COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – If Elon Musk has his way, the Cleveland Cavaliers could lose nearly 1.3 million fans, or rather, fake fans.
In April, Twitter’s new owner vowed to attack and defeat fake accounts and, according to Gambling.com, the Cavaliers could lose an estimated 1.28 million fake followers should Musk’s plan be realized.
The Cavaliers, who boast over 3.3 million followers, were one of seven major sports teams in Ohio that were run through SparkToro’s fake follower audit program.
After a fake-following purge, however, that number could drop to 2.05 million followers. The good news for the Cavaliers is that they have the lowest percentage of fake followers, 38.4%, among major sports teams in Ohio. That honor goes to the Cincinnati Reds, who have an estimated 443,000 fake followers, or 46.8% of their total number of followers.
Team | Fake Followers | Fake Follower % | Twitter Followers | Updated Followers |
Cleveland Cavaliers | 1.28M | 38.4% | 3.33M | 2.05M |
Cleveland Browns | 703K | 44.9% | 1.56M | 863K |
Cincinnati Bengals | 557K | 42.4% | 1.31M | 756K |
Cleveland Guardians | 476K | 41.3% | 1.15M | 675K |
Cincinnati Reds | 443K | 46.8% | 946K | 503K |
Columbus Blue Jackets | 231K | 44.6% | 518K | 287K |
Columbus Crew | 94K | 46.3% | 203K | 109K |
In total, Ohio sports teams would lose nearly 3.8 million fake twitter accounts.