• Papa Johns surveyed more than 4,000 football fans nationwide to gauge their favorite pizza styles and eating habits.
  • Sixteen percent said they eat their crust first, while 3% don’t eat the crust at all, the survey found.

Related: Creating a lighter deep-dish pizza crust

Detroit-inspired pizza is red-hot these days, but most football fans still dig a New York-style pie, according to a recent survey from Papa Johns.

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, the chain surveyed 4,000-plus football fans from major cities across the U.S. as part of a promotion for its own New York-style pizza, which debuted in December.

According to the survey, 86% of football fans interviewed nationwide are likely to eat New York-style pizza. The New York style is also the most preferred city-specific pizza style, with 31% saying they prefer and eat it all the time. Chicago deep-dish and Detroit-style pizza battled for a close second and third; 19% prefer deep-dish while 18% choose Detroit-style (18%).

Additional survey findings include:

  • About one in three football fans interviewed (35%) like to fold their pizza slice. More than half of football fans in New York City (55%) prefer to fold.
  • Football fans in Cincinnati like it saucy, with 53% saying they enjoy garlic butter as a condiment with their pizza.
  • A surprising number of football fans eat their pizza crust-first (16%), especially on the West Coast. More than one in four Los Angeles fans (27%) and nearly one in four San Francisco fans (23%) eat their pizza this way.
  • Less than one in twenty-five football fans interviewed always leave their crust behind (3%). In fact, 100% of fans surveyed in Nashville, Jacksonville, Pittsburg, Charlotte, Baltimore and New Orleans sometimes or always eat their pizza crust. However, 6% of football fans in San Francisco and Los Angeles always discard their crust.
  • Unsurprisingly, New York-style pizza is the most desired style for New York football fans (with 93% indicating a preference for it). But Miami fans love it equally as much (92%). It’s a favorite in Denver too, where 89% of respondents show a preference for it.
  • Fifty percent of respondents say they prefer New York-style pizza but can’t (or don’t) eat it often.
  • Football fans said they prefer pepperoni pizza over any other topping tested (with 78% saying they sometimes or always select it when building their own pizza), including plain/extra cheese (70%).
  • Does pineapple belong on pizza? Roughly one in ten respondents (11%) say yes and always order it on their pie.

Papa Johns fans can show off their pizza-eating style on Twitter or Instagram with the #WhatsYourStyle #sweepstakes by Feb. 16 for a chance to win free pizza for a year. Visit papajohns.com/whatsyourstyle-sweeps/ for more details and official sweepstakes rules.

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