MANILA, Philippines – There are 30 teams in the NBA, but there are obviously some that stand out as the most popular of the crew.
That’s also the case in the Philippines, where team support could be predicated on different aspects. But taking social media presence, TV ratings, and sales into the equation, which franchises are the most popular in the country?
“We look at, for example, following on social media and the ratings of our games on television. Merchandise sales and things like that. It’s who you would normally suspect would be the most popular teams here,” said NBA Philippines country manager Carlo Singson on Tuesday, April 19.
“It’s the Lakers,” was the first team he mentioned, before continuing: “The Warriors. The Heat are very popular. The Chicago Bulls are still extremely popular. The Boston Celtics. So those are some of the most popular teams in the league here.
“When you look at some of those teams, you’re not surprised.”
Out of the 5 teams Singson named, 3 are currently in the NBA playoffs (Golden State, Miami, Boston). The other two – Los Angeles and Chicago – have a combined 22 NBA titles.
Each team also had a popular face to the franchise this past season. The Lakers, of course, had Kobe Bryant. The Warriors play reigning league MVP Steph Curry. The Heat deploy Dwyane Wade. The Bulls utilize both Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler. The Celtics found a new All-Star in Isaiah Thomas.
As of this moment, here are the social media numbers for each team:
- The Lakers 4.67 million followers on Twitter and 21,635,350 people who like their Facebook page
- The Warriors have 1.61 million followers on Twitter and 6,955,090 people who like their Facebook page
- The Heat has 3.31 million followers on Twitter and 16,147,071 people who like its Facebook page
- The Bulls have 2.57 million followers on Twitter and 18,318,275 people who like their Facebook page
- The Celtics have 1.85 million followers on Twitter and 8,680,217 people who like their Facebook page
Singson pointed out that the 5 mentioned teams aren’t necessarily the top 5 in order, in terms of popularity. Of course, there’s a chance LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder, and maybe even Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs also make the cut.
But this much as clear: the rise in popularity of the Warriors has been noteworthy over the past year. There’s always been a Filipino following for the team, but that surged even more with the franchise’s recent NBA title.
“I’ve seen it, personally. There’s just a lot more noise on social media…a lot more jersey sales, a lot more t-shirt sales on the Warriors,” said Singson. The NBA has 3 NBA stores in Manila.
“They’re always re-ordering and re-supplying. In terms of our games on television, there’s been a few more Warriors games than there’s been.
“I always thought that the Warriors were a popular team in the Philippines because of the Filipino connection with Golden State and the Bay Area,” he added. “They haven’t just been as vocal, until recently, but when they won the championship last year, the floodgates were open.”
Social media impact
The NBA has 29,505,885 people who like their Facebook page. That’s more than tthe 3 major professional US sports leagues combined: the NFL has 13,565,565; NHL, 4,109,569; and MLB 6,391,522.
A big reason why the NBA has that number of Facebook subscribers is because of the Philippines where, according to Singson, the league gets its most traffic on the social media platform outside of the US.
“The Philippines is our number one originator of traffic outside of the US, to the NBA global Facebook page. If you think about that for a moment, after the US, the Philippines is number one internationally in terms of visitors to NBA Facebook,” he said.
There’s even more surprising news. If you break down the source of the viewership, it turns out Metro Manila, which has a population estimated at 12 million people according to worldpopulationreview.com, gives the league’s Facebook page the most traffic.
“And we look at those surveys from where the traffic was coming from and breaking that down by cities, Manila is the number one in the world, in terms of traffic to Facebook….That’s more than New York, more than any other city in the world,” said Singson. – Rappler.com