http://www.statista.com/statistics/240382/facebook-fans-of-national-basketball-association-teams/
The Lakers, Bulls, and Heat lead the pack -- which makes sense, given the glamor and relatively-recent success enjoyed by those franchises. The Lakers have 16x the # of Facebook fans as the Wizards do.
Now, according to Forbes, the Wizards "have been the least socially engaged NBA team the past three years."
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlh45emmj/washington-wizards/#17ec98d51b4e
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2016/01/20/the-nbas-least-engaged-fans/#7e8cd4b91bee
So, that *might* explain the weak Facebook ranking. But I don't think that's right.
This isn't just due to a less-than-stellar social media marketing machine. It's always been that way -- at least, for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Maryland in the '80s/early '90s. I was the only Bullets fan I knew in my high school class of ~80 students or so (located in Takoma Park, MD). Everyone else rooted for Magic, or MJ, or whoever.
I know we stunk in the '90s, but we've made the playoffs 6x since '04-'05, and we had the Michael Jordan Vanity Retirement Tour from '01 to '03. That's not an upper echelon run by any stretch, but it's still a better run than the ever-popular Skins have had during that same stretch.
So why is our fan base so under-populated? The transient nature of the city? Perhaps. But that seems to have hurt the Skins much less (even though, presumably, a transient demographic would care far less about the Skins' glory days of the '80s than a stable, homegrown demographic would). Sub-par marketing? Perhaps. Sustained mediocrity/suckiness? Perhaps. But we're located in a wealthy, populous metropolitan center. Shouldn't we still be able to beat out other "non-glamorous" teams like the Kings or the Suns?
Are we *really* a small-market team, or are we just run like one?
