If the level of reads is an indication of the level of interest and spirit of the Oakland Raiders and Raider Nation, then Raider Nation wins a “championship” of more reads on the Bleacher Report team page than most other teams.
A survey of the top writers on a selected number of team pages was conducted, where the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints were added to the survey. The other teams belong to the AFC West.
The rationale for picking the Steelers is that they have won more Super Bowls than the other NFL teams, and since the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV, they were also added.
Below is a look at the data, followed by a description of what’s going on.
| Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ||
| Steelers | 55158 | 12177 | 10716 | 9780 | 7661 | 6248 | 5545 | 107285 | 2 |
| New Orleans | 17141 | 5923 | 5270 | 4133 | 2765 | 2578 | 1249 | 39059 | 4 |
| Broncos | 11898 | 4973 | 3860 | 3819 | 3287 | 2870 | 2770 | 33477 | 5 |
| Kansas | 8248 | 4894 | 3798 | 3290 | 3074 | 819 | 718 | 24841 | 6 |
| San Diego | 26365 | 9258 | 6150 | 3288 | 2330 | 2014 | 1297 | 50702 | 3 |
| Oakland | 41607 | 32083 | 29600 | 27217 | 21403 | 18779 | 12926 | 183615 | 1 |
| rank | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ||
| Oakland writers rank (in subcategory) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Observations:
1) Although the Saints won the Super Bowl, it looks like the fan base has fizzled out a bit if you use the level of reads on B/R as an indicator.
2) The Steelers seem to still have fans who believe in them, and who read and react to B/R articles.
3) When you compare the top seven writers on the team pages, you will notice that the Oakland Raiders top writers have more reads (cumulative) than the other selected teams in the survey. The total number of reads for the top seven writers is 183,615 as of June 22, 2010, at 8:23 p.m. ET.
4) The Oakland Raiders’ top writer ranks No. 2 when compared to the other No. 1 top writers in the survey. The No. 1 writer for the Steelers has 55,158 reads, compared to 41,607 reads for the No. 1 Oakland Raiders’ B/R writer.
5) An interesting fact is that the Raiders writers who rank two through seven on the Raiders’ page, rank No. 1 when compared to the other writers in their respective subcategories. See the data in the table above.
6) In this survey, it is discovered that the Raiders have a cumulative total of reads which exceed the cumulative totals of the other teams in the survey.
What can you say? It goes like this:
Although the Oakland Raiders do not have a high overall rank (yet) within the NFL, their fan base as measured by the number of reads on the B/R Oakland Raiders page, indicates an unusually high interest in what the B/R Raiders’ writers have to say.
This is a good indication that the spirit of Raider Nation is high, and, hopefully, this spirit will overtake the team, and they will win more games.
Go Raiders!
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