NBA wins Sportcal’s Global Sports Social Media Award

The NBA, the North American professional basketball league, has been ranked as the leading social media sports organisation of 2016, according to Sportcal’s Social Media Index and wins Sportcal’s Global Sports Social Media Award for 2016.

The NBA ranked number one in Sportcal’s Social Media Index for the second year running, ranking first across three of the four social media platforms analysed; Facebook (4th), Twitter (1st), Instagram (1st) and YouTube (1st).

Soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, was placed second whilst the European confederation, UEFA, finished fifth overall despite ranking first on Facebook. Four of the top ten organisations represent North American professional sports leagues, with American Football’s NFL ranking in 3rd, Baseball’s MLB in 5th and Ice Hockey’s NHL in 6th.

The top 10 is completed by the IOC, ranked in seventh, soccer’s LaLiga in eight (ranking as the highest soccer league), motor racing’s MotoGP in ninth position and cricket’s world governing body, ICC, completing the list in 10th.

The Social Media Index is published in full in Sportcal’s Global Sports Impact Report 2016. The Social Media Index outlines the overall top 50 sports organisations, the top 50 international federations and an A-Z by sport of detailed figures and rankings for the organisations analysed.

The ranking position of the organisation on each platform dictates the number of points it is awarded for each platform (e.g. first position = 1 point, 10th position = 10 points). Hence, the lower the total points scored, the higher the overall ranking.

Following the first edition of the Social Media Index published in 2015, social media growth by platform has also been analysed for each of the top 65 sports organisations.