Forty-three percent of Missouri likely voters name the Chiefs as their favorite NFL team, only 2% name the Rams

ST. LOUIS - The Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs dominate their home turf in Missouri as voters in the state overwhelmingly chose the team as their favorite NFL franchise.

In August 2024, the SLU/YouGov Poll interviewed 900 likely Missouri voters, asking them to name their favorite National Football League team. 

The poll found that 43% of Missourians polled say the Kansas City Chiefs are their favorite team. Sixty-seven percent of voters from Kansas City said the Chiefs were their favorite team. Meanwhile, only 26% of St. Louis voters named the Chiefs as their favorite team.

Even though the Chiefs are more popular in Kansas City than St. Louis, the SLU/YouGov Poll found that Chiefs fans are more likely to be St. Louis Cardinals than Kansas City Royals fans. When asked “What is your favorite Major League Baseball team?,” 43% of Chiefs fans named the Cardinals, 39% said the Royals, and 12% said they did not have a favorite Major League Baseball team.

Runner-up competition for Missouri’s favorite National Football League team wasn’t close to the Superbowl champs. The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers were the second- and third-favorite teams and respectively chosen by 4% and 2% of voters. Thirty-four percent stated they did not have a favorite team.

“The Chiefs popularity is impressive. Overall, only 41% of voters named the St. Louis Cardinals their favorite Major League Baseball team, giving the Chiefs a 2-point edge on the “best fans in baseball,” said Steven Rogers, Ph.D., SLU/YouGov Poll Director and associate professor of political science at SLU. “But it also helps they are the only NFL team left in the Show-Me-State.”

Two percent of Missouri voters named the Los Angeles Rams, who left St. Louis in 2015, as their favorite NFL team. Four percent of St. Louis voters named the Rams as their favorite team. Across the state, the Rams were most popular among voters between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. Less than 1% of voters said the Arizona Cardinals, who left St. Louis in 1988, were their favorite NFL team.

“After St. Louis suffered through Bidwell and Big Red football, the Greatest Show on Turf brought a Superbowl to St. Louis,” said Rogers. “But it now seems that St. Louis is a place where Kaw is the law.”

The margin of error for the full survey sample is ± 3.79%.

Methodology and Funding

YouGov interviewed 900 likely Missouri voters between Aug. 8-16, 2024. The YouGov panel, a proprietary opt-in survey panel, is comprised of 3.1 million United States residents who have agreed to participate in YouGov Web surveys. Using their gender, age, race, and education, YouGov weighted the set of survey respondents to known characteristics of Missouri voters from the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error for the weighted data is 3.79%. 

The August 2024 SLU/YouGov Poll was funded by the PRiME Center in SLU’s School of Education.

About YouGov

Saint Louis University has partnered with YouGov to conduct its annual survey of Missouri voters. YouGov conducts surveys for multiple academic institutions and is the primary, trusted survey firm for media organizations, including CBS News and The Economist. An independent Pew Research Center study of online survey firms in 2016 further concluded that YouGov “consistently outperforms competitors.”

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 15,200 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.