I have spent about three hours looking through various lists to find official NBL twitter accounts, NBL fansites, and accounts for NBL management and players. NBL lists on Twitter are a bit different than comparable lists for say the A-League and even the Claxton Shield. They contain a lot more fans of a team, players that used to play in the NBL (but have gone to Europe or the US), sports management students, and journalists. It looks like if you mention the NBL, some people will add you to the list. To make sure I found actual player accounts on those lists, I compared names on accounts to the NBL player list and the Wikipedia player list.
I recorded if it was the official team account, or an unofficial account. Unofficial accounts are player, management or fansite accounts. I also recorded the number of followers an account had. Who are the most popular players on Twitter? What are the most popular teams?
Team | Account | Date collected | Total followers |
Adelaide 36ers | Adelaide36ers | 8-Mar-10 | 908 |
Melbourne Tigers | Follow24Hodge (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 612 |
Wollongong Hawks | wollongonghawks | 6-Mar-10 | 572 |
New Zealand Breakers | johnrillie (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 474 |
Perth Wildcats | perthwildcats | 6-Mar-10 | 457 |
South Dragons | Joeingles7 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 431 |
Melbourne Tigers | Wortho33 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 285 |
Wollongong Hawks | milisimic (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 272 |
Townsville Crocodiles | TsvCrocs | 6-Mar-10 | 259 |
Perth Wildcats | nickmarvin (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 251 |
Townsville Crocodiles | chomicide (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 237 |
Cairns Taipans | Dusty_Rychart (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 234 |
New Zealand Breakers | oscarforman (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 177 |
Perth Wildcats | TheRealSchensh (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 154 |
Townsville Crocodiles | rustyhinder (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 153 |
Adelaide 36ers | jgovereasy (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 110 |
Adelaide 36ers | DarrenNg8 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 86 |
Townsville Crocodiles | JoshJenkins24 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 72 |
Adelaide 36ers | BenFitz (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 62 |
Adelaide 36ers | 36ers (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 51 |
Sydney Kings | sydneykings | 8-Mar-10 | 43 |
Townsville Crocodiles | Kegs42 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 38 |
Townsville Crocodiles | willo43 (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 35 |
Gold Coast Blaze | Vandy21 (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 33 |
Wollongong Hawks | danjackson9 (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 32 |
Townsville Crocodiles | ToffCedar (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 17 |
Townsville Crocodiles | cameronwhiting (unofficial) | 6-Mar-10 | 13 |
Adelaide 36ers | brad_393 (unofficial) | 8-Mar-10 | 5 |
One thing that surprised me was that not every team had an official account. It seems like they should have one, if only to squat on it to protect their future potential assets.