KC isn’t even a top 10 city for NFL fans – but San Francisco is, Wallethub study says

Here’s some fuel (kind of) for trash talk ahead of the Super Bowl: San Francisco is a better city for NFL fans than Kansas City, according to a new WalletHub study.

Chiefs fans will tell you that’s downright false. The 49ers faithful might cheer. But neither hometown of the football teams playing in Sunday’s big game topped the list.

WalletHub released the study ranking the U.S. cities for football fans on Monday. It includes every city with a pro or college football team. Because it’s Super Bowl week, let’s take a look only at cities with an NFL team.

The “methodology” for ranking the best NFL cities includes the number of teams, performance of the team, championships, hall of fame coaches, average ticket price, stadium capacity, attendance and other criteria. Each category is weighted based on how important WalletHub finds it to be.

Pittsburgh tops the list, followed by Boston, Dallas, Green Bay and New Orleans to round out the top five.

San Francisco lands in the seventh spot while Kansas City is 17th.

Notably, Oakland is right behind San Francisco. With the Raiders moving from Oakland to Las Vegas, that will change if WalletHub releases a ranking next year.

According to WalletHub, football is America’s favorite sport to watch, with 62 percent in the country considering themselves a fan or “somewhat” a fan of pro football.

“These fans aren’t just spectators but are also participants,” WalletHub says. “They do more than just proudly wear a team’s jersey, perfect game-day chili or tailgate with fellow fans. They show their passion by roaring in approval when their team scores a touchdown or crying out in disappointment when they fumble their way to failure.”

Here’s the complete ranking:

You can check out of the rankings that include college football here.

This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 1:26 PM.