Who Rules The eBay Sporting World?
by Zigmund
eBay Staff Member

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took home the Lombardi Trophy. The Angels rallied their way to the World Series title, and the Devils captured the Stanley Cup. Syracuse's basketball team had their shining moment, and Ohio State's football team won a thriller in OT.

Looking at this list of champions, it got me thinking. Each season we find out which team sits atop their sport, but who "rules" on eBay? So I decided to find out.

The method I used to retrieve this information is remarkably simple. I went to the Sports category, and scrolled down to Memorabilia and Team Merchandise. Under this heading, I could find how many listings there were for every franchise in the four major sports (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey), in most of the large NCAA schools, and for individual NASCAR drivers.

I then compared how many items each team, school or driver had. Then I ranked them accordingly.

Now, in the sporting world, one champion is crowned per season. But since the number of listings on eBay can vary widely from day to day, nothing ever stays the same. The Packers can't win last year's Super Bowl, but on any given day they have a chance to claim the eBay "crown"!

Accordingly, the rankings below only reflect how many listings there were at the particular time I checked, so they may have changed by the time you read this. And football teams may be at a disadvantage, since all of the other sports are either in-season or recently finished (although the NFL's strong showing in the Top 25 suggests otherwise).

Results

Of the 241 teams, schools and drivers that had their own categories on eBay, the one with the highest number of listings was, indeed, whom I had predicted: The New York Yankees were on top with 5,877 items. This was over 1,200 items more than their closest competitor. I guess having more championships than anyone else in the major sports and being one of the well-known teams worldwide makes for a lot of fans (and a lot of merchandise).

But then NASCAR took over: Dale Earnhardt (4,650), his son Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (3,562), and Jeff Gordon (3,266) captured the next three spots in that order. This wasn't a huge surprise given the popularity of NASCAR, but it's still impressive that these three individuals beat out all the teams but the Yankees.

Rounding out the Top 5 with 2,208 listings were the Los Angeles Lakers (thanks largely to Shaq and Kobe), giving the NBA representation at the top.

From here, it got really fun. There were 39 teams that were over the 1,000 mark on this particular day, and most of them were only a handful of items away from the team above them. This means that this list could change quite frequently, and at any time any one of them could move a few rungs closer to the eBay "crown" (and give their fans bragging rights).

Below I have listed the rest of the Top 25, with the number of items next to them:

6. Boston Red Sox (2,019)
7. Chicago Bulls (1,869)
8. Detroit Red Wings (1,849) - The top NHL team
9. Dallas Cowboys (1,708) - The top NFL team
10. St. Louis Cardinals (1,661)
11. Chicago Cubs (1,626)
12. New York Mets (1,611)
13. Green Bay Packers (1,600)
14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1,560)
15. Oakland Raiders (1,519)
16. Tony Stewart (1,494)
17. Pittsburgh Steelers (1,448)
18. Atlanta Braves (1,374)
19. San Francisco Giants (1,303)
20. Rusty Wallace (1,265)
21. Cincinnati Reds (1,258)
22. Los Angeles Dodgers (1,252)
23. San Francisco 49ers (1,225)
24. Baltimore Orioles (1,213)
25. Miami Dolphins (1,184)
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34. Ohio State Buckeyes (1,035) - The top NCAA school

So the question for now is, who will be the first to knock off the Yankees?