Champions On the Field, Champions in Social Media
The San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers on Sunday to win their second World Series in three years. Amidst the post-morning hangover celebrations, the four games of the World Series were the lowest rated World Series games ever according to Nielsen TV ratings. This news by old metrics is very worrying, as many in the media already proclaim America’s pastime to be out of touch with today’s youth. Yet this is the difference between measurements of success ten years ago and success today. With more people streaming games online, traditional measures may not adequately reflect the impact the World Series made on the general public. We have already covered the various records that baseball broke this playoffs on social media. And despite the low TV ratings, the social media impact continues to roll in. MLB.com reports that there was a total of 1,202,706 social media comments during the game, including 171,024 within five minutes of Sergio Romo closing out the series. In addition, the same article mentions a total of 10,671,781 total social media comments throughout the playoffs, which is double last season.
The San Francisco Giants were at the forefront of Twitter, peaking at a Klout score as high as President Obama. Lead by Bryan Srabian, the team achieved this through a series of hashtags, including #OrangeOctober, #SFGiants, #rallyZito, and #rallyEnchilada. The team’s official Twitter account currently has over 350,000 followers, while their Facebook fan page has over 1.6 million fans, tops in baseball. They have also added 6726 Twitter followers in the 24 hour span after winning the title. Of course, having a championship teams helps interest. But the San Francisco Giants maximized their fans’ passion to create a larger narrative.
The Night James Harden Almost Broke Twitter
If the SF Giants signaled the pinnacle of team sports, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey set out last Saturday night to create his own legacy by trading for James Harden. Yahoo NBA writer Adrian Wojnarowski’s tweet breaking the news was retweeted 3719 times, with many confused reactions. The details of the trade received 3732 retweets. Former teammate Kevin Durant’s reaction was succinct. It was retweeted 24,805 times.
