The three teams I examined for the final lab were the East Coast teams I have been studying, including the Yankees, Red Sox, and Orioles. The first aspect I examined the tweets for was to see what language tweets were made in. I was not surprised to see that nearly all tweets were in English for these three teams. This is most likely the case because although baseball is known worldwide, it is most popular in the United States the MLB being the greatest stage for professional baseball. All teams play in the US except for the Blue Jays that are located in Canada. I used a one week span to determine how often a day these teams were tweeted about and there is a distinction between the three of them.
The Yankees generate the most tweets per day in comparison to the other two largely due to their popularity as a franchise. The New York Yankees are a team that most non-baseball followers would know about, while say not every person knows about the Cincinnati Reds. When I think about the popularity of the Yankees even through pop culture, the first thing that comes to mind is when watching movies individuals that are foreign from the US learn that the “American” they are talking to is from New York, they immediately shout, “New York, Go Yankees!” I always find this funny, but any team that wins the World Series 27 times is bound to be pretty well known and is either extremely popular or unpopular. Regardless, they are tweeted about very often. Next most popular is the Boston Red Sox, another well known team around the globe and known to have some of the most loyal fans in any city including the other major sports teams such as the Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics. At Trinity, and personally living with seven Red Sox fans with me being the sole Yankee fan in the room, Boston fans cheer for their teams with a deeper passion than you see for most other organizations. The Yankees and Red Sox are polled as the top 2 most popular teams in 2015 and have been for many years. This is also seen through their average home game attendance statistics ranging in the top tier of all MLB teams. The Orioles generate the least amount of tweets in comparison mostly due to being a financially neutral team. They do not spend a whole lot of money and cannot make huge splashes with player personnel to push them into the same tier as the other two teams. However in recent years the Orioles have become quite the powerhouse and are improving their popularity. But, they are still a middle of the pack team. If I were to repeat this study for my other three teams; San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres I would expect similar results with the Dodgers and Giants at the top and the Padres located somewhere in the middle.
The number of tweets each team gets is largely due to that teams particular popularity. The only way a teams tweets on any given day could spike would be because some significant event must have occurred for the team including major deals involving players or the teams general identity. Nothing significant occurred over this week span that is why the tweets followed a similar percentage or trend throughout the week. This could change throughout the year based on how the team performs throughout the season. If any particular team gets on a hot streak their twitter popularity could rise and vice versa if they perform poorly. Especially at the end of the year as playoffs approach, if a team is in contention you can be sure to see their twitter popularity rise. Since these tweets occurred before the start of the season, their tweets per day are largely based on the overall identity of the team.
Knight, Compiled By Graham. “2016 MLB Ballpark Attendance.” 2016 Major League Baseball Attendance. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.
Poll, The Harris. “Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs Top List of America’s Favorite Baseball Teams.” Sports. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.