Thread: ESPN drops Twins 44 spots in '12 Ultimate Standings

In 2011, the Twins ranked 39th out of all major sports teams in ESPN's Ultimate Standings. After a terrible 2011 and another bad year in 2012, the Twins have dropped to 83rd overall.

• Twins players ranked 26th overall in MLB
• Dropped 30 or more spots in six of the eight categories
• Their lowest ranking (106th) was in "Bang For Your Buck" since their ticket price is 20% than the MLB average
• Stadium Experience was best category (13th)

The complete rankings can be found here.

And they still beat out the Vikings and Wild.

And were somehow beat by the Wolves. Ya know, I think that the WNBA should have been included on this list; if it had been, we'd most likely have a top-20 to top-10 team in the Lynx.

The inherent flaw in this type of comparative study, of course, is the idea that all the sports are ranked equally when it comes to viewing preference.

Personally, I am much more interested in baseball and hockey than I am in basketball and football. I don't care how "reasonable" a deal the T-Wolves are - I'd much rather see a Twins game.

Originally Posted by sbknudson

The inherent flaw in this type of comparative study, of course, is the idea that all the sports are ranked equally when it comes to viewing preference.

Personally, I am much more interested in baseball and hockey than I am in basketball and football. I don't care how "reasonable" a deal the T-Wolves are - I'd much rather see a Twins game.

Yeah, that's actually not a flaw, it's THE POINT of the exercise: to factor out the raw popularity differences between sports, like your Twins/Wolves example, and create a picture of how fans view a given sports franchise relative to the other ones in that sport.

No, the weakness of this interesting study (and thanks, OP, for posting it) is the relatively small data pool to draw on of fans with extensive knowledge of other franchises in a given sport. For example, how many baseball fans have been to a game in more than half the other stadiums in baseball?

Without sampling primarily fans with a strong knowledge basis for comparison in categories like "stadium experience", then the study is telling us more about how good a given franchise is at pleasing the fan base in such a category than it it's telling us how stadium experiences really compare by city.

Originally Posted by sbknudson

The inherent flaw in this type of comparative study, of course, is the idea that all the sports are ranked equally when it comes to viewing preference.

Personally, I am much more interested in baseball and hockey than I am in basketball and football. I don't care how "reasonable" a deal the T-Wolves are - I'd much rather see a Twins game.

The inherent flaw in this is ESPN did it, who gives a crap.

Originally Posted by twinsnorth49

The inherent flaw in this is ESPN did it, who gives a crap.

That's incorrect. ESPN published the results, but the information was gathered and interpreted by two independent firms and a university.

Originally Posted by LaBombo

Originally Posted by twinsnorth49

The inherent flaw in this is ESPN did it, who gives a crap.

That's incorrect. ESPN published the results, but the information was gathered and interpreted by two independent firms and a university.

Well I stand corrected, except the who gives a crap part.

Originally Posted by J-Dog Dungan

And were somehow beat by the Wolves. Ya know, I think that the WNBA should have been included on this list; if it had been, we'd most likely have a top-20 to top-10 team in the Lynx.

They aren't going to include leagues that only stay in business because the Sugar Daddy David Stern allows it to happen.