Radio World column maps NFL radio affiliates by county seat

Radio World has published a map of NFL radio affiliates by county. Its author, Nick Langan, wrote it for Nick's Signal Spot, a new feature on RF signals, propagation and equipment.

Langan updated the database of his RadioLand app with every NFL team radio affiliate for the 2026–27 season. He then used the app's projected AM and FM field strengths to find the strongest affiliate at the county seat of every US county. The dataset leaves out national Westwood One broadcasts. It includes the separate network the Dallas Cowboys run with Compass Media Networks.

The numbers

The analysis covered 3,139 county seats, made up of 3,109 counties and 30 Alaskan boroughs. It identified 886 full-power affiliates, excluding translators: 495 FM and 391 AM. Of those, 27 are 50 kW AM stations, among them 700 WLW in Cincinnati for the Bengals, 640 KFI in Los Angeles for the Chargers, 1120 KMOX in St. Louis for the Chiefs and 660 WFAN in New York for the Giants.

The top five teams by affiliate count:

• Dallas Cowboys: 91 (54 FM, 37 AM)
• Kansas City Chiefs: 86 (51 FM, 35 AM)
• Minnesota Vikings: 69 (42 FM, 27 AM)
• Denver Broncos: 58 (26 FM, 32 AM)
• Green Bay Packers: 48 (35 FM, 13 AM)

Some stations sit far from their team. WLCL(FM) in the Louisville, Kentucky, market carries the Baltimore Ravens because of Lamar Jackson's University of Louisville roots. KCUB(AM) in Tucson, Arizona, carries the Carolina Panthers because of former Arizona Wildcat Tetairoa McMillan. KRWR(FM) in Tyler, Texas, carries the Kansas City Chiefs because it is Patrick Mahomes' hometown. The Buffalo Bills reach into Wyoming, where Josh Allen played college football, and the Seattle Seahawks have a large footprint across Alaska.

Method

FM propagation was modelled with JUDY, a machine-learning model developed by Langan's Villanova student Minh Bigting. AM used a contour-based extraction model. A station needed a projected field strength of at least 40 dBuV/m. An FM signal of 60 dBuV/m or more at the county seat won outright, and FM was prioritized over AM. Translators counted only above 90 dBuV/m, because the model can give them disproportionate weight.

Langan collected affiliate lists from official team websites, then from Wikipedia where those were out of date, with several rounds of verification. He notes that AI tools make it easy to publish a large dataset without scrutinizing it, and says some errors may remain. The interactive map and the full dataset are online in the RadioLand NFL Affiliate Map Project.

Source: Radio World