Measuring the Eagles' popularity

There are any number of ways to measure the popularity of a professional sports team -- media coverage, television ratings and ticket sales, to name three. We are going to look at ticket sales in the secondary market, using data from StubHub.com, to try to get a feel for exactly how excited you are or are not about the Eagles' upcoming season, the first under coach Chip Kelly.

In my mind, this might just be the best measure of true popularity. Why? Well, season tickets are bought ahead of time and many are tied to seat licenses purchased a decade ago; tons of people at Lincoln Financial Field are captives of earlier decisions they made. Television numbers are good, but not necessarily a measure of the intensity of interest. But when you think about it, the give-and-take within the secondary ticket market -- the collision of supply, demand and price -- might just tell you the most about the breadth and depth of interest in a team at a given moment.

We'll be checking on the numbers every few weeks, to see if there is any movement. But, on the day before the Eagles put up a limited number of tickets for sale on a single-game basis, here is the base line from which we will start the analysis.

DATE   OPPONENT   TICKETS AVAILABLE on 5/8   LOWEST PRICE on 5/8

15-Sep San Diego      3,396                                        $73.50

19-Sep Kansas City   3,444                                         $73.50

20-Oct Dallas             3,305                                         $73.50

27-Oct NY Giants      3,212                                         $73.50

17-Nov Washington   3,393                                        $73.50

1-Dec Arizona           3,446                                         $73.50

8-Dec Detroit            3,455                                         $73.50

22-Dec Chicago       3,388                                         $73.50