This week, A Poll was taken on the instagram account for the Dragon Chronicle (IG: @_dragonchronicle) with the goal of trying to determine which NFL team is the most popular among the students of SUNY Cortland.
The voting options put up on the poll were the three NFL teams hailing from New York which are the Jets, Giants, and Bills. Among those three options was a fourth option simply named “other” which encapsulates the votes of any SUNY Cortland student who is a fan of any of the other twenty nine teams in the NFL. The poll received around 50 votes from students here on campus and the results came in on Sunday, and there is a lot to take from the results.
Taking the top spot for most popular NFL team at SUNY Cortland is the New York Jets. The Jets won forty percent of the total vote. This could come as a surprise for some, as Cortland is located in upstate New York and therefore one would expect there to be more Buffalo Bills fans than any other team. However, it is important to remember that a large number of SUNY Cortland students come from the Long Island/NYC area of the state, and many people who live in these areas are Jets fans.
Coming in second place in the voting was the category of “other”. This category received twenty four percent of the vote on the poll. This result is not very surprising, considering there is a vast amount of NFL teams from outside of New York State and students can be fans of other teams for various reasons. Some students may be from other states which is another reason why the category of “other” would gain more votes.
Coming in third places with twenty percent of the poll’s votes was the New York Giants. The reason for the Giants popularity amongst the students of SUNY Cortland could be attributed to the same reasons why the Jets are also very popular on campus. Many Giants fans come from New York City and Long Island, which are areas that many students at Cortland come from.
Finally, in last place with sixteen percent of the polls are the Buffalo Bills. The Bills are one of the best teams in the NFL right now, and being in the upstate New York area it may be surprising to see them come in dead last in the results. An explanation for this is that Buffalo is a relatively small market city as compared to many other NFL teams. Being a small market team in sports generally means that the fan bases can be smaller in numbers. On the contrary, small teams also tend to have very passionate fanbases. The passion and the pride in a smaller fanbase for a team such as the Bills can also be the reason why many would believe the Bills have more fans on the campus than there actually might be.
SUNY Cortland is filled with many football fans. It seems that the stadium is always filled during the home games for the team, and many students enjoy watching the NFL with friends on Sundays. No matter what team a student may be a fan of, it is clear that football is very popular on campus.