College Teams with The Biggest Online Following: Ammended

     I wrote an article a short time ago:

College Teams with The Biggest Online Following

     It’s done surprisingly well…. almost 100,000 views, hundreds of comments, and dozens upon dozens of pms and emails. along with threads startedon dozens of boards to discuss its contents. 

     The gist was that I, having spent a great deal of time in a great many of the forums and message boards pertaining to college athletics, ranked the online following of the BCS schools.

     However, I made a few errors.  I stated that I was an expert, which many took as a serious statement.  It was only half so.  I do spend more time than most in a broader spectrum of message boards, but I am by no means an expert…. something I was showed by a number of fans.

     It turned out there were quite a few more boards out there than I had found in my travels.  Enough so that I was, in some cases, drastically wrong.  Not that this was a scientific list by any means…. many wanted to know exactly how I figured my list…. so, in a nutshell…

     Using Google, Alexa, and a number of other fan sites, I put together a list of just over 500 message boards and forums.  Most fell into one of three catagories… group pages (Rivals, Scout, ESPN), independent pages, and newspaper pages.  I looked at how many there were, how much traffic went to each, how even that traffic was.  For example, one team might have a huge number of fans on one site, and nothing to ppeak of anywhere else.  Another… Rutgers is a great example…. many scoffed at them being as high as I had them, but go look at Rivals, Scout, ESPN, the several large independent sites…. the Scarlet Knights might not have anything on a par with Ohio State’s Scout Boards, but they have a consistently large presence everywhere.

     Bear in mind, this is only about online following.  Just because a team’s stadium is huge, or they generate a ton of revenue, or are ranked #2…. doesn’t mean a damn thing about their online following.

     So, as I eat a bit of crow to correct myself, here is my modified list.  Thanks to the many fellow sports fans who took the time to interact with me…. spent hours talking to people across the country… and help inform me, and as a result, others.  For those who took the time to blast me, insult my mother because I said their fan base is lame…. bite me.  And now…

College Teams With The Biggest Online Following II.

1 Ohio State

2 Alabama

3 Florida State

4 USC

5 Rutgers

6 South Carolina

7 West Virginia

8 Nebraska

9 Penn State

10 Notre Dame

11 Texas

12 Oklahoma

13 LSU

14 Iowa

15 Georgia

16 Mississippi State

17 Michigan

18 Texas A&M

19Tennessee

20 Texas Tech

21 Purdue

22 Clemson

23 Miami (FL)

24 Louisville

25 Pittsburgh

26 Indiana

27 Missouri

28 Kentucky

29 UCLA

30 Florida

31 Northwestern

32 Kansas State

33 Arizona

34 Stanford

35 Ole Miss

36 Kansas

37 Arizona State

38 North Carolina

39 Arkansas

40 Duke

41 North Carolina State

42 Virginia

43 Oklahoma State

44 Michigan State

45 Wisconsin

46 Auburn

47 Georgia Tech

48 Virginia Tech

49 Brigham Young

50 Syracuse

51 Baylor

52 Temple

53 Maryland

54 Illinois

55 Boston College

56 South Florida

57 Minnesota

58 UCF

59 Houston

60 Iowa State

61 TCU

62 East Carolina

63 Cincinnati

64 Connecticut

65 Southern Methodist

66 Southern Miss

67 Tulsa