After winning The Masters on April 8th, knowledge and popularity of Bubba Watson exploded and his amount of Twitter followers showed. He doubled his total in just one week and is currently sitting at 590,078 followers. The Masters is arguably the biggest golf tournament in the world.
That got me wondering. How many Twitter followers can the Indianapolis 500 winner gain? It is arguably the biggest race in the world. The event has many internationally and nationally known drivers and names but how will winning the race increase a drivers following on Twitter.
Whether a driver gains 250,000 followers or not does not really matter to the diehards and it really does matter to me either. But we live in a social media world. People are on Twitter and Facebook constantly, from sunrise to sunset and one of IndyCar's partners, ABC/ESPN, uses Twitter in almost everyone of their programs today. Many things factor into this massive increase of Twitter followers though. Watson beat Louis Oosthuizen in a playoff after an exciting final round. If the Indianapolis 500 winners walks away with the race by leading 174 laps and laps the field will the impact be positive? Will people praise a dominating performance or think the race was boring? Another factor into Watson's rise on Twitter has to be the fact he is an American. Social media is without a doubt most used by Americans and I am sure Americans want to see an American in victory lane tomorrow. I think a American winner would gain more Twitter followers then most of the non-Americans if they win.
Of the 33 starters tomorrow, 32 have personally Twitter accounts (Sebastien Bourdais is the 1 not on Twitter). Here is a list of how these drivers' Twitter accounts stack up (Americans first, as of Saturday Night May 26).
1. Ryan-Hunter-Reay- 22,130 followers
2. Marco Andretti- 44,491
3. Josef Newgarden- 4,708
4. Graham Rahal- 26,532
5. Charlie Kimball- 6,045
6. J.R. Hildebrand- 13,237
7. Townsend Bell- 4,720
8. Ed Carpenter- 10,586
9. Bryan Clauson- 4,834
10. Ryan Briscoe- 23,688
11. James Hinchcliffe- 17,863
12. Will Power- 28,009
13. Helio Castroneves- 62,210
14. Tony Kanaan- 504,827
15. E.J. Viso- 18,821
16. Rubens Barrichello- 1,663,951
17. Alex Tagliani- 59,778
18. Ana Beatriz-30,713
19. Scott Dixon- 23,962
20. Dario Franchitti- 61,372
21. James Jakes- 3,513
22. Takuma Sato-12,544
23. Justin Wilson- 17,961
24. Michel Jourdain Jr.- 8,187
25. Simon Pagenaud- 5,814
26. Sebastian Saavedra- 7,703
27. Wade Cunningham- 3,371
28. Oriol Servia- 11,715
29. Mike Conway- 10,805
30. Katherine Legge- 7,015
31. Simona de Silvestro- 17,513
32. Jean Alesi- 5,499
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