Its starting to feel like winter, so I'll throw out an oddball topic for you:

What state has the third most Royals fans?

Kansas and Missouri are easily 1-2 and while Missouri has over three million more residents than the Sunflower State, I reckon that's a pretty tight battle for primacy in terms of raw numbers.

As for number three? I see the contenders as Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa and Arkansas.

Nebraska should probably be the favorite, but I contend that 1) the Royals have never fully maximized their presence there 2) the years of horribleness have eroded the fanbase 3) years of cable have severly weakened the secondary markets of teams and 4) the Cubs have made significant inroads. You could probably throw in a #5 too: the all-ecompasing effort required to support the Huskers has always made pro sports weak to begin with in Nebraska.

However, items 2-5 could easily be applied to Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas to varying degrees as well.

I'll throw another factor out there: nobody lives in Nebraska.

Seriously, the population of Nebraska is tiny. At 1.7 M people, Kansas outpopulates it by a million. You could take the Kansas side of Metro-KC out of Kansas, and Kansas still wins.

Here are the populations of the states in question: Oklahoma 3.5 M, Iowa 2.9 M, Arkansas 2.8 M, Nebraska 1.7 M.  Oklahoma is not a large state, and it still is twice the size of Nebraska.

So let's speculate, is Nebraska rabid enough to make up the difference?

I'm intrigued by Oklahoma, especially since the Royals are fairly close to Tulsa and have a radio presence there.

Should we maybe consider transplants? Could California be in play? 36 M people live in California. If one out of every 50 people in Nebraska is a Royals fan, that comes out to 35,366 people. If one out of every 1,000 people in California is a Royals fan that comes out to ... 36,457. Lets plant an affiliate in Sierra Madre NOW!

More speculation: I think we can throw Iowa out. The only remotely Royal-strongholds are in western Iowa, which borders Nebraska, and is, shockingly, also empty. The Royals may be the third most popular team in Iowa (Cubs, Cardinals) but I wouldn't even bet on that.... Arkansas is a sleeping giant and is nearly virgin territory, but may not be much of a baseball hotbed... Do many KCers end up in Chicago? Could we consider Illinois?