It’s been three years since the University of Alabama won a national championship, but the Crimson Tide is still the king of the Southeastern Conference.

For the sixth year in a row, at least, the University of Alabama held onto the title of the most popular college football team in the SEC. But the two-time defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs are biting at their heels.

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According to college sports fan data from the sports marketing firm SBRnet, Alabama boasted more than 3.4 million fans in January of 2023. That was down significantly year-over-year, as the school fell outside the top 5 most popular schools nationally.

RELATED: Alabama loses fans, falls outside top 5 on national list of most popular college teams

Still, Alabama remained the most popular team in the SEC, edging out the University of Georgia, which had 3.1 million fans in 2023. But the Bulldogs – who have won each of the last two national titles, including a 33-18 win over Alabama in the 2021 championship game – have the fastest-growing fanbase in the nation over the last six years, and are threatening to take the title of the most popular team away from Alabama.

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Georgia has added nearly 2 million fans since January of 2018, with the biggest jump coming in 2022, just after the title game against Alabama. The school’s fanbase doubled that year, and increased again in 2023, for a total increase of 172% since 2018.

Some other SEC schools have been big movers, too, especially in the last year. No school in the country saw its fanbase grow faster between 2022 and 2023 than Ole Miss, which saw a 163% surge. And South Carolina doubled its fanbase over that time.

LSU has seen its fanbase steadily grow since 2019, after the Tigers won a national title that year.

Meanwhile, the state of Alabama’s two SEC schools didn’t fair as well.

RELATED: Auburn football has the fastest shrinking fanbase in the nation

While still the most popular SEC team overall, Alabama lost nearly 700,000 fans over the last year, as fans across the country jump off the Crimson Tide’s bandwagon and more jump onto UGA’s. But five SEC schools – including one that’s not actually in the conference yet – actually saw their fanbases shrink faster.

Auburn University had the single fastest-shrinking fanbase in the nation from 2022 to 2023, losing 950,000 fans in a year, cutting its fanbase in half. It fell from the sixth most popular SEC team in 2022 to the 10th most popular in 2023.

The University of Florida’s fanbase shrank by 26%, Mississippi State’s by 22%, and the University of Missouri’s by 20%. The University of Texas-Austin, which is set to join the conference in the coming years, saw its fanbase shrink by 22%. If it were in the conference today, it would boast the fourth largest fanbase in the SEC. Fellow newcomer the University of Oklahoma would rank 6th.

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AL.com in partnership with the Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University conducted an analysis of college football fans. All analysis is based on a nationwide survey of 6,330 sports fans in the U.S. conducted in January, 2023 by marketing research firm SBRnet.

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Or questions about Alabama that data may be able to answer? Email Ramsey Archibald at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.