Yes, the entire country is awash in maize...

Other than Kansas, Kentucky, New York, maybe Tennessee, and maybe Connecticut, Michigan seems to be a favorite in every state.

The Sweet Sixteen map is stupid. Take the likes from back then but only show the four teams in the Final Four to make a reasonable comparison. 

is a naturally appealing team in basketball.  I don't really know why, but the national Michigan hoops bandwagon always fills up fast.  Faster than the local bandwagon actually.

Not "awashed." Please fix.

"We are, it seems, a nation of fair-weather fans (when it comes to March Madness, at least). Our allegiances change as circumstances change. It's always been that way -- and the whole structure of a tournament, of course, encourages fans to funnel their enthusiasms toward the teams that win. The difference now is that our fickleness, whether it's natural or structural or both, can now -- like so much else -- be tracked. And then presented back to us in a colorful chart."

But...no. If this data comes from facebook "likes" this doesn't mean that fans from other schools suddenly love UM and have piled on our page. It just means that you're dealing with a smaller number set with the other teams removed--this then reflects the distribution of the same "likes' as in the Sweet 16 map but with the "likes" of 12 other teams removed.

The logical explanation is the proximity of a Walmart to these locations.

It looks like they've even given us NYC.

I'm curious about Florida...is that all the snowbirds, or did the beating they just received convince them?

Makes sense. Louisville and Syracuse have had major scandals in the last few years and nobody really expects Wichita State to win it all. Plus Michigan has a pretty widespread fanbase anyways.

The state of Florida seems to have been made into a group of believers.

Cool map, but the author of the piece is pretty clueless if she thinks the changes are due to "fair-weather fans" coming over to our side, and not due to changes in the statistical sample.

wonder what's with the big pocket of W. St. fans in Oregon...

There is a great diaspora out of Michigan. That there are Michigan fans everywhere demonstrates the recognition of national brand, the largest alumni base and very likable young team. The workmanlike and positive style of Beilein isn't hurting the image either (compare to Pitino).

Although this is cool I think for many counties we are talking about a couple of people turning it for a certain team.  The article states that the maps were created using the FB pages had about 1M for all the teams.  If you dicide 1M by 64 (or you can do 30 if you want to be more conservative since a few teams probably had a BIG chunk of all those likes). But if working with 64, that means that each team site had about 15K likes.  If you divide that by the number of counties in the US (and also consider that a great majority of the likes are going to be near the school), then I would bet that many counties were "won" becuase of 1 or 2 people that lived there that liked a certain school.  So although cool, I think it is hard to really see whether the majority of each county roots for a particular school (outside of the states that are playing).

So Michigan is has more fans than

• A commuter school in Kentucky
• A regional basketball school in Kansas who is not KSU or KU
• And Syracuse?

I am shocked

I think what this is saying is that the majority of fans of teams of the final four are michigan fans, and the majority of fans of teams in the final four by county are michigan fans. That really isn't that surprising as there are Michigan fans everywhere. It doesn't mean that suddenly everyone in Ohio is rooting for Michigan. 

You can't draw any conclusions about "bandwagoners" or how "many" fans each remaining school has... look at the metrics. It's merely how many Facebook Likes a given school has in a particular county.

If one 10th grader in the middle of East Nowheresville, Montana, is the only person in a county of 2,000 people who happened to Like (capitalized) Michigan, and no one in that county Likes Syracuse, Wichita State, or Louvull, then by Facebook's metrics that county is rooting for Michigan . When you put it in context, it's not that surprising, considering that Michigan is easily the most famous school (on a national level) of the remaining four. You can extrapolate that idea across the rest of the nation, particularly in states where Michigan has sizable alumni communities (like California, NYC, and Philadelphia); also, considering the scope and breadth of the NCAA tournament, you have to figure that on a regional level, most of the counties that are technically "rooting" for Michigan were probably pulling for a more local team that has since been eliminated... which would explain California, since UCLA and Cal are both out; Florida, because of Miami and UF (the three people rooting for FGCU before they beat Georgetown are PROBABLY insignificant); Arizona; and so on.

Still, it's comforting to know that people Like us?

"We don't need no Bandwagon Fans btw #GoBlue #WeOn #GatorDinner"

Woah... We are losing our hold on the southeastern area of Alaska.... I remember seeing a map before the tourny and it was all maize and no green (staee) but there is a lousiville pocket there??

Er...Go Maize !?

No, Go Blue!  Definitely Go Blue!

Objectively which has to be the most fun to watch to the casual observer? Has to be Michigan right?

Had to create an account just to post this. This UM vs State comparison is worth sharing.