FanSided Fandom 250 excluding Arizona Basketball fans is a travesty

FanSided Fandom 250 excludes Arizona Basketball fans, should Wildcats fans care?

FanSided Fandom 250 which covered sports and entertainment, as well as famous people and brands, was unveiled on Tuesday, Arizona Basketball was excluded. Each year FanSided analyzes and names the best fans in the world.

Arizona Athletics and Arizona Basketball were excluded from the list. Who sits atop the list of the best fans in college sports? THE Ohio State Buckeyes.

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

But how do the Editors at FanSided decide these things?

• FanSided Editors discuss, study and rank fandoms in several meetings.
• The Editors give weight to what is “hot” or buzzworthy during the previous calendar year, or they look at what happened in a calendar year, and this is a big part of the calculation.
• Fandoms get points for size, longevity, and worth.
• The intangible part of the equation is the gauging of the fandom’s passion as well as the quality of a fandom. This “subjective” piece is equally important to FanSided as size and longevity.

Of all fandoms, college athletics had 24 college programs included in the list. Here are the Top 24  (these are not the actual rankings in the 250, but their place as far as the best in the list of 250):

1. Ohio State Buckeyes
2. Alabama Crimson Tide
3. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
4. North Carolina Tar Heels
5. Oklahoma Sooners
6. Kentucky Wildcats
7. Duke Blue Devils
8. Clemson Tigers
9. USC Trojans
10. Penn State Nittany Lions
11. Michigan Wolverines
12. Kansas Jayhawks
13. Wisconsin Badgers
14. Florida State Seminoles
15. Florida Gators
16. Texas Longhorns
17. LSU Tigers
18. Tennessee Volunteers
19. North Dakota State Bison
20. Washington Huskies
21. Louisville Cardinals
22. UCLA Bruins
23. Nebraska Cornhuskers
24. East Mississippi community college (No. 247 and last college on the list)

Come on, really East Mississippi Community College? I know that both Pac-12 FanSided sites we interact with year-long, UCLA (GoJoeBruin) and USC (ReignOfTroy), get a whole lot more views each month than Zona Zealots. It’s depressing at times.

So maybe if you look at those stats, views on posts from those sites, you could conclude that Arizona Wildcats fans are not that passionate. We know that’s not the case.

We know that McKale is packed each and every game and they have an issue in Westwood filling up Pauley Pavillion for any game except the UofA game. For the UCLA vs. UofA game, the Arizona Wildcats fans fill the stands and are louder than the majority of fans.

You can also hear the difference at the Pac-12 tournament where Wildcats fans don their red gear and shout out bear down to each other when passing by each other in the casinos. Arizona Basketball fans are known to travel well. They show up everywhere. You can always here the “UofA” chant ring through your TV or the radio.

Can East Mississippi Community College say that? Huh? Can they? NO! This just left us shaking our collective heads. These programs made the lists top 24, all college fan bases, but this list of 250 included all fan bases. For instance, even the Cleveland Browns made it onto the list at No. 144, the New York Knicks 75, and the Kardashians 41 to name a few who made the list instead of Arizona. Mississippi Community College came in at 247 (overall). The last fandom to make the list was New York Yankee Aaron Judge. So Aaron Judge has better fans that the Arizona Wildcats? Right.

Something for these Editors to ponder is attendance at games maybe? As far as attendance for NCAA Basketball in the 2016-17 season, Arizona (18 games), put 261,478 fanny’s in seats and averaged 14,526. Arizona came in fifteenth in the nation in average attendance per game.

1. Kentucky – 23,361
2. Syracuse – 21,592
3. Louisville – 20,859
4. North Carolina – 18,326
5. Maryland – 17,863
6. Wisconsin – 17,287
7. Indiana – 17,106
8. North Carolina St. – 16,758
9. Kansas – 16,436
10. Creighton – 15,941
11. Nebraska – 15,429
12. Arkansas – 14,879
13. Michigan – 14,797
14. BYU – 14,699
15. Arizona – 14,526

Notice USC and UCLA did not make the list, but then again Pauly Pavilion only holds 12,829 and the Galen Center (USC) holds less at 10,258. And still, they cannot sell out.

Okay, just for a quick second, let’s talk Arizona Football. One of the most under the radar college football teams in the NCAA with one of the hottest quarterbacks and offense in the Pac-12. Khalil Tate was breaking records, not buzzworthy? EVERY CFB ANALYST WAS TALKING ABOUT OUR QUARTERBACK! They were even making up nick names for him.

Check out all the rest of the fandom’s, the 226 of them, click here: Full Fandom 250 list.

Here is last years Arizona Wildcats season video, enjoy!

Must Read: More on Arizona Basketball from ZZ....

Now we know getting fans to an Arizona Football game is not easy lately. And we have had our discussions regarding Arizona Football fans. We know there is a lot left to be desired for Football. But if the Editors took in Arizona Basketball alone, they should easily make a case for at least No. 250, no? This post should be required reading for the FanSided Editors next year, required!