MONTREAL, QC — This week Forbes magazine released their report titled “America’s Best Sports Fans.”
It’s an interesting title for the piece given that the fans of the Montreal Canadiens are ranked No. 11. That’s you!
To determine their rankings Forbes enlisted outside help to rank all teams from the four major North-American sports leagues on three sets of criteria.
They looked at strength of the fanbase as determined by “a team’s drawing power in its home market and nationwide.” The Canadiens were second in average home attendance in the NHL and seventh on the road.
Merchandise sales was the next metric to be calculated for each team. The Habs brand recognition and loyalty is very strong driven by a world-wide market.
Lastly, a survey of American sports teams was done to determine the in-market popularity of each team. With all due respect to the Alouettes for the purposes of this survey, the Canadiens are essentially the only game in town.
Here’s what Forbes had to say about that, “With 24 Stanley Cups, the Canadiens rule the NHL, historically speaking. They are the only team in the “Big Four” professional leagues in the province of Quebec.”
The top four teams in each league (NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA) were then ranked for the final list. The four NHL teams are in order: Detroit (No. 3 overall), Pittsburgh (No. 6), Montreal (No. 11), and Chicago (No. 16).
The Forbes survey is well-respected but rather traditional in its metrics to determine fan support.
As social media continues to carve out a role in connecting sports fans, measures of assessment may have to recognize their influence. Filling the vacuum is an interesting website called Sports Fan Graph maintained by Coyle Media. The site “tracks the number of fans who like teams on Facebook and follow teams on Twitter.”
If you don’t understand the significance of terms such as “follow” or “like” you may wish to track down the nearest adolescent for a quick lesson. It is a measure of the connections one makes in his or her community.
Canadiens fans rank first in the NHL in the use of both Twitter and Facebook. They number almost 400,000 users when combined.
For all the talk from the NHL offices about playing a pioneering role in the new media, the statistics don’t support their claim. Despite being on top of hockey world, Canadiens have only one-tenth of the social media totals when compared to teams from other sports like Barcelona or the Los Angeles Lakers and don’t make the top 30 when all sports are considered.
The NHL has just over one million total followers. By contrast, the NBA is approaching six million users.
All of this means only one thing. For all you holdouts, its time to get on Twitter and Facebook to connect with fellow Canadiens fans.
In part two of this article, we’ll look at social media from a hockey perspective.
You can find Sports Fan Graph here.
(photo credit: Getty)