Where are all the basketball fans at?
Friday, October 26, 2007 | 06:52 PM ET
Toronto is the home to the National Basketball Association's only franchise, but is Toronto home to the country's most obsessed basketball fans?
Not if you go by Google Trends, a tool which tracks how often computer users enter search terms into the popular web browser.
According to the web tool, computer users from Markham, Ontario, just north of Toronto, had the greatest percentage of Google searches that included the term "basketball" than any other city in 2007.
Toronto, as it turns out, wasn't even in the top ten cities in Canada.
Rounding out the top ten were Hamilton, Halifax, Windsor, Fredericton, Regina, Winnipeg, Mississauga and Kingston. Looking at numbers from the last four years, Halifax leads the country.
A few words first about the Google Trends tool, which I wrote about for the Tech Bytes column last week. Every time you enter a search on Google, it keeps a record in its server logs of your IP address information, which allows the search engine to spit out numbers based on search "intensity" as opposed to volume.
It essentially compares the number of searches of a particular term with the total number of searches originating from that city. Unfortunately, it doesn't show you the numbers behind the results, so while we can see which cities have the most intense interest in "basketball" or "Raptors", we can't see how intense that interest is.
Now how about the Raptors? Surely the city of Toronto leads the country in searching for the home team?
Alas, the suburbs around Toronto remain the bastion for diehard basketball fans, with Ajax, Ont. residents typing in "raptors" and "Toronto raptors" with greater intensity than any other city.
Ajax took the crown from Scarborough in 2007, which fell to third behind Richmond Hill, Ont.
When we look west to the site of the since-vanished Vancouver Grizzlies, we learn some other interesting tidbits.
"Toronto Raptors" was a more popular search term than "grizzlies" in Vancouver, which is all the more impressive because a) it's two words instead of one, and b) it's also possible some of those grizzly watchers are actually tracking information on how to remove ursine intruders from their trash bins.
Victoria, on the other hand, remains firmly in the Grizzlies camp, with "grizzly" even slightly edging out searching for local boy Steve Nash under the word "Suns."
Because we can't see the numbers behind Google's results, it's hard to put too much stock in the findings. But they are interesting, and can't be entirely ignored, especially considering Google's popularity as a search tool in Canada. According to web-tracking company Alexa, Google.ca is the second most popular website in Canada, while Google.com is ranked fifth.
So here's to you Markham and Ajax, for spending the greatest portion of your free time keeping up with hoops, and earning a quasi-official crown as the biggest ball and Raptors fans in the country.
This discussion is now Open. Submit your Comment.
Post a Comment
Shoot the J »
About the Author
Paul Jay has been writing about basketball for seven years, working as a basketball columnist for Rogers Sportsnet and writing for CBC Sports, Raptors Insider, Dose and appearing on air with Sportsnet and Raptors TV. In his 12 years in journalism, Paul has written features for some of the best publications in the country, including the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, Saturday Night, Canadian Lawyer and This magazine. He first joined CBC.ca during the 2004 Athens Olympics and currently writes online for CBCNews.ca as a technology and science writer.
Recent Posts
- It's the shooting, stupid
- Monday, November 5, 2007
- Where are all the basketball fans at?
- Friday, October 26, 2007
- Subscribe to Shoot the J
Archives
- November 2007 (1)
- October 2007 (1)
Sports Features
- NBARaptors Basketball
- Sun, Jan. 6 at 1:00 pm ET: Cleveland at Toronto
Comments
Mike Bell
Toronto
If you are a keen or diehard fan you aren't using Google to search basketball or Raptors you already have their sites bookmarked. So how many Google hits on basketabll or Raptors really isn't indicative of the fan base in Toronto.
Posted October 30, 2007 09:54 PM
EDB
canada
I think real fans know the sites they want to check out for their basketball news and analysis and wouldn't use google search. Google searches for "basketball" may be more reflective of a population being curious but lacking knowledge of the sport.
Posted October 31, 2007 05:42 AM
brap
This is a ridiculous article...Perhaps Torontonians don't search for the word 'basketball' in Google because
a) they already know what it is
b) they already know how to access the information they are seeking via things like the Toronto Star, HoopsHype, ESPN, etc.
Toronto has some of the most knowledgeable, passionate, and resilient fans in the NBA. I would expect to hear that people in Charlotte or Atlanta would Google their teams to find out who is on them, how they are doing or what they are called, but the majority of people who have been Raptor fans for the last 5 years know who is on the team, and would probably be able to make an intellegent argument as to why Jamario Moon made the team this year instead of Luke Jackson. Give a bit of credit, the trend of dumbing down everything for every casual, walk-on fan isn't a good bareometer of how much people in Toronto know about the local team.
Posted October 31, 2007 11:25 AM
Andrew P
Real basketball/Raptor fans do not need to google the terms.
We already know where the forums and websites are for what we're interested in.
It's not like I'm going to google basketball just so I can get to raptors.com.
These stats are misleading.
Posted October 31, 2007 06:40 PM
Zarar Siddiqi
It's called RSS, it delivers the content you want right to you instead of you going out there like a chicken with it's head cut off entering blind searches with the word basketball into google.
Posted November 1, 2007 04:32 AM
MCF
Real fans of basketball will want to know more about basketball than what CTV, CBC, TSN, and NBA.com might give them. I'm a coach and the net is the best way to find lesson plans and practice info. Who cares what city has the most fans? Go Raps.
Posted November 2, 2007 07:13 PM
Joey K.
Hamilton
What a bunch of babies! Had Toronto been first on the list, there'd be no excuses as to why they were in the number 1 spot. "Leaf" it to the city of Toronto to find all the excuses in the world for not coming in first.
Posted November 2, 2007 08:54 PM
Greg Cheese
Grizzlies is the name of our Junior B Hockey team here in Victoria.
Posted November 3, 2007 10:08 PM
B. Han
Toronto
Reading this article was a waste of my time. The author's implied conclusions are baseless and unscientific. I want my 10 minutes back!
Posted November 4, 2007 04:00 AM
Dan Pacheco
I totally agree with the first comment from Mike Bell. I have NBA.com bookmarked and I am always checking out the Raptors' site.
And by the way, there are thousands of Raptors fans in Kitchener Ontario!!!
GO RAPS GO
Posted November 4, 2007 02:59 PM
Jeremy
Toronto
Ridiculous, you measure Raptor fans by search results? Watch a Raptors game and you will see 19,800 diehard fans paying their hard earned money supporting the franchise, not searching Google.
Posted November 5, 2007 02:38 PM
Chris
Ottawa
What a joke article..Real basketball fans know better than to believe these pitiful stats.
Representing the Ottawa Ballers!
Posted November 5, 2007 09:38 PM