Los Angeles Lakers fans are one of the largest and most passionate fanbases in all of sports.
It shows in their passion at Staples Center, the large contingent that seems to show up at every road game and in their presence on social media. Now comes some proof they are at the top of the heap — at least among NBA fans.
Emory University professor Michael Lewis recently conducted a study on NBA fan loyalty and engagement and declared Lakers fans at the top of the list, according to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports:
Lewis used three metrics in his study: fan equity, road equity, and social equity. Fan equity measures the amount of revenue generated at home games. Road equity is based on the attendance for a team when on the road while social equity measures a team’s Twitter reach.
According to Lewis’ study, Lakers fans ranked first in both road and social equity while coming in second in fan equity to the New York Knicks. This puts the Lakers at the top of the charts with the Golden State Warriors in second. The Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, and Cleveland Cavaliers round out the top-five.
While things like this are difficult to measure, it does say something about the passion and loyalty that Lakers fans possess. The study uses data from over the past few seasons as the Lakers were going through their worst stretch in franchise history. Now the team is back atop the Western Conference early this season with LeBron James and Anthony Davis leading the way.
Certainly, the team rising back to championship contender status helps matters, but it is hard to picture the Lakers fans ever falling too far in any kind of study of this nature.