Social Media: A Welcome Addition or Hindrance for Sports Popularity

I would like to research how social media has made an impact on sports today. I'm primarily looking for correlations between athlete and sports team social media outlets and their popularity. I'm hoping to find studies that show how much of an impact a Facebook/twitter posting has on the popularity of a team and/or athlete. I'm predicting that popularity has increased due to the closer relationship between the end-user or consumer (potential fan of an athlete, team, or sport) and the athlete, team or sport itself. I will look through Facebook pages for large market teams such as the New York and Boston sports franchises and sales revenue of games and look for any relationships.