Map of NFL fandom in United States shows Chiefs’ reach has grown

A year ago, a map of NFL fandom by county in the United States showed the Denver Broncos had a bigger following in a chunk of the western reaches of Kansas.

But most of those counties have flipped to the Chiefs, according to data from the online ticket marketplace Vivid Seats. The company said it used “proprietary sales data to determine the most popular NFL team in each county.”

The Kansas counties of Wallace, Greeley, Sherman, Logan are among those to have turned Chiefs red in the course of a year.

Chiefs fandom makes for a nearly solid block of red in Kansas and Missouri, and the team is the most popular in spots as far away as the Oklahoma panhandle and portions of western Illinois. Additionally, the Chiefs are the favorite team in parts of Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas.

Among AFC teams, the Chiefs have the greatest reach in total counties and they are the third-most popular team in the NFL behind the Cowboys and Vikings.

Here is the map, from Vivid Seats:

Vivid Seats has an interactive map with its findings, which you can see here, but it includes data from a social publishing platform named Opendorse that somehow determined new defensive back Tyrann Mathieu is the most popular Chiefs player.

Um, quarterback Patrick Mahomes already may be the most popular player in Chiefs history.