FanSection Blog

2008 was a banner year across college football with lots of upsets, epic battles, and of course the standard BCS controversy.  Not only did we get all of the traditional excitement that comes from the college football season, but we also saw great success from traditional media with ABC and ESPN both reporting significant increases in ratings and viewers over 2007.  And most recently, TV By The Numbers reports that ABC and FOX both did very well with their respective broadcasts of the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.  And those numbers don’t even count the success that ESPN and CBS have had with streaming college sports.

So seeing that traditional media is live and well with regards to college football, let’s take a look at how the FanSection communities have performed. Here are just a few summary stats indicating the college football continues to be one of the most popular sports within the FanSection community:

• 4.1 million total fans - increase of 76% since August 1, 2008
• 34,567 images uploaded - increase of 57%
• 1.3 million smack-talk messages given - increase of 31%

Now shifting gears for a minute and looking at some of the individual fan communities, let’s take a look at the top 5 for total users.  The results shouldn’t surprise anyone as these schools are not only some of the largest state universities in the US, but they also have some of the most successful football programs in college football history.  They are:

1. Ohio State - 258K
2. Georgia - 190K
3. Florida - 179K
4. Texas - 136K
5. Penn State - 133K

Ohio State, Georgia, Florida, and Penn State are also in the top 5 applications that showed the largest raw number growth with Alabama just beating out Texas for the fifth spot.  Looking at the largest percentage growth tells a very different story.  To remove the instances of new applications dominating this list even with small numbers, let’s look at only those apps with at least 20K users.  The top 5 are:

1. Utah - 329% increase to 46K
2. Boise St - 142% increase to 22K
3. Oregon State - 130% increase to 26K
4. North Carolina - 126% increase to 21K
5. Navy - 124% increase to 22K

All of these teams had great seasons with Utah leading the way with an undefeated campaign culminated by a win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.  It will be interesting to see if all of these applications can continue to build momentum even in the off season.  I hail from Texas (diehard Texas fan if you haven’t read this blog) and there’s a saying that the only season more talked about than the football season is the football off season.  We’ll see if that holds true with regards to FanSection communities.