March Madness Data Analysis: The Most Vulgar (& Polite) Fandoms Revealed

Hello David, I thought you might find our latest data useful. I hope you’ll enjoy March Madness!

Ahead of the first games of the Round of 64, VegasInsider.com has conducted a data study, focusing on finding out what are the most vulgar (and on the contrary, the most polite) March Madness fandoms, based on an analysis of 10,000 Instagram comments under the posts of the official accounts of the 2025 March Madness teams.

According to the results of the analysis, the top 10 most vulgar fandoms are:

1. Bryant Bulldogs – 50.9% Negative Comments, 15.79% Positive Comments, 33.3% Neutral Comments
2. Liberty Flames – 40.7% Negative Comments, 24.07% Positive Comments, 35.2% Neutral Comments
3. UCLA Bruins – 39.2% Negative Comments, 35.81% Positive Comments, 25.0% Neutral Comments
4. McNeese Cowboys – 37.1% Negative Comments, 25.71% Positive Comments, 37.1% Neutral Comments
5. Troy Trojans – 36.3% Negative Comments, 16.48% Positive Comments, 47.3% Neutral Comments
6. Maryland Terrapins – 34.4% Negative Comments, 33.65% Positive Comments, 32.0% Neutral Comments
7. Auburn Tigers – 34.3% Negative Comments, 26.74% Positive Comments, 39.0% Neutral Comments
8. Xavier Musketeers – 33.3% Negative Comments, 17.46% Positive Comments, 49.2% Neutral Comments
9. Montana Grizzlies – 33.3% Negative Comments, 28.89% Positive Comments, 37.8% Neutral Comments
10. Georgia Bulldogs – 32.9% Negative Comments, 28.51% Positive Comments, 38.6% Neutral Comments

On the other hand, according to the results of the analysis, the top 10 most polite fandoms are:

1. Lipscomb Bisons – 53.57% Positive Comments, 7.1% Negative Comments, 39.3% Neutral Comments
2. Kentucky Wildcats – 50.00% Positive Comments, 19.7% Negative Comments, 30.3% Neutral Comments
3. Gonzaga Bulldogs – 49.21% Positive Comments, 22.2% Negative Comments, 28.6% Neutral Comments
4. Saint Mary’s Gaels – 47.06% Positive Comments, 23.5% Negative Comments, 29.4% Neutral Comments
5. Duke Blue Devils – 45.45% Positive Comments, 11.4% Negative Comments, 43.2% Neutral Comments
6. Utah State Aggies – 44.44% Positive Comments, 13.6% Negative Comments, 42.0% Neutral Comments
7. Louisville Cardinals – 44.25% Positive Comments, 23.9% Negative Comments, 31.9% Neutral Comments
8. Oregon Ducks – 44.23% Positive Comments, 15.4% Negative Comments, 40.4% Neutral Comments
9. Memphis Tigers – 43.50% Positive Comments, 32.3% Negative Comments, 24.2% Neutral Comments
10. Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers – 42.86% Positive Comments, 19.0% Negative Comments, 38.1% Neutral Comments

VegasInsider’s spokesperson comments:

“March Madness fandoms come in all forms – some more fiery, some more friendly, however, one thing’s for sure – all of them are passionate. According to our findings, the Bryant Bulldogs and Liberty Flames have the most unfiltered fanbases. On the other hand, the Lipscomb Bisons and Kentucky Wildcats stand out for their overwhelmingly positive engagement. No matter where teams fall on the spectrum, one thing is clear – March Madness always sparks intense conversations, both online and offline.” 

You can see the results for all the fandoms of the 64 teams participating in the 2025 March Madness in the graphic attached below.

Feel free to use our data and please credit VegasInsider.com if you decide to do so. Thank you!

Graphic 1 – Ranked by Positive Comments %:

Graphic 2 – Ranked by Negative Comments %:

METHODOLOGY

• A comprehensive list of Instagram profiles for all participating teams in March Madness was collected, which was followed by an extraction of a random sample of comments from various posts. In total, 10,000 comments were collected
• Data Collection: The collected data was cleaned and transformed using Python, ensuring the removal of duplicates, spam, and irrelevant content
• Data Processing: To analyze the sentiment and vulgarity of comments, we used a lexicon-based model particularly suited for short social media texts. Each comment was then assigned a polarity score and classified as positive, neutral, or negative
• Sentiment Analysis: By examining the distribution of negative comments, we identified which fan bases had the highest proportion of vulgar or hostile language
• Date of the final analysis: 20th of March 2025