Grading and Ranking KIJHL Fan Bases 2019

Four years ago I embarked on a statistical journey of grading and ranking the KIJHL fan bases, it was an idea I got from a The Hockey News article.

I have had many requests to redo this, so here we are, a 2019 version of Grading and Ranking the KIJHL Fan Bases.

First, let's go over the columns:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Average Attendance
• 23 Home Games
• FB Rank
• Twitter Rank
• Insta Rank
• Attendance Rank
• Value Rank
• TOTAL
• Conversion

For Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I counted followers on the 2nd and 3rd of January. The number listed in each column is the total number of followers on those dates. Fernie Ghostriders and Princeton Posse are the only three teams without the holy trifecta of social media platforms, with no Instagram profiles.

Average Attendance. I selected four home games, three weekends and a weekday game, and then averaged out the attendance, that's the number reflected here. Kamloops Storm, Sicamous Eagles, and Beaver Valley Nitehawks did not track attendance. Last timed I mercy'ed and used the league average, not this year.

I then took the average attendance and multiplied it by the walk up ticket price, and then multiplied it again by 23 Home Games (yes some teams play 24 home games, went with the lowest common number). This then gives us a Fan Value over 23 Home Games. It's amazing the potential income differences between teams! (See Fernie vs Princeton)

For the ranking and grading. I once had a professor who graded on a scale of, whatever the highest mark on the test was, is now what the test is out of. Example, test was out of 50, highest mark was 45, the test was now out of 45. I applied the same logic here, the highest count in Facebook became what the test was out of.

For example, the 100 Mile House Wranglers have the largest Facebook following with 2,168 likes, that is what the test is out of. Kimberley has 1,975 Facebook likes, so 1,975/2,168 = 91.1%.

That is how FB Rank, Twitter Rank, Insta Rank, Att Rank, and Value Rank are all calculated (if you are just glancing over for the bold and italicized lettering, read the previous two paragraphs to understand how those columns are calculated).

TOTAL is the adding if all five ranking categories together. The ridiculously best fan base would have 100 in all categories for a total of 500.

A late added column for this year only is Conversion. I learned during my campaign that having the highest (or one of the highest) social media followings doesn't translate onto the ballot. It's still helpful and a great marketing tool, but does it translate to real world. Conversion averages out all three (two for Fernie and Princeton) social media platforms, and uses that as the dividend and the attendance as the divisor. Average Attendance/((FB+Twitter+Insta)/3). As an example, Kimberley has a 39% conversion rate, meaning that, in a sense, 39% of their social media following turns up to games. Of course people attend that don't have social media, but just for this argument, let's roll with it.

Now lastly, before we get to the chart. LIMITATIONS. Comparisons are only as good as the numbers being tracked. As we can see with attendance we are missing out on three teams, and therefore it impacts their score. Also, as I mentioned in conversion, it is one thing to have a strong social media following, completely another to have flags flying on vehicles, in windows, and fans cheering in the arena.

Now...... here are the grading and rankings of the KIJHL fan bases (click to enlarge)