It’s never an overly simple task to measure the popularity of a team beyond its local area or its nation’s borders. Still, there are a few metrics available to attempt to gauge the most popular NFL teams in Canada.
In 2013, the Montreal Gazette reported that the New England Patriots were the most popular NFL team in Canada, with Tom Brady as the favourite player, based on NFL.com’s merchandise sales and fan engagement surveys. Similar data appears to be unavailable for this season.
Another option could be social media profiles and groups, specifically those set up for Canadian fans of certain teams. However, most fans tend to follow the official league and team pages, which don’t tend to announce follower counts by nation.
Instead, we’ve used Google Trends data from last season to gauge which NFL teams were the most popular in Canada.
Most Popular NFL Teams in Canada
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Buffalo Bills
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Seattle Seahawks
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Dallas Cowboys
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Green Bay Packers
These are our final findings but read on to see how we found these NFL teams to be the most popular in Canada.
Finding Canada’s Most Popular NFL Team
Google Trends tracks search data from around the world, offering filters that enable you to see the volumes of specific search terms and topics in each nation and province.
As you’re only allowed to put in up to five terms at a time, we performed search comparisons in Canada for each division and then compared the search winners of the divisions per their conferences.
Finally, the four highest-rated teams from the conference rounds were put together to find which of the NFL teams was the outright most popular in Canada for the 2022/23 season.
To remove any bias created by the postseason and teams dropping out, the search term analysis was drawn from August 1 (the month that starts pre-season) to January 10 (the last Tuesday before the playoffs).
Canada’s Favourite AFC Teams
In the AFC East, there was a very clear favourite among Canadian search terms. The Buffalo Bills doubled the Google Trends average of the next-closest team.
Being such a strong team, Canadian bettors often backed the Bills in the NFL spreads and can take them to win the next Super Bowl at +750.
That said, Manitoba boasts high search volumes for the New York Jets, while the New England Patriots were the most-searched team in New Brunswick with a 41 percent share.
The AFC West proved to be quite hotly contested for Canadian search dominance.
#Chiefs GM Brett Veach on the AFC West: "Our division is really tough and that's the thing that I think really helped us in our playoff run."
— Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) February 28, 2023
The eventual Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, narrowly got ahead of the Las Vegas Raiders, while the Denver Broncos and their new QB, Russell Wilson – formerly of the Seattle Seahawks – weren’t far behind, either.
Bar a spike towards the end of the season, the thrilling Cincinnati Bengals barely got a look in from Canadian Googlers this season.
Instead, the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers were level-pegging in the averages for the most popular AFC North team, but the Browns were the most searched team in six provinces to Pittsburgh’s four.
The Jacksonville Jaguars suddenly returned to relevancy from the lacklustre AFC South this season, but it wasn’t enough to win interest or favour in Canada.
Instead, they finished third in the search topic rankings, while the Indianapolis Colts were the clear winners.
Canada’s Favourite NFC Teams
Despite the Philadelphia Eagles gunning for all sorts of records and effectively steamrolling all in their path, they were far less searched in Canada than famously America’s favourite team, the Dallas Cowboys.
In the NFC West, there was a clear and predictable favourite.
Being less than three hours away from Vancouver, the Seattle Seahawks outdid their divisional rivals in the search trends, but at +2800 in the odds to take the conference championship next season, Seattle isn’t tipped to do as well on the field.
Seahawks, QB Geno Smith agree to three-year, $105M deal. (via @TomPelissero and @RapSheet) pic.twitter.com/V64NXMrSbU
— NFL (@NFL) March 6, 2023
With Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan all being so geographically close to Canada, the NFC North is as near as you’ll get to a local division for Canadian fans.
Each team put up decent averages over the season, but the Green Bay Packers clearly came out on top in search trends and held the top spot in all but two provinces.
With three teams going 7-10 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the division with an 8-9 record, there wasn’t much to cheer about in the NFC South.
Still, the draw of Tom Brady remains strong in Canada, and the Bucs obliterated their rivals in Google Trends.
Most Popular NFL Teams in Canada per Conference
Taking the leaders from each division in the AFC and putting them together to compare their search trends, it’s clear that there’s only one winner.
The Buffalo Bills quadrupled the averages of the Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Browns, and Indianapolis Colts and were the most searched AFC team topic in each province.
The NFC leaders showed a much more closely-contested affair. While the Brady-led Bucs came up last by comparison of the averages, the Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks, and Green Bay Packers all tied in search volume.
Due to the three NFC sides also beating the losing AFC teams by some margin, the final deciding comparison for Canada’s favourite NFL team drew in the Cowboys, Seahawks, and Packers to face the Bills.
Outright Most Popular NFL Team in Canada
As revealed by this process of comparing Google Trends’ search data in Canada for NFL team topics, the final findings rule the Buffalo Bills as the most popular NFL team in Canada.
They beat the Packers, Seahawks, and Cowboys by significant margins and took all but one Canadian province, British Columbia.
Even when drawing in other more popular teams from the divisional rounds, such as the NFC North teams, the Bills still rank well above them in search topic volume. The Seahawks landed as a firm but distant second in these findings.
So, the Buffalo Bills get the crown as Canada’s favourite NFL team right now.
*Credit for all images in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 8th March 2023
