Baseball features some of the most intense sports rivalries in the country: even just mentioning Yankees vs. Red Sox can turn a grown man into a mindless sports fanatic.
Strangely enough, this sort of rivalry is one of the reasons baseball is still so popular today.
That being said, no one's ever really mapped out where baseball fans are.
Sure, the general locations of Yankees fans and Red Sox fans are pretty easy to figure out, but what about the Rocky Mountains, or the Southwest?
Well, if you've ever wondered what team people in Hawaii are rooting for, ponder no longer: Facebook just mapped out Major League Baseball and all of its fans:
The last two photos show the teams with the biggest expansion last year. Surprise, surprise - the two teams that faced off in the World Series, the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals, saw the biggest increase in fans.
It wasn't all about maps, though, because Facebook did quite a bit of digging, and found plenty of info on baseball fans:
- Yankees are the most-liked team by county overall, and have a plurality of fans in at least one county in 24 states.
- Royals have a plurality of fans in more Kansas and Nebraska counties than in their home state of Missouri.
- No US counties have a plurality of fans who like the New York Mets, Oakland Athletics or Toronto Blue Jays. However, the Blue Jays dominate most of Canada; the Facebook data team included Canadian census divisions this year.
- While the Dodgers dominate Southern California, the Giants have a plurality of fans in counties across Northern California and the the middle ground of Central California.
- Despite being sandwiched between the Rockies and Diamondbacks, and being close to teams like the Dodgers and Angels, it's the Yankees and Red Sox that have a plurality of fans in most counties.
- Giants have a plurality of fans on all but one Hawaiian Island. The Yankees dominate Oahu, where capital Honolulu is located.
If there's one thing that anyone can take from this study, it's that no matter where you go...the Yankees fans will find you. They will always find you.
Photo: Mathew Ingram | Flickr
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