colorado took another 0.95 million, followed by 3.87 million for Texas A&M and 2.64 million for Missouri. West Virginia took 1.84 million fans with it.

That brought the Big 12 reach down to 19.94 million fans in 2020.

Now, by losing Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC in the future, Altimore estimates the league will drop by 11.04 million — OU has 3.22 million supporters, the data revealed.

Projected gains by the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF will add around 2.67 million followers, bringing the Big 12 to an estimated 11.57 million fans in 2025.

That still represents an estimated 58 percent drop in total fans since 2010.

(h/t TJ Altimore)

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