A social media company named Proofpoint analyzed the Facebook accounts of 12 NFL teams during the first three weeks of January, and came to some interesting conclusions about fans of those 12 teams during those three weeks.
Dallas Cowboys fans were the most active fanbase, commenting over 247,000 times on the team’s Facebook activity in the chosen sample. They were followed by fans of the Green Bay Packers (157,000+ comments), New England Patriots (134,000+ comments), Baltimore Ravens (86,000+ comments), and Pittsburgh Steelers (81,000+ fans). I’m sure most of those comments on the Cowboys page were related to the team’s controversial win over the Lions in the Wild Card round, and the team’s controversial loss to the Packers in the Divisional round. There’s also no determination as to whether or not the comments are specifically from fans of that team, or fans of other teams simply trolling. That also helps explain the advantage held by the Cowboys page.
Proofpoint also looked at profanity on the pages of the 12 playoff teams, and the Pittsburgh Steelers came out way ahead. 6.15% of the comments on the Steelers page contained profanity, far and away the highest percentage. In second were Pittsburgh’s rival, the Baltimore Ravens (1.62%), and in third were the New England Patriots at 1.13%. I don’t think it’s strange that those teams are at the top of the charts – the Steelers lost a brutal game to their hated rival, and there was likely a lot of trolling and frustration going back and forth between Steelers and Ravens fans.
On the opposite side of the coin, the Panthers, Broncos, and Seahawks saw the least amount of negative content on their Facebook pages. The Broncos one shocks me a bit – I figured there would be much more anger after the team’s one and done performance during this playoff season.
While I appreciate what Proofpoint tried to do here, there are too many variables towards determining what fanbase is the most negative and what fanbase is the most positive simply by looking at Facebook comments. The sample they used was extremely tiny, and by simply concentrating on overall Facebook comments, Proofpoint failed to account for opposing fans purposely trying to rile up their rivals. It’s not all that accurate to say “Steelers fans are the most negative on Facebook” when one profane comment by a Ravens fan could result in 20 profane comments directed towards that Ravens fan.
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