Sometimes random questions pop in to my head when I am browsing the Internet. Recently, while browsing Facebook and coming across a Phillies-related image, which I shared on the Macho Row Facebook page, I was curious how the Phillies measured up on Facebook compared to the rest of Major League Baseball.
After looking up some Facebook pages I learned the Phillies are one of ten franchises with at least 1 million Facebook likes. Compared to the rest of the league, the Phillies rank ninth in Like totals, edging out the Detroit Tigers and just a sliver behind the NL East rival Atlanta Braves.
As you might expect, no team has more likes than the New York Yankees, who blow away the competition with over 6 million likes, nearly doubling the Boston Red Sox (the only other team with more than 1.8 million likes).
| Rank | Team | Facebook Likes |
| 1 | New York Yankees | 6,335,862 |
| 2 | Boston Red Sox | 3,809,004 |
| 3 | Chicago Cubs | 1,764,119 |
| 4 | San Francisco Giants | 1,686,850 |
| 5 | Texas Rangers | 1,468,325 |
| 6 | St. Louis Cardinals | 1,393,351 |
| 7 | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1,360,622 |
| 8 | Atlanta Braves | 1,305,779 |
| 9 | Philaedlphia Phillies | 1,302,776 |
| 10 | Detroit Tigers | 1,198,808 |
The Phillies are among the leaders when it comes to Twitter though. The Phillies are second only to the Yankees among MLB franchises when it comes to Twitter followers. The Phillies and Yankees are the only franchises with over 460,000 followers (Yankees at 889,192 and Phillies with 758,249 followers).
Do these numbers really mean anything? Probably not but here are a few points I took from this little exercise:
– It is no surprise the Yankees lead the way on both social networks. They are, after all, the most popular sports franchise in North America and they are one of the few franchises from the United States followed and recognized internationally.
– It is incredibly easy to like a product on Facebook, and many people will like just about anything. With as wide an audience as the Yankees have, it is no surprise to see such a huge disparity in Facebook likes between the Yankees and the rest of the league (the Yankees have roughly 2 million more Facebook likes than MLB itself).
– The Atlanta Braves used to be nicknamed America's Team back when games were regularly broadcast on TBS. Now years separated from that era, the Braves are still popular on a wide scale, ranking in the top ten for Facebook and Twitter followers.
– The Washington Nationals are still building up their fan base and the social networking metrics show that. The Nationals rank 32nd out of 32 MLB Facebook profiles (including MLB's official page and the MLB Fan Cave) with a league-worst 222,197 Facebook likes. The Nationals do better with Twitter, ranked 22nd out of 32 accounts with 120,862 followers.
– Twitter officially launched in 2006. Since Twitter's debut, the top four franchises in Twitter followers have won at least one World Series (Phillies, Yankees, Red Sox, Giants). Odds are there is nothing to this, but I would guess that teams making a World Series run receive at least a bit of a push in followers in October. this would require a little deeper digging in to Twitter follower counts, broken down by month and/or week.
Source: Facebook, Fan Page List
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