Social media are a superb way of assessing the impact a sports club makes. I thought it would be interesting to post the numbers each club has following its official twitter feed. Stats researched today 28th may.
A couple of observations. No surprise to see the Riders out front. They are THE club in our game. Slightly surprising to see the Esks so low. They do a fantastic job actually getting their fanbase into the stadium. Needless to say there is space as wide as a prairie for growth in the Big Eastern Motropoles. By way of contrast the Leafs have 337,985 and the Habs 406,645. I know I am comparing with iconic Hockey clubs and even Big league baseball suffers in comparison but it shows the huge citywide sportsfan bases there are.
The Riders' Facebook following (number of likes) is larger than twitter (130k). There was actually an article about the CFL social media footprints not too long ago.
Also as an aside to complete your numbers, the CFL twitter account has 47,755.
I think its generally recognised across all sports that twitter is a better marker for “hard” levels of support whereas facebook where numbers are almost always bigger marks “softer” support.
The Riders will still be ahead but EG the Als have 110,000 compared to the Ticats with 32,000 on facebook. The Also lead 3 to 1 on facebook but only 3 to 2 on twitter. Twitter more likely to be parallel with game attendance and merchandising sales.