Also interesting is the MASSIVE geographic reach of the Atlanta Braves.
The Braves can't sell out playoff games, but they still have one of the largest fanbases in baseball. It's a combination of national exposure on TBS (which for years showed only Braves games), the lack of other teams in the South (until 1993 there were no other teams, and even now there are only the Marlins and Rays, and nobody cares about either of those teams), and their utter dominance (no team other than the Braves won a division title from 1991 to 2005).
There is some weirdness in those maps. I never knew Packers support spilled over into SE Minnesota, that would no doubt make many here declare that area "fake Minnesota". Weird how the Twins vs. Brewers pattern doesn't follow.
The Packers are prestigious in a way that the Brewers aren't. Compare the support of the St. Louis Cardinals to the Rams for a similar difference.
And the area around Reno sort of adopting the Bay Area feels a little weird too even if that's the closest area in distance.
It probably has a lot to do with Las Vegas's replacing Reno as the major tourist destination in Nevada, but Reno is definitely an extension culturally of Northern California. I would imagine that many (if not most) of the tourists and immigrants to that area come from here. That effect even extends (to a far lesser extent) all the way out to Utah; my dad was a 49ers fan even before he moved to California, having picked it up as a grad student at Utah State.
