Alright, so the other day, I got this itch, you know? I was chatting with a buddy about NFL teams, where they’re all at, and it kinda bugged me that I couldn’t perfectly picture it. I mean, you know where some teams are, but all of them, spread out? So, I figured, why not try and slap them onto a USA map? Seemed like a decent little project to kill some time.
Getting the Ball Rolling (or Fumbling It)
First thing, I needed a list of all the NFL teams and, more importantly, where their stadiums actually are. You’d think, “Oh, just Google it, easy peasy.” Well, mostly. But then you get into the nitty-gritty. Some teams, like the Commanders, don’t actually play in D.C. proper. And then there’s the whole New York Giants and New York Jets situation – both repping New York but playing out in New Jersey. That kind of stuff makes you scratch your head when you’re trying to be accurate. I just wanted a general idea, but still, details, details.
So, I spent a bit of time just compiling a list. Team name, city, state. Pretty basic stuff. I ended up with a simple text file. Nothing fancy.
Choosing My Weapon (The Map-Making Tool, That Is)
Now, how to actually make this map? I’m no graphic designer, and I definitely wasn’t about to fire up some complicated mapping software. My goal was simple: dots on a map. I looked around for a plain US map image, something clean I could just draw on. Found a decent one that showed all the state borders clearly. My high-tech solution? An image editor. Yeah, the kind that comes with your computer, or one of those free online ones. Good enough for what I needed.
The Actual Process: Dot by Dot
This was where the real “work” started. I had my map open in the editor, and my list of teams next to it. For each team, I’d look up the city, find it on the map (or get as close as I could eyeball it), and then plop down a little dot. Or a small circle. Consistency wasn’t my strong suit at the start, let me tell you.
- First, just getting the locations approximately right. Some states are big and empty, others are tiny and crowded.
- Then, trying to label them. Just the team name. I thought about logos, but that seemed like way too much effort for this little experiment. Sourcing them, resizing, making them fit… nah. Text was fine.
- The East Coast, especially the Northeast, got real busy, real fast. So many teams clustered up there. Trying to fit names without them overlapping too much was a bit of a pain. I had to nudge things around quite a bit.
- California also has a fair few, so that needed some careful placement.
I wasn’t aiming for perfection, just a visual guide. Sometimes I’d zoom in, place a dot, zoom out, and realize it looked a bit off in the grand scheme of things. So, more nudging. It was a lot of clicking and typing, more than I initially thought.
What I Ended Up With
After a while, I had something that looked, well, like a US map with a bunch of NFL team names scattered on it. It wasn’t gonna win any awards, that’s for sure. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but it did the job I wanted it to do. You can clearly see the clusters of teams and the vast empty spaces where there aren’t any. It definitely put things into perspective.
It’s funny, you start these small projects thinking they’ll take an hour, and then you find yourself deep in the weeds, meticulously placing digital dots. But hey, it satisfied my curiosity. Now I have a visual in my head when people talk about team distribution across the country. Good enough for me!
