Sacramento Bee · Jul 28, 2017
Here’s why Giants-Dodgers is baseball’s best rivalry (yes, a study was actually done)
When the Giants take on the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, fans watching in person and on TV will be watching Major League Baseball’s best rivalry, according to findings from a recent research project.
The project, called Know Rivalry, collected data and concluded that Giants-Dodgers is the best rivalry in the MLB. The team’s leaders, B. David Tyler and Joe B. Cobbs, also surveyed fans in the NFL, NHL, NBA and college football.
To assign a numerical value to the strength of each rivalry, the researchers went to fan message boards in 2015-16 for each team and gave a survey. They gave responders 100 “rivalry points” to assign to opponents of their favorite team.