The Philadelphia 76ers have been highly criticized over recent seasons under general manager and President of Basketball Operations, Sam Hinkie. Their "tanking" strategy, deliberately losing in order to gain a higher draft pick, has been looked down upon by most national experts. Fans in Philadelphia have praised their motives, however, as they seek the franchise to return to their once dominant, championship-winning stature in the league that has not been seen since the mid-1980s.
Another aspect highly praised as of late by Sixers fans is their presence on social media. It's not just the players, such as Joel Embiid, tweeting to fans and drawing attention, its the team account as well. Led by the efforts of Sixers.com writer Max Rappaport, @Sixers has been nationally recognized as one of the best Twitter accounts in the NBA.
The Sixers have everything figured out. They have a set, clear plan moving forward, and are doing all the right things to appease their fans during the rebuilding process. Even their newly revealed mascot, Franklin, has a Twitter account and can interact with young fans 24/7, 365 days a year.
Philadelphia's baseball team however, in the Phillies, are the all-apparent antithesis of recent actions made by the Josh Harris-owned 76ers. The Phillies have had a losing record for three consecutive seasons, after having won the National League East five consecutive seasons prior from 2007 through 2011. While the team appears to be finally be in the rebuilding process, fan trust in ownership and general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is at an all-time low.
Sean Dolinar, data journalist for FanGraphs.com, released three interesting graphics Monday afternoon which go on to prove the Philadelphia Phillies' lack of thrust in the social media market as well, in comparison to the city's basketball team.
The first graphic provides insight into the amount of tweets each day per MLB team account. The darker the shade of green, the more often the account has tweeted for that respective day.
(Phillies rank: 27/30)
The second graphic is solely based on content of the tweets, rather than quantity, as a simple bar graph. Tweets with media relates to pictures, Vines (seven-second video clips), GIFs, YouTube links, etc.
(Phillies rank: 22/30)
The third and final graphic represents Twitter engagement, or the total sum of "retweets", "favorites", and "replies" to other accounts. For the Phillies, their engagement is largely made up of favorites, with very little use of the other two methods of interaction on the social media site.
(Phillies rank: 24/30)
Clearly, the Phillies have a lot of work to do if they want to win back full support from fans that filled the stands for 257 consecutive home games at Citizens Bank Park from July 7, 2009 to August 6, 2012. Perhaps mirroring some of the Sixers' actions would not be a bad idea for the franchise.
(H/t Phillies Nation's Jon Nisula)
Matt Rappa (@mattrappa) is a contributor to Philliedelphia.com.
