Where the Toronto Maple Leafs Rank on the FanSided 250
By Jeff Borsuk
Toronto Maple Leafs fans are known throughout the league for the love they have for their team. The FanSided 250 ranks where they sit in 2019.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have some of the most passionate fans on the planet. Their loyalty and unwavering interest in the team’s success is consistently among the best in sports on a global scale.
Thanks to FanSided 250, we can better determine where Leafs fans rank across all of sports and entertainment.
The staff at FanSided compiled a list of the top 250 “hottest fandoms of the year”. It is an annual tradition that the platform reveals each December.
The editors gather to construct a list of the top 500 before slowly eliminating half of the field. A large consideration for the rankings comprises of three statistics, the fan vote, search score, and social follows.
Toronto Maple Leafs on the FanSided 250
This year, the Toronto Maple Leafs held steady in the second position for all NHL clubs.
It’s the same spot they’ve owned since the first set of rankings was published in 2017. The Leafs celebrity fans help play a role in giving the team cache. The team is so popular that some of the biggest names on the planet have even been wrongly dubbed Leafs fans. They include the Queen of England, Donald Trump, and others.
Overall, the Maple Leafs rank 59th on FanSided 250.
Their fan vote score was 57.5 (the 80th best fan vote), search score of 57.4 (#199 overall), and they had 4.3 million (#143 overall) social follows.
Those are big numbers, especially considering only 18 NHL franchised even made the top 250. The Buffalo Sabres were the last hockey team to squeak in, finishing at number 240.
Their ability to boast about owning the top-ranked market for playoff viewership in the United States helped them earn their spot. For comparison’s sake, the Sabres fan vote score was 42.2 (# 192 overall). Their search score was 60.6 (#194 overall) and they had 1.7 million (#205 overall) social media follows.
The top-ranked team in the NHL was the St. Louis Blues who came in at #31 overall. They were aided by winning their first Stanley Cup in franchise history on the backs of Richmond Hill, Ontario goaltender Jordan Binnington and the Clinton, Ontario native Conn Smythe winner, Ryan O’Reilly.
The blues had a fan vote score of 60.4 (#57 overall), a search score of 60.6 (#136 overall), and 2.1 million (#196 overall) social follows.
In 2018 the Maple Leafs were in a slightly higher overall position, at 52. It was an improvement from their 68th spot the previous year. For a team that has not progressed past the first round of the playoffs, it’s an impressive rank. It also speaks volumes about the distinct passion shown by Leafs fans.
Those fans are seen at Leafs road games in massive numbers. Whenever the Buds are in Buffalo, the crowd is filled with blue and white jerseys.
The same is true for the cities in Florida, especially over the winter break thanks to the many Canadians who like to vacation down south. Even cities like Pittsburgh and Detroit get overwhelmed by the rabid Leafs fanbase. Home crowds are forced to try and outcheer the Toronto faithful.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs could manage a long postseason run, it would surely grow an already rabid fanbase. Adding more casual fans and turning the current ones into die-hards is not an unrealistic prediction.
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If it means team success, we hope to the Toronto Maple Leafs climb the leaderboard even higher for next year’s FanSided 250.