U.S. Map of Baseball Teams by Zipcode. (By using Facebook data)

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Fascinating map. I would love to see something similar with college football teams.

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Also, it would be really cool if we could choose which teams to display and not display on the map, at least at the county level.

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Based on this map, seems like North Carolina, New Orleans, Memphis, SLC, Omaha and Albuquerque would all be good places for new franchises.

Richmond and Jacksonville as well.  Maybe Nashville, Las Vegas, and San Antonio too.  Dodgers max 25% in LV and Rangers 33% in SA.  Braves are 17% in Nashville.

But is this how such decisions are made?

This is a fun map, but keep it in perspective:  The article is from the NYTimes.  And it is based on Facebook data.  In fact, if you link to the facebook page, there are a whole bunch of other interesting correlation graphs.  

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/baseball-on-facebook/10150142265858859

I think the Facebook link is from a few years ago, but this chart was very interesting:

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I realize this is probably laughable ignorance on my part, but please remember that I'm a Southerner and thus have no exposure to the NHL ... the Habs are the Canadiens, I assume? Is that some kind of French pun or something?

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This is for dumb-dumbs.  This data probably over-represents 14-19 year old boys by such a degree as to make it useless.  Facebook?  Really? 

Can I just guarantee you that the Yankees do NOT own Queens? 

Possibly, but where is there a better source of data like this? Some kind of phone survey could never get data in every single county and ZIP code.

Also, there is no multiplier by how hardcore a fan is. Queens may very well have more actual Mets fans, but anyone, casual fan who barely keeps or just following the crowd, can "like" a team on Facebook. Also, people cast multiple votes, so if they prefer the Mets but also kinda like the Yankees OK, they'll be marked as an even vote for both.

Thirdly, it only covers "likes" team's official Facebook pages. Lots of fans may not care about actually going to the official team page and clicking "Like." The A's especially lost a lot on this map because of people "liking" unofficial A's pages instead of the official one.

I wish I could do some freelance work for Facebook on the side with sports maps data like this. I would like to incorporate an algorithm for how deep the support is, etc.

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This is for dumb-dumbs.  This data probably over-represents 14-19 year old boys by such a degree as to make it useless.  Facebook?  Really? 

Can I just guarantee you that the Yankees do NOT own Queens? 

Awwwww, poor widdle Mets fan. 

If you want to put something as unscientific as this up on a pedestal, be my guest. 

This is the absolute best study that could possibly be done. It might be better to do a longitudinal study over a period of years to factor out bandwagoners, but there's just no other possible way to get this level of data.