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I am not quite sure what caused me to go on this tangent but I decided to take a look at the National Football Leagues 32 teams and see who is embracing Twitter to reach out to their fans with an official Twitter account.

I must admit I did find some surprises during my research on this story.

Here is a summary of some of the things I came across:

  • 4 teams do not have a Twitter account. I searched their site and Twitter. ZERO – ZILCH. There are unofficial accounts on Twitter for these teams but nothing from the teams themselves.
  • 13 teams that have Twitter accounts do not have any link on their main page to it.  Some can be found by searching their site though.
  • Of the teams that have links to their Twitter accounts on their main page 6 are at the top; 4 are in the middle and 5 are at the bottom. Of those links 7 are graphic buttons and 8 are text links.
  • All teams, except two, that have a Twitter account were updated today. Of the remaining 2, one teams last update was yesterday and the other one was 21 Sep 2009!
  • The teams with the most Followers are (Top 5):
    • San Diego Chargers – 29,872
    • Oakland Raiders – 19,874
    • San Francisco 49ers – 19,269
    • Miami Dolphins – 18,029
    • Minnesota Vikings – 17,810
  • The teams on the most lists are (Top 5):
    • San Diego Chargers – 568
    • San Francisco 49ers – 514
    • New York Jets – 462
    • Minnesota Vikings – 433
    • Green Bay Packers – 422
  • The teams with the most tweets are (Top 5):
    • New York Jets – 2,922
    • Dallas Cowboys – 2,169
    • San Diego Chargers – 1,729
    • Baltimore Ravens – 1,640
    • Atlanta Falcons – 1,567

Here is an alphabetical listing of each team and their Twitter stats as collected from their Twitter pages today (11 Dec 2009).

The data is laid out like this:

  • Team Name
    • Twitter Account Link
    • Follows/Followers/Lists/Tweets
    • Twitter Link Location and type if on main page
    • Last update date

 

Of note:

  • The Oakland Raiders link on their main page takes you to their previous Twitter account (http://twitter.com/oakraiders) which has one Tweet sending everyone to their current account. Hmmm? Why not just link to the official account?
  • All of those teams with Twitter accounts indicate they are the official accounts in the Twitter bio except for two. The accounts of the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants do not have the word official anywhere on their Twitter page.

So there is your wrap up.  My conclusion is that most of the NFL teams have embraced the use of Twitter to stay in touch with their fans and keep their accounts up to date.  I am surprised at four teams not having any official Twitter account – I wonder what is keeping them from having one?