ST. LOUIS – The Show Me State is home to six professional sports teams, including one of baseball’s most storied franchises in the St. Louis Cardinals. But not everyone seems to think that the Cardinals are the kings of Missouri sports.

All Sports Culture, a sports-centric social media platform, shared a post that went viral on Instagram earlier this week, naming the “Most Loved Team” in every US state and Canadian province. Content creators behind the post claim to have done research, but didn’t disclose much behind the methodology.

The “most loved teams” selections include a variety of teams from each of the Core 4 sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA) plus some colleges well known for their football teams.

Among the omissions were the two MLB teams with the most World Series titles – the New York Yankees (27) and the St. Louis Cardinals (11). Neither was not deemed the most loved teams for their respective states.

According to All Sports Culture, the Kansas City Chiefs top the St. Louis Cardinals as the “most loved team” in Missouri. The Chiefs also took the same honor in neighboring state Kansas.

With not much known behind the methodology, it’s possible that recent success gave the Chiefs a boost among Missouri teams. Kansas City has won two of the last four Super Bowls and seems poised for its eighth consecutive playoff bid. A special bond between Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and music star Taylor Swift has also given the Chiefs more hype nationally in recent weeks.

And looking at the Cardinals of recent, or at least the 2023 season, it was far from the standard. St. Louis finished with one of its worst records in decades at 71-91.

Google Trends would seem to support the Chiefs being more favored than the Cardinals over the last month. Over the last three months, with a highest daily peak possibility score of 100, the Chiefs have had five peaks of at least 70 while the Cardinals have only had two peaks over 70. A peak score of 50 is considered to garner half as many Google searches as the day that measured at 100.

The Chiefs were one of several teams to take the title as the “most loved team” in multiple states. The Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks also took honors in two US states.