During the month of July — in the super secret Bat Flips and Nerds Slack chat — I mooted the idea of running a fan survey for our followers. The idea was to find out who folk support, who they don’t like, how they consume their baseball and if they play the game. With my schedule — and my ability to start a project but not finish it — it has taken until now to build the survey and collect the results.
I’m glad I waited this long, because this off-season — unlike the upcoming 2018/19 off-season will be — is dull.
First of all, I want to thank you, the people who took the time to complete the survey and pass on the link to others. We could not believe the numbers of people who were willing to fill it in. We were also astonished how quickly we blew through our initial target of 250 responses. So, once again, thank you all for taking part.
The results won’t be released in full detail, but we will discuss the percentages for each question and then look at answers when picking certain criteria.
I was surprised by some answers from certain age groups and/or fanbases. I was also disappointed in some of the answers from certain age groups and fanbases. There was a stereotypical mould for those people and the majority of those filled it up to the brim. *shrug*
Due to the vast size of data we have received, it’s taking me some time to filter through it. Especially when it comes to the open response questions, where I am having to cut the data down to fit into categories. E.G. I’m having to adjust responses such as “Stats and stuff”, “Statistics” and “Stats” to fit into a single “Stats” category for an easier read when studying the data. We felt it was important to get some information from the survey out and split it into bitesize chunks. With that in mind, this will be part 1 of 2 (maybe 3) blog posts.
Without further delay, let’s inspect the results.
As we can see from the above chart, those who are 36 and over have a slight majority (54% – 46%) over those 35 year-olds and below. The thing I most enjoy about those numbers, is the fact there is no dominant group. Baseball in the United Kingdom and Ireland has a very good spread across all ages.
As expected, it’s a male dominated fanbase.
The large majority of responses reveal that most fans have been into the game for four years or more. What was great to see in this response was the collection of new fans.
When comparing the ages of baseball fans and the time they have been watching, the results are not surprising.
The older the fan, the longer they will have probably been watching the game. However, it’s great to see 18-25 year olds taking a large chunk of the 1-3 and 4-10 years brackets. The future is looking bright.
Following on from those numbers, it’s no surprise to see how long responders have been watching baseball for.
Where do all these folk come from? I have a vomit coloured pie chart just for that very question.
I wasn’t surprised by this answer, London is the obvious winner. What is great about this question, is that London isn’t the only answer. The UK and Ireland have a great spread of people, we must keep that in mind for future events, whether they be fan organised events or official events.
Now, the part of the survey I like to imagine most people have been waiting for. Which team has the greatest support in the UK?
It’s the Boston Red Sox with almost double over their next rival, the Toronto Blue Jays. I was quite surprised by this one, as I thought there would be much more of a spread. Then again, the Red Sox UK account has a large followership. Also, due to the nature of the survey and us avoiding holding peoples information, we made it an open system. Meaning anyone, anywhere, could vote without actually being British. However, it was great to see every team get a vote and more importantly, there wasn’t just one vote given for those underrepresented teams.
On the flip side, there were only 25 teams represented in the team(s) you dislike category. With 99 responders saying they do not dislike any team, it looked like the majority of folk embrace and love baseball. However, the Yankees were the clearly favourites to win this question and did not disappoint. Boston were a close — and obvious — third.
I just want to reiterate how humbled we are at the number of people who responded to the survey. It’s been brilliant to read all of your responses and to have the large task of organising the data. So we can have a better understand of what the British and Irish public like and dislike about baseball, how they consume their baseball and what they would change about the game.
Part Two of the survey can be found here
Make sure you get your copy of Baseball Prospectus 2018 hot off the press – order from Amazon by clicking this link!
