Yes, the entire country is awash in maize...
According to Facebook, there are Michigan fans EVERYWHERE (duh!). Still nice to see that our fanbase is stronger than everyone else.
Other than Kansas, Kentucky, New York, maybe Tennessee, and maybe Connecticut, Michigan seems to be a favorite in every state.
They also are still bitter about the Civil War, but that's another discussion.
Eastern Tennessee (where Knoxville is) tried to secede from Tennessee so they could stay loyal to the Union, and because they were mostly poor back-country farmers who didn't really have any interest in slavery. They were sorta like West Virginia, except that they were far more isolated from the rest of the Union, what with Kentucky being a warzone and all the other states surrounding them being in rebellion.
about it. I work for a global company that has a manufacturing plant in Knoxville. I hear it once a month when I go there for meetings etc. They have a shrine of Manning in the cafateria. They are angry and bitter about it all. I have to remind them that Manning did not practically single-handedly win a NC.
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.
Fan support going into the sweet 16 by area of the country. Look at the state of Michigan and the fan split between MSU & Michigan.
Suck that WJR & Freep.
![[optional image description]](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/assets_c/2013/04/fb-thumb-570x329-117705.png)
LOL. The state of Michigan looks like SpongeBob's head.
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.
Sure hope you're right... Otherwise it looks like all the fake duke fans switched teams..... :-/ Anyone who's capable of rooting for a team like Duke should never even look in Michigan's direction.
Say it ain't so! I was really hoping the 2nd map meant that even E Lansing has switched allegiances.
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?
Maybe a little of both? There are *a lot* of Michigan/Midwestern transplants here in Florida -- people of all ages. Also, I think many FSU fans like Michigan right now simply because they love seeing Florida lose :)
Battered person syndrome.
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.
Does anyone seriously think that all of Ohio suddenly "likes" Michigan or has switched allegiances to us since OSU crapped out?
wonder what's with the big pocket of W. St. fans in Oregon...
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"
Er...Go Maize !?
No, Go Blue! Definitely Go Blue!
Had to create an account just to post this. This UM vs State comparison is worth sharing.
