NHL and NBA Break Records On Social Engagement

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oth the National Hockey League (NHL) and The National Basketball Association (NBA) continue to have a strong social media presence with both leagues increasing the number of engagements with fans.

A study by Convivia found a positive correlation between NHL teams’ performance and social engagement success, with teams that made the playoffs scoring an average 69% higher on cross platform engagements, than those that didn’t.

The Toronto Maple Leafs had the highest average cross-platform engagement with around 4,387 engagements per post, according to the study.

They were followed by The Boston Bruins with 3,512; Pittsburgh Penguins with 3,417 and the Washington Capitals with 3,107, all of whom also made the playoffs.

While they didn’t make the top 10 highest engagements, the Florida Panthers increased their average cross-platform engagements by 195% compared to numbers from last season.

The most popular post of the season was a tweet from the New York Rangers stating the NHL’s head of player safety, George Parros, was “unfit to continue his role” after an incident between Capitals player Tom Wilson left the Rangers’ Artemi Panarin out for the remainder of the season.

SportsPro Media report that the tweet cost the Rangers a US$250,000 fine but generated a lot of interest on social media with over 30,000 retweets, almost 6,000 comments and more than 86,000 likes.

The NBA have also had success off the courts this season achieving a record high one billion views on YouTube, a 15% year on year increase.

Since the beginning of the 2020-21 season on December 22, the league has also had more than seven million new followers and 6.55 billion in-feed views on Instagram.

Globally, the NBA report that there was a 20% increase in NBA League Pass subscribers since last season, and an increase of 15% in average minutes watched per game.