Facebook map of rooting interest by county for tournament

Submitted by UMxWolverines on

Yeah I know, facebook is the devil. I just thought this was interesting. It shows the rooting interest by county for each region, plus they show the rooting interest by county for three rivalries: Duke-UNC, Michigan-msu, and Kansas-KSU. The Michigan-msu split will probably make you chuckle. 

https://www.facebook.com/notes/sports-on-facebook/march-madness-fandom-…

Everyone Murders

March 18th, 2013 at 5:30 PM ^

The Michigan / MSU rivalry map is inconclusive because it's only of the U.S.  A conclusive map would have to include all the galaxies that are in the MSU recruiting footprint.

That aside, the U.S. map (and the State of Michigan in particular) seems to have a pleasant maize hue, with relatively few patches of green.  Unsurprising, but gratifying all the same.

UMfanUConnalum

March 18th, 2013 at 5:50 PM ^

How was this data collected? It shows Connecticut mostly rooting for the ACC, I can assure you that almost everyone from here is a UConn supporter or Big East fan.

OMG Shirtless

March 18th, 2013 at 6:01 PM ^

According to the article thing, it's based on "liking" the school/team page

Over 1 million US Facebook users have liked a page for one of the 68 teams attending the tournament. By mapping out where these fans currently live we can see how regions and states will be dividing their loyalty and filling out their brackets this March.

DealerCamel

March 18th, 2013 at 6:42 PM ^

I remember the day I discovered that not everyone in America was a Michigan fan.  We were in Florida and there were no John Navarre jerseys to be found in stores anywhere.  It was that day I learned what regional sports were.

jaysvw

March 18th, 2013 at 7:00 PM ^

.....it's funny to see the B10 holding down Maricopa Co in AZ considering it's the home to ASU, the biggest university in the PAC12.

LSAClassOf2000

March 18th, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^

I will say, in regards to the Michigan-Michigan State map, that you must indeed be making national inroads when more people "like" your Facebook page in major metropolitan the Wisconsin Dells, northern Minnesota, northeast Nevada, and along the Idaho-Montana border. It would be interesting - albeit unscientific admittedly - to overlay this with the last denstiy map from the US Census.

Soulfire21

March 19th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^

I wonder how accurate all this is given it says over 1 million people have liked a page related to the 68 universities participating in this year's NCAA tournament.  The population of the country is 315,492,000, so we're talking small sample size.

And, you're right, what's more interesting is to see how many Facebook users there are in the US.  Turns out there are 163,071,460 facebook users in the United States.  Of all of them, we're only seeing < 1% (~ 0.6% for those curious minds).

Still, was fun and interesting to read.  Would do again, maybe.