Surprise: People Like the Yankees

Metaphor? 

Via the Miami New Times comes a new Quinnipiac poll showing that the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays have more supporters in the state of Florida than the Miami Marlins.

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The margin of error on the poll is 2.2%, so this gulf between Marlins and Yankees fans is statistically significant. But is it that surprising? Florida is a big state, and there can't be many Marlins fans in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, or the panhandle. A breakdown by geographic area confirms this:

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There are still a lot of Yankees fans in South Florida, but they are vastly outnumbered by Marlins fans. Even the pockets of Red Sox and Mets fans (6%, not included in screen grab) are nowhere near the size of the local fan base.

New Times opted for the pageview-generating headline of "Miami Marlins Are Only Floridians' Third Favorite Baseball Team," but that headline only makes sense if you believed the Marlins actually had any statewide popularity to begin with. Though the team spent 19 seasons playing as the Florida Marlins, it has always been a Miami team.

And though I suspect the Miami market has less support for the home team than other markets (I'm willing to bet St. Louis' Cardinals fan percentage is easily greater than 50%, for instance), in general it is like everywhere else in MLB: full of home-team supporters, with large pockets of transplants and frontrunners rooting for the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets.