Hello Lakers nation.

My name is Trevor Lane, and this is the Lakers nation news.

Feed your home for breaking Lakers news and analysis Today.

We're talking all about the Lakers rivalry with the Los Angeles Clippers.

Look, Anthony Davis and LeBron James against Kawai, Leonard and Paul George.

It's an N b A marketing dream.

The two teams are gonna kick up the season playing against each other.

They're playing each other on Christmas Day.

Incredible stuff.

I'm super excited about it.

But today I want to get into why the Lakers don't have to worry at all about the Clippers catching them any time soon.

I'm gonna explain what I mean in just a moment.

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All right, So, look, there's this sentiment going around right now.

I've been hearing this phrase all the time.

Battle for L. A.

I've even used it myself a few times.

Okay, Battle for L.

A Lakers versus Clippers, right? It.

Look, it sells.

It's fun to you to think about that that the two sides are gonna be really duking it out over the city of Los Angeles.

But look, this isn't like the l A Galaxy versus L.

A F C, which is a like a legit rivalry.

They really are fighting it out for Los Angeles.

It's been amazing how that's gone down.

The Lakers and the Clippers are not that it's not truly a battle for L.

A.

Because there's a sense out there that I'm getting almost that, that there's a fight going on for Southern California fame.

That's for fans in Los Angeles or fans around the league or something like that.

Like the Clippers, the little brother are finally gonna upstage the Lakers and they're going to become the big draw in L. A or anything.

Look, that's not happening.

That's not happening at all, and I want a kid in tow.

Just why that is OK.

The Lakers have such an amazing base already set up already built in Los Angeles.

They have so much support that for the Clippers to catch it, to catch up in any kind of way, to steal fans away.

Oh, man, I mean, it would take decades worth of work.

Listen to this.

So Lakers attendance has held steady, even during these look, They haven't made the playoffs in six years and Lakers attendance has held steady.

Threw out.

They barely saw their attendance figures dropped at all, even when they were one of the worst teams in the N B a.

I'm talking about.

They were in full tank mode.

Their attendance figures.

Well, we're still incredible.

And listen to this.

According to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times, you publish this in October 2018.

Season tickets renewed at a 99% rate before LeBron signed in the months before LeBron signed with the Lakers season tickets renewed at a 99% rate.

Look, that's how committed Lakers fans are.

There's Lakers fans get a ton of flak right for being fair weather fans for being banned.

Wagoner's all of these things, whatever you wanna call him for being those fans that show up late and leave early and all that kind of stuff.

You know what? Lakers fans are there.

There's a few of them.

There's a few band Wagoner's and things like that.

There's casual, casual fans, and I've got no problem with that.

We'll take them all.

Come on, join the purple and gold Train.

But you know what? Lakers fans have this subset of the families that is just manic, rabid and committed and legion because it's so, so massive.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that 99% renewal rate for Lakers season tickets, because there's always this belief that the team is just about to turn the corner.

And that's something that's because they built up that equity with the fan base.

They built that so that people always feel like they're one move away from contending for a championship.

Especially now.

They've got LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and you know what? The other thing that's cool about the Lakers fans are is that they travel extremely well.

Lakers fans are represented around the league.

In fact, Lakers had the highest average road attendance of any team in the league.

That means the Lakers traveling to any game no matter where they were going, whether it was Atlanta, whether it was New York, whether it was Portland didn't matter.

Wherever they went, those games had the highest average attendance out of any team in the league.

When it goes on the road, that's pretty incredible stuff that tells you how vast this fan base is.

And all of that is happening despite Lakers tickets costing at least 19% more than tickets to see any other team that is a committed fan base.

We know Lakers to take.

Tickets are ridiculously expensive.

It is not cheap to go to a Lakers team, and yet fans tune in.

Every night.

They show up in person to go see these games.

That's incredible.

Stop.

They tune it on TV, show up in person.

They go check it out.

Now let's talk a little bit about social media because as dominant as the Lakers have been historically, I mean, look, 16 championships.

The Clippers can't touch that, right? There's no way fans don't turn up to see the Clippers on the road like they do to see the Lakers can't touch them.

They're on social media.

The the gap between the two teams is even more vast.

In fact, I've got a little map here that I want to show you guys because it kind of illustrates things.

Now, this is a map that came from 2015 was when this was put together.

The Twitter did this really cool thing where you could go in and manipulate this map and you could see where fan bases were and all that kind of stuff.

To me, it looks like this map has been updating ever since then.

Um, it may not be, though.

There's some res.

I don't believe that this could be pulling off old data, but at least the Twitter followers is updated.

But just look at that map and you could see how much purple is out there.

Do you see a lot of red there? No, I mean even and we're talking about, even if we think that maybe this data is from 2015.

That's the That's the heyday of LOB City.

That's when Kobe's career is winding down.

He's sailing off into the sunset and the Lakers air, not a playoff contender or anything like that.

Meanwhile, the Clippers have lob City going full strength and look at that dominance.

It is not even close.

Do you see much red there? There's a couple little dots in the middle of the country, and that's it.

The rest of that is purple and especially.

Look at Southern California.

Look at how dark purple Southern California is the Clippers.

And this, By the way, this map goes county county by County to figure out which team has the most fans in each county based on Twitter activity, and there is no hint of red anywhere the Lakers completely dominate.

The Clippers don't even own a single county.

Incredible stuff again, Southern California.

And in fact, the entire country is nowhere close to picking the Clippers over the Lakers.

Now let's get into some of the social media numbers here, just in terms of of how many followers they have, because this is really well, it's eye opening.

So listen to this.

The Lakers, as of this moment, have seven point 9,000,000 followers on Twitter, the Clippers one point 5,000,000.

The Clippers have the same number of Twitter followers as the Orlando Magic.

Yeah, the Orlando Magic, who remain nothing against the Orlando Magic.

But you think a team from L.

A should have more followers than the team from Disney World? Nope.

Not happening.

The Lakers have 21,000,000 likes on Facebook.

The Clippers have three point 7,000,000.

The Lakers have eight point 8,000,000 followers on Instagram to the Clippers, two point 3,000,000.

That is absolute dominance in the social media space.

In effect, it even more credit to the Lakers and credit to the N B A for dominating social media among professional sports, the Lakers actually have more than double the Twitter and Instagram followers of the Dallas Cowboys were talking about NFL football, which is a absolute ratings bonanza.

The Lakers have more than doubled the Twitter Instagram followers of the Cowboys and triple the Facebook likes of the Cowboy.

So credit to the N B.

A and, of course, to the Lakers for their social media dominance there.

But again, the Clippers can't come anywhere close to touching them.

And, of course, the Lakers TV ratings go way beyond anything that the Clippers can touch.

Now, all of that aside, these numbers are wonderful.

These numbers can illustrate just how vast the gap is between the Lakers and the Clippers and how L.

A.

Is nowhere near close to becoming a Clippers town.

But you know what? It's something that goes beyond the numbers it really is.

The Lakers hold in Southern California is more meaningful than just that, and the numbers help illustrate it.

But look, I grew up watching the Los Angeles Lakers.

My earliest memory is of watching the Lakers, and I say that not because I want to say something about myself, not because that's extraordinary in any way.

It's because that's not extraordinary.

That's not a unique thing.

If you grew up in Southern California, you probably grew up as a Lakers fan because it's a become a cultural thing.

The Lakers have become ingrained into the culture of Southern California into Los Angeles.

You can't separate.

The two generations have grown up watching the Lakers together.

That's something that matters.

That's something that's long lasting and something that doesn't go away just because one team gets a couple of superstar players just because Suddenly the Lakers team and the Clippers team are on more of uneven footing.

Which, by the way, I kind of like it's gonna be a really fun time watching this rivalry brew and watching these two teams go at each other.

And even Lakers team and Clippers team.

Both teams have stars.

We haven't seen this before.

We haven't seen the Lakers and the Clippers be good at this same time, so it's gonna be a lot of fun.

But again, reality is that a lot of people have grown up with the Lakers.

Not a lot of people have grown up supporting the Clippers, and maybe that's something that starts to change.

Maybe there's kids in Southern California.

They're gonna grow up right now supporting this Clippers team.

But that's assuming that they're gonna break the trend that has already been set by their parents, right? It's been handed down from one generation to another.

That's the staying power that this Lakers organization has.

Even during these down years, people have connected over Los Angeles Lakers basketball.

The Clippers just can't come anywhere close to that again.

I don't mean to speak ill of the Clippers or anything They did a great job building this team.

They've made all the right moves.

They've done some amazing things.

They stolen pizzas who pots from from the Lakers.

They picked up Mo Harkless there moves around.

The margins have been great.

In addition to their moves to land us land a couple of superstars.

But the bottom line is when we say battle for L. A.

It doesn't mean the heart of Los Angeles because it is just nowhere close.

Los Angeles is a Lakers town through and through, and that is not gonna be changing any time soon.

The Clippers might even be able to contend for a championship this year, but there is no way that they're gonna be winning Los Angeles for a long, long time.

Guys for more on the rivalry between the Lakers and the Clippers.

Make sure you had over two lakers nation dot com and she was the following social media over at at Lakers Nation on Twitter and Facebook at Lakers Nation.

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