The Bengals have landed in a pretty eye-opening spot: No. 4 in the Nielsen Scarborough NFL Fandom Index.
It’s the first year for the study, which Cincinnati Enquirer Sports Editor Jason Hoffman described as a “comprehensive study that moves beyond simple headcount to identify where the sport’s pulse beats strongest, revealing that America’s most avid fans are often found in the heart of its mid-sized legacy markets.”
The top five is loaded. Buffalo, Kansas City, Green Bay, and Philadelphia all made the cut, with Cincinnati right there among them.
That’s notable on its own, but it stands out even more when you line it up with market size. Cincinnati ranks 37th in the 2025 Nielsen DMA rankings from the United States TV Database, while Green Bay sits all the way down at 68th.
The NFL keeps proving the same thing over and over: you don’t need a giant market to have a giant fanbase.
Nielsen’s explanation for why Philadelphia and Cincinnati both placed so highly gets to the heart of it. “Neither market leads a single metric outright, yet both land in the top five on five of the eight questions the index tracks. That breadth, rather than any one standout behavior, is what pushes the two cities to No. 5 and No. 4 overall.”
Those eight categories are apparel purchases, general interest levels, live event attendance, betting intent, social media engagement, radio listenership, streaming habits, and linear TV viewership.
For the Bengals, the strongest areas are social media engagement and radio listenership. Bengals Twitter has built a reputation for being especially passionate, and the team’s radio network is a major part of that footprint.
Paycor Stadium has also drawn strong crowds in recent seasons, a boost tied to the popularity of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. With the ongoing renovations, that attendance is expected to keep climbing.
The bigger picture is pretty simple: the Bengals are holding their own with the league’s most devoted fan bases, and they’re doing it from a market that doesn’t come close to the NFL’s biggest cities.
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