The Boston Red Sox aren’t the plucky underdogs they used to be. But apparently they’re still very much lovable.
Every state in America except for four are rooting for the Red Sox instead of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2018 World Series, according to an analysis of Twitter hashtags compiled by the sports betting website SportsBetting.ag.
Here’s that data on a map, which shows California, Nevada, Hawaii and Delaware (!!) as the only outposts of Dodger support in a sea of Red Sox fandom:
Here’s the context behind that data: “Rooting interest” is calculated by over 250,000 geotagged hashtags associated with both World Series teams, such as #dodamage, #redsoxnation and #dirtywater for the Red Sox and #ladetermined, #gododgers and #letsgododgers for the Dodgers.
Of course, these findings are limited to Twitter hashtags and aren’t necessarily reflective of how the entire American population — of which roughly 20 percent actually use Twitter — feel about the Red Sox and Dodgers.
But the social media community clearly favors Boston over its L.A. counterpart, as the Red Sox won the “overall vote” with 153,124 tweets compared to 110,388 Dodgers tweets.
The most surprising result here is New York, home of the Yankees, pulling for the archrival Sox over L.A. It’s not really close, either: The Empire State posted 10,700 pro-Red Sox tweets compared to just 1,900 pro-Dodgers tweets.
As for Delaware choosing Dodger blue: This likely is a product of small sample size, as just 54 Red Sox tweets popped up compared to 180 Dodgers tweets. We’re also not ruling out some bitter Baltimore Orioles fans, either. (You can check out a full spreadsheet of the data here.)
So far, the internet is backing a winning horse: Boston earned an 8-4 win over L.A. in Game 1 on Tuesday night.
