Advertisement

Duke dominates March Madness field on social media

By Alex Butler
The Duke Blue Devils battle Virginia Tech in the Sweet 16 at 9:39 p.m. Friday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Duke Basketball/YouTube
The Duke Blue Devils battle Virginia Tech in the Sweet 16 at 9:39 p.m. Friday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Duke Basketball/YouTube

March 29 (UPI) -- The Duke Blue Devils aren't only the favorites to win the 2019 NCAA men's basketball tournament. They are dominateg the field on social media.

March Madness has been mentioned nearly 3 million times in the last 30 days on blogs, news sites, forums and social media, according to data compiled by the international social media analytics firm Talkwalker. There have been 15.5 million likes/shares, peaking on the days after the first four matches March 21 and 22.

Advertisement

At last look, Duke had 173,753 mentions on blogs, news sites, forums and social media in the last 30 days, leading all teams in the tournament. Michigan ranks second at 107,0829 mentions. Virginia (99,341), Florida (93,597) and Kentucky (91,488) round out the top-five mentioned teams this March.

Tennessee, Gonzaga, Iowa, Kansas and Purdue were among the top-10 mentioned teams.

The top five hashtags are #MarchMadness (1 million), #NCAATourmanet (56.9K), #MarchMadness2019 (56K), #Sweet16 (37.9K) and #SelectionSunday (27.9K).

Former Baylor star and current Atlanta Hawks forward Taurean Prince is the top player trending with 25,468 mentions. Central Florida's 7-foot-7 center Tacko Fall is the second-most trending name at 16,732 mentions.

Advertisement

Singer Chris Brown is the third-most trending name, followed by Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Kelvin Sampson, Johnny Dawkins, Rui Hachimura, Will Wade and John Calipari

More than 2.5 million tweets were March Madness related over the last 30 days, making up for 85 percent of all social media and news activity.

Latest Headlines