The Reddit analysis sampled posts and comments from Sept. There is only one openly gay NFL player, Carl Nassib of the Raiders, who came out in June. “VADER recognizes words and phrases and connects them to polarity (positive/negative) and intensity (strength) of emotion to return several different sentiment scores: positive, neutral, negative, and a compound score,” according to the survey notes. The survey used an analytical tool called VADER to analyze each Reddit post. Reddit forums are only one of myriad online meeting points for NFL fans, but analyzing 2,900 comments can provide a glimpse of how many fans feel. The five least supportive online fan bases were the Los Angeles Rams and Carolina Panthers at 29.4%, followed by the Atlanta Falcons, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys.
The other online communities that posted more than 50% positive comments were the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills, San Francisco 49ers and Las Vegas Raiders, according to the survey for the ticket site Tickpick. In Bengals subreddits, 60% of the comments from posts from September 2020 to September 2021 were positive toward the LGBTQ community. The Cincinnati Bengals - making their first AFC championship appearance since 1988 - have the most supportive fans online of LGBTQ communities, according to a survey that examined 2,930 posts on Reddit NFL forums.
