The World’s Team?: New study finds Bills are NFL’s most popular franchise worldwide

Hall of Fame wide receiver Terrell Owens stole headlines when he inked a one-year deal with the then-lowly Buffalo Bills in 2009, humorously dubbing the struggling franchise as “North America’s Team.”

The nickname, an obvious dig at Owens’ former employer, is, in hindsight, perhaps a bit too limiting, as a new study has determined that the Bills, while not necessarily the preferred team of the continent on which they play, are the NFL’s most popular franchise worldwide.

Betting company FlashPicks recently published a study in which a team of researchers “analyzed Google search volume in more than 100 countries to figure out how many times each NFL team was searched for over the past four years,” ultimately giving each team a score between 0 and 10. Buffalo ultimately earned the league’s highest score, coming in at an impressive 9.9; the Dallas Cowboys came in just behind the Bills at a 9.8 while the Kansas City Chiefs ranked third with a 9.1.

While the Cowboys and Chiefs topped the Bills in monthly international searches (440,410 and 433,490 compared to 427,830), Buffalo is the NFL’s most-searched-for franchise in a league-high 31 countries, thus landing it the higher score. Though the Cowboys live up to their “America’s Team” moniker and claim the United States, the Bills, per FlashPicks, are the most coveted team in Canada (which makes sense, as quarterback Josh Allen could likely launch a ball from Highmark Stadium to the nearby Canadian border). Buffalo is also the most-searched-for club across much of Europe, including Spain, France, Italy, Poland, and most of Scandinavia.

Related: Bills GM compares Josh Allen’s leadership style to former All-Pro LB

The Bills are also the most-searched-for team in Iceland, which is coincidentally what one could call Highmark Stadium in December.

The Bills’ standing as one of the world’s most-searched-for franchises (again, per FlashPicks) is a testament to their recent ascent into perennial contention; quarterback Josh Allen has objectively been one of the league’s most dynamic players throughout the duration of the study, earning NFL MVP votes in three of the four surveyed years. Buffalo has won its division in all four of the eligible seasons, constructing a combined regular season record of 48-18.

It’s also possible that people are just searching for Allen highlights, and really, can we blame them?

Regardless of the reasoning, it’s pretty neat to see the club that resides in the NFL’s second-smallest market rank as one of its most-searched-for worldwide. It goes to show that a nearby booming metropolis isn’t necessarily a requisite for team success—it helps, but perhaps not as much as simply winning.

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