New Study Reveals Big Ten is Most Spirited Conference in NCAA Football

ReviewTrackers, the award-winning customer experience platform, today released the 2017 Voice of the Fan Report, a study of 140,000 NCAA football stadium reviews. The analysis shows that the Big Ten has the most school spirit in all of college football.

ReviewTrackers used a natural language algorithm to compare how fans talked about school spirit by analyzing online review data for 147 stadiums. Schools with 250 reviews were eligible for the study.

The researchers used school spirit as a key differentiator and tracked specific keywords related to tailgates, cheers, bands, student sections and alumni.

The analysis scored each conference on a scale of -1 to +1 based on how negatively or positively fans talked about the school spirit based on the keywords above. Here are the results.

• Big Ten: .771
• Big 12: .760
• SEC: .758
• ACC: .618
• Pac-12: .524

Below is a breakdown of some of the most notable findings among the major teams in the Big Ten:

• University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Badgers ranked first for school spirit and had the top-rated band.

• University of Nebraska. The Cornhuskers, who have sold out every home game since 1962, had the second overall stadium and had the third highest score for school spirit.

• Northwestern University. The Wildcats were No. 1 for most loyal alumni, with a higher percentage of stadium reviews mentioning alumni than any other team.

• Michigan State. The Spartans had the third most loyal alumni and the sixth best band overall.

• Ohio State. Ohio State’s “The Horseshoe” was the 10th highest rated stadium, while the school also boasted the fourth highest rated band.

“Nebraska has the greatest fans in the country and that shows,” said Kelly Mosier, assistant athletic director for creative and emerging media for Nebraska Athletics. “They’ve created a sold-out experience in Memorial Stadium for every game since 1962. It is not surprising to see that passion show through.”

For more information, including which schools had the best tailgate, view the full report here.

(cover image: Michael Barera/Wikimedia Commons)