Editor’s note: Jenna Enright is blog content writer at marketing research firm CivicScience, Pittsburgh. This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared here under the title, “As the NFL’s fan base shifts, this is who’s watching football.”

I was in the marching band. I’ve been to every one of my high school and college football games and still have no idea how the game works. Or any sports game really. Yeah, I said “sports game.”

I grew up in Philadelphia, migrated to Pittsburgh, and spent some time in Boston. These places do not mess around with their sports – football very much included.

But it turns out I’m not the only Millennial who is uninterested in the NFL. With the start of NFL season, my team dug a little deeper to paint a picture of the most common traits of the average NFL fan. Just over half of Millennials aren’t NFL fans, as opposed to 41 percent and 42 percent of Generation X and Baby Boomers, respectively.

What’s more, 35 percent of Millennials have no interest in sports at all.

OK, cue the headlines about Millennials ruining the NFL. But this isn’t new. We posted last month that the landscape of sports fans is changing.

Money-minded

Let’s look at the study a bit closer. First, we found that NFL fans tend to be more money-minded. For example, they’re more likely to follow economic trends.

As you can see from the graphic above, NFL fans are more likely than non-fans to follow financial markets and the economy at least somewhat closely, while non-fans are roughly 38 percent more likely to say they don’t follow the economy or financial markets at all.

We also found that NFL fans are attractive … or so they think. They’re 20 percent more likely than non-NFL fans to say that they’re more physically attractive than most people their age and gender.

Next, I found that NFL fans are more likely to watch TV live or using a DVR, and are less likely to watch through online streaming.

Compared to Americans who aren’t NFL fans, fans of the NFL are:

  • more likely to be daily Twitter users (12 percent vs. 10 percent);
  • more likely to be fans of TV sitcoms;
  • more likely to make over $150,000 per year;
  • more likely to prefer casual restaurants to fine dining; and
  • almost twice as likely to drink beer twice a week or more (when looking at ages 25+).

The NFL fan

So, there you have it. An outsider’s perspective on everything you could possibly want to know about an NFL fan.

No, just kidding. They’re complex and nuanced human beings but we can probably guess some will be stopping by Buffalo Wild Wings before the game, tweeting on the way there and checking themselves out in the rear-view mirror.