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The Most Popular NBA Teams by Twitter and Facebook Fans

January 13, 2010 – Dr. Anklesnap


We all know that the NBA has been pushing Twitter like it nobody’s business for the past season and a half. And the popularity of facebook speaks for itself. So are the days of monitoring “which NBA team sells the most jersey’s” behind us? Have sports, particularly basketball, fully entered into the Web 2.0 age?

Regardless, I received a ‘tweet’ from @adamsherk to my twitter account to be quite interesting and thought i’d share with you. Adam Sherk has researched which NBA teams have the most followers on Twitter and Facebook. In the world of social media which NBA team kicks the most ass? It looks like the usual suspects are at the top of the list with the most twitter/facebook followers; the Lakers, Cavaliers, Magic, Celtics, etc.

A few things surprised me however:

1. How low the New York Knicks were all the way down at #12. Don’t get me wrong, the Knicks have been a brutal team for years now, and probably don’t deserve half the fans they still have, but on pure volume alone you would think the Knicks would be leading the pack.

2. The Miami Heat are at #27 of 30 teams? Hmmm….where are all the Heat fans on the ‘net? I guess they are all partying it up at the clubs and forgot to check their Heat Facebook Fan Page….

3. The Toronto Raptors at #14 is not bad. Sort of middle of the pack. But given what i’ve seen as an NBA blogger for a few years, the Raps fans seem to be everywhere. Or maybe its just that they are more vocal and rabid. Hell maybe its just because they are too busy on Raptors Republic to bother checking facebook or twitter. Either way I was surprised I didn’t see Toronto in the Top 5.

4. Is using facebook against the law in Orlando? How is it that they have 985,000 followers on Twitter but they only came in at a whopping 85,000 facebok fans? That’s just pure laziness people!

5. Conversely for the Celtics they only have a mere 25,000 twitter followers, but have a massive 481,000 facebook fans! Damn, I guess it may be due to the fact they won their recent championship before twitter hit its peak in popularity. Or maybe they are just getting all their Celtics needs at Celtics Blog and Reds Army to care about twitter’s updates.

Here is the full table from AdamSherk.com:

Twitter Facebook Total
1 Los Angeles Lakers 1,415,871 657,007 2,072,878
2 Orlando Magic 983,232 85,265 1,068,497
3 Boston Celtics 25,605 481,879 507,484
4 Cleveland Cavaliers 33,445 166,021 199,466
5 Chicago Bulls 26,161 155,827 181,988
6 San Antonio Spurs 19,901 90,550 110,451
7 Denver Nuggets 15,188 87,300 102,488
8 Houston Rockets 20,195 81,535 101,730
9 Dallas Mavericks 15,817 72,015 87,832
10 Phoenix Suns 21,896 64,976 86,872
11 Portland Trail Blazers 14,684 65,801 80,485
12 New York Knicks 14,395 43,972 58,367
13 Utah Jazz 11,785 44,328 56,113
14 Toronto Raptors 5,605 41,611 47,216
15 Milwaukee Bucks 7,089 37,197 44,286
16 Sacramento Kings 10,798 19,855 30,653
17 Golden State Warriors 2,655 27,826 30,481
18 Philadelphia 76ers 12,048 17,877 29,925
19 Indiana Pacers 7,204 14,760 21,964
20 Los Angeles Clippers 13,531 7,291 20,822
21 Washington Wizards 6,787 13,579 20,366
22 Atlanta Hawks 8,170 11,893 20,063
23 Oklahoma City Thunder 8,911 10,981 19,892
24 Detroit Pistons 9,537 7,854 17,391
25 Minnesota Timberwolves 6,554 10,742 17,296
26 New Jersey Nets 4,945 10,361 15,306
27 Miami Heat 13,870 599 14,469
28 Memphis Grizzlies 7,062 6,793 13,855
29 Charlotte Bobcats 5,502 7,281 12,783
30 New Orleans Hornets 8,459 1,647 10,106

P.S. if you’re not following us on our facebook or twitter accounts than what are you waiting for? And aside from our facebook blog page, this post today just sparked us to finally set up a facebook fan page. So don’t forgot to join The Hoop Doctors community there as well!

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