It is under the pall of my unnamed coworker’s* great distaste that I must emerge triumphant to report the best, and yet most unsurprising news I’ve probably ever read: A study looking at the fans of all the National Football League teams says what Wisconsinites have always known to be the truth is a fact**: Fans of the Green Bay Packers are the best.

Full re-disclosure for what will definitely not be the last time, I am from Wisconsin and my insides consist entirely of cheddar (not just my head). The most beautiful color I’ve ever seen is in the twin lightning strikes of blue fire in Aaron Rodgers’ eyes right before he completes yet another touchdown pass.

In the Packers’ home city of Green Bay, only 16% of adult residents in the metro are are not Packers fans, according to a new list of rankings from Forbes, with research conducted by Nielsen Scarborough.

That means everyone else nearby was at a game at Lambeau Field or on the road, or watching/listening at home to at least one game in the past year.

Hometown fans are only part of it, though.

From Forbes:

Our ranking is based on five criteria: hometown crowd reach (defined by Nielsen Scarborough as a percentage of the metropolitan area population that watched, attended, and/or listened to a game in the last year), 3 years worth of television ratings (per Nielsen), 3 years of stadium attendance based on capacity reached, 3 years worth of merchandise sales (per NFLShop.com), and social media reach (a combination of Facebook likes and Twitter followers based on the team’s metro area population).

Packers fans came in on the top in all of the above, except for second in TV rankings and at No 7 for merchandise. It must be noted that cheeseheads aren’t NFL licensed merchandise, and as such aren’t included.

So while sure, there are only 306,241 people living in the Green Bay metro area, Forbes points out, but the team also has 4.4 million Facebook fans and more than 701,000 Twitter followers. Which just shows there are green-and-gold hearts spread across the country, defending their title as No. 1 NFL Fans against naysaying coworkers everywhere.

Hometown bases for the Denver Broncos, New Orleans Saints, New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens were also in the top five.

The fans of the Chicago Bears came in at No. 10, which is almost exactly like No. 1 except there’s a zero after it and it’s not first and best.

*For some reason I am required by the aforementioned unnamed coworker to post this photo. But instead I’m linking to it because I ain’t scurred.

**By fact I mean, some recent research says so and also the 13 championship titles Packers have to celebrate.

The NFL’s Best Fans [Forbes]

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