ESPN maps, again

I’ve said before that I love looking at the state-by-state maps of ESPN surveys, because they hint at often incomprehensible demographic breakdowns.

Some are very easy to interpret. If they ask which is the greatest sports franchise in U.S. history, Massachusetts and neighboring states will say the Celtics, New York the Yankees, California the Lakers, and so forth.

But the latest is another fascinating one. Who will win the Super Bowl: the Patriots or the Giants? OK, the home states of those two teams vote for their own teams, unsurprisingly.

But then why would the southeast and Rocky Mountain states support the Giants almost unanimously and the others almost all support the Patriots? Other than the polarization in the Northeast, it looks almost like an electoral college map for a U.S. Presidential election, with the Republican states going for the Giants and the Democratic states for the Patriots.

I can think of no a priori reason why Southerners and un-toting Westerners would dislike Boston any more than they would dislike New York. Is it as simple as a fondness for Southern boy Eli Manning in the Southeast? Or is Tom Brady simply too much of a media glamor boy for these people?

Hard to say, but I’m supporting the Patriots. I don’t especially like them, but I despise the Giants. If I were a New Yorker, I’d support the Jets for sure. The Giants bore me like no other team in the NFL, and always have. Maybe just that they were so mediocre throughout my childhood, combined with some of the most depressing uniform colors in professional sports. Anyway, I despise the New York Giants, and hope they get flattened tomorrow.