Your Favorite NFL Team Quietly Reveals How Smart You Are, According To Research

A study by Gambling.com found that the education levels of the social media followers for every NFL team revealed which fanbases are the most intelligent in the league. A weighted index was then created, which allowed the teams to be ranked in order of most to least intelligent fans on average.

Having a favorite NFL team might reveal more than just geography to the casual observer. The teams people are drawn to and stay loyal to may give an insight into how their brains work. That means your favorite team might say more about you than you think, and not just who you enjoy watching on Sunday nights.

According to research, the Buffalo Bills have the smartest fans in the NFL.

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According to the findings, the Buffalo Bills have the smartest fans in the NFL with an index score of 8.405, followed by Cleveland Browns fans in second and Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans in third. 

The New York Giants have the least intelligent fanbase in the league, with an index score of just 6.745. Second to last were Minnesota Vikings fans, and the New York Jets fans settled in just above them.

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Watching sports can actually improve your well-being.

Loving football isn't just about intelligence, though. It's about the benefits that it can bring to a person's overall well-being. A Japanese study tried to find out what science says about loving sports in general. Researchers put 14 volunteers through an MRI scan while they watched a sport. The hypothesis they wanted to test was, "Do people who watch sports frequently on a daily basis have plastic structural changes in the brain regions related to well-being?"

The study, which was published in the Sport Management Review, found that watching sports, including at a stadium, online, or on TV, showed positive associations with life fulfillment, even when controlled for age, gender, and income. In a nutshell: watching sports makes fans happy! 

"Specifically, the results indicated that the residents’ perception of life fulfillment was significantly explained by spectating sport at a stadium or arena and viewing sport online or on TV," researchers wrote.

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Participants reported feelings of happiness and pleasure.

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Participants were asked to watch videos of multiple sports and to assess their well-being before and after viewing. Researchers found that sports had a more significant impact on enhancing well-being. Sports actually did trigger activation in the brain’s reward circuits, indicative of feelings of happiness or pleasure. 

"Specifically, daily sport-watching behavior was positively associated with grey matter volume of reward circuits," the researchers noted. "It can imply that brain structures may gradually change by watching sport daily so that people can feel greater well-being more easily."

While many people would be quick to dismiss watching sports as something mindless, it serves as a rewarding interest for many people. Beyond the intelligence aspect, it's about community and spending time with people who enjoy the same things as you. Whether you're watching the game at home or you're in a packed stadium, the feelings are all still the same. Just pure, unadulterated happiness.

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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.