I was never a sports fan growing up. (Unless Super Mario counts as a sport? No? Moving on.) But over the years, even I’ve learned there is strict etiquette to be respected around supporting your hometown team. To oversimplify:

1. you don’t necessarily have to support your home team, but if you choose another team, you must be able to give a good reason;
2. only under the most dire of circumstances may you support your home team’s historical rival (by “most dire” we mean: your parents are from the rival town; there’s a gun to your head; your parents are the ones holding the gun to your head; etc.);
3. at the end of the season, if a championship’s on the line, you get out there cheer with your neighbors. (Go Giants!)

In the world of music, however, the etiquette is murkier. I know plenty of fans who feel strong loyalty towards bands from their hometown; but I also know plenty, especially nowadays, who couldn’t even tell you what country an artist might be from. (Although those rumors that I didn’t realize Black Sabbath was British until I was in college are entirely false.) As we’ve discussed before, plenty of music acts get discovered through the magic of Youtube and Pandora rather than by connecting with fans through through local gigs. Some folks may even be turned off by local bands that manage to hit the national charts, although let’s not get into the question of what constitutes “selling out” — this space is not equipped to handle metaphysical questions. So do bands get a hometown advantage?

To find out, we looked at bands from ten metropolitan areas, and compared their SonicLiving fan base in their hometown to their fan base everywhere else. For data geeks, that’s ([fans from hometown/all users from hometown] – [{fans nationally - fans from hometown}/{users nationally - users from hometown}). And it looks like the hometown advantage may be real, but tiny:

every little bit helps

At best, in the cities we examined, bands are garnering a little less than 2% more fans than they are nationally. This isn’t conclusive, since not all cities are represented — it’s possible that the cities we chose happen to be more or less loyal than usual. But since we don’t have enough data to run this comparison for all cities, it’s a place to start.

What about on a band level? What bands are getting the most hometown love?

1. John Mayer, Atlanta – 10.51% more fans in his hometown
2. Blue Scholars, Seattle – 10.11% more fans in their hometown
3. Ghostland Observatory, Austin – 9.90% more fans in their hometown
4. Death Cab for Cutie, Seattle – 9.40% more fans in their hometown
5. Bob Schneider, Austin – 9.06% more fans in his hometown
6. Jay-Z, New York – 8.86% more fans in his hometown
7. Bob Dynycn, New York – 8.70% more fans in his hometown
8. The Roots, Philadelphia – 8.65% more fans in their hometown
9. Dropkick Murphys, Boston – 8.10% more fans in their hometown
10. Guster, Boston – 8.01% more fans in their hometown

And the least? Here are ten bands who actually have a smaller percentage of fans in their hometown than they do nationally (also known as the “big in Japan” effect).

Do a band’s roots matter to you, or just their music? Let us know in the comments.