Survey: Fans still love Eagles; Phils getting more hugs

NO SPORTS FAN in America has been as scrutinized, criticized and just downright pulverized as the loyal souls who support the Philadelphia teams. Somewhere along the line, we became synonymous with being hard-hearted, impossible to please and beyond the realm of uncouth. Whenever outsiders hear of someone such as the unpardonable slob who puked on the 11-year-old daughter of a police officer at Citizens Bank Park, a hue and cry goes out gleefully across the land: There goes Philadelphia again. By the sound of it, you'd think that the fans in New York, Washington and Dallas sipped tea at sporting events and kept their troublemakers under lock and key.

So we know what they think.

But what do you think?

Who is the Philadelphia sports fan and how does he roll? To get to the bottom of that question and a wide range of others, the Daily News hooked up with the Sport Industry Research Center at Temple University to perform a study of the Philadelphia sports fan through the opinions expressed by more than 2,300 respondents from across the Delaware Valley. The teams themselves do significant fan research but rarely make that information public and their results can be skewed to a small percentage of fans that are invested in a particular team. Our survey is independent and unbiased. According to SIRC director Dr. Aubrey Kent, the survey gives "more of a sense of the pulse of the average Joe and Jane sports fan."

Some of what we found will surprise you.

Some of it will confirm your suspicions.

And some of it will leave you arguing with one another over beers.

The initial survey was conducted from March 8 to 26, with a followup survey in mid-April. The Daily News then did e-mail interviews with more than 100 of the respondents in an effort to get a deeper understanding for who and what they like, how they spend and what they remember. Additionally, our sports staff fanned out across the landscape locally to interview team executives, players and former players for their perspective on the fans, who have supported the sports organizations with a passion that is unrelenting.

And this is what we found:

You love the Eagles.

But you have eloped with the Phillies.

* On the heels of two World Series appearances that included the 2008 world championship, the once woebegone Phillies swept the field in popularity, venue and a variety of other categories.

Asked to identify their favorite team, 54 percent of the respondents selected the Phillies. The Eagles placed second at 30 percent.