How the MLB Division Winners Reacted on Social Media

As I write this post, there is still one division winner to be decided, but here is a look at how the other MLB Divisional Winners reacted to clinching via social media. With all of the buzz about social media in sports, the sport-specific rules set out by the NFL and NBA, and the strong push by the NHL to be active socially, what I’ve found inside the MLB’s Social Media realm is a bit surprising.

New York Yankees, http://www.facebook.com/Yankees
The Yankees announced they won the AL East Championship on their official Facebook Page. They accompanied that message with a picture of and a link to the official AL East Champs Locker Room Hat. The link led to the Yankees store on MLB.com.

Two minutes later, they posted a picture and link for the Division Champs Hat.

Combined, both updates had over 15,500 likes and 1600 comments. More importantly for the Yankees Team Store, we can assume they generated a high amount of clickthroughs and a nice conversion rate for the Division Championship merchandise

As I went on, I quickly realized that each of these pages had the exact same look, exact same updating style, exact same update sources, and the exact same response to the division championship. The Dodgers, the Cardinals, the Angels…all the same.

All of the pages announced the team won their division’s championship and followed with a call to action to purchase the official Divison Championship gear from the team’s store on MLB.com. It seems that one entity, problem controlled by the MLB, is managing some teams Facebook Pages. It seems odd that they wouldn’t allow for some creativity and individuality between teams.

In terms of fan count, no surprises – the Yankees are the overwhelming leader with over 930,000 fans.