This is a crazy time of year for sports fans, even those who don’t know anything about college basketball get involved in the tournament’s frenzy. For Fanatics, the world’s largest online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise, this is one of the busier times of year. Fanatics carries merchandise from hundreds of college teams and spikes in sales for March reflect how these teams do in the NCAA tournament. Since Saturday’s games, sales have exploded. Every team remaining in the tournament has had their merchandise purchased in all 50 states on Fanatics.com, in just FOUR days, Saturday March 28-Tuesday, March 31. We created a map based on merchandise sales, showing which team leads sales in each state across the country.
You may be surprised to see which teams are leading in the number of states supporting them. Here is a quick breakdown:
Duke Blue Devils – 17
Kentucky Wildcats – 15
Michigan State Spartans – 13
Wisconsin Badgers – 5
The loyalty holds strong for Duke, who leads all four teams with 17 states. This has been quite a year for the Blue Devils, who came into the tournament as a number 1 seed, and saw Coach Krzyzewski earn his 1,000th win earlier this season. Kentucky is the biggest story in college basketball this year and actually leads in sales, despite Duke having the most amount of states. They head into the weekend yet to lose a game all season, going 38-0 up until this point. The Wildcats are looking to become the first team to go undefeated for the whole season since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, and they are trying to become the first team to ever do so since the tournament expanded past 32 teams in 1985. Their fans are showing their passion for this year’s team as they lead the way in 15 states.
Michigan State came into the tournament as a number 7 seed, but you should have learned by now that you can never write off Tom Izzo’s Spartans. All the rest of the teams remaining are 1 seeds, but that won’t stop Spartans’ fans from rallying around their team; Michigan State leads sales in 13 states. Wisconsin comes out of the West region, battling through a tough UNC team and overcoming the strong Arizona Wildcats. Wisconsin leads sales in 5 states, but has seen the second highest spike in college sales this week, up 565%, behind only Michigan State (600%).
Who are you rooting for? Does your state match your loyalty? Grab the latest Final Four Gear and Apparel for each of the final teams remaining in the tournament.
