Ozzie Sport

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading about sports lately, both online and off.  A lot of what I’m reading online isn’t necessarily relevant to the research that I’m doing about sports and social media.  Still, a lot of it is interesting nonetheless and I thought I would provide a list of stories I’ve come across recently

• AFL: Top 10 AFL Related Websites by Sport Spiel on May 12, 2010

• Boston Celtics: How Social Media Activates Sports Fans by Sport Spiel on May 14, 2010
• Cal State: Thoughts on Cal Playing at the San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park by Christopher Lee on May 11, 2010

• Gold Coast Football Club: Do New Sports Teams Utilize Social Media To Create a Fan Base? by SportSpiel on May 7, 2010

• Reading FC: Reading FC – How Social Media Can Win Me Back by Daniel McLaren on May 12, 2010

• Rugby World Cup: Rewards woo online Rugby World Cup supporters by CLAIRE McENTEE on May 10, 2010
• Sports: Are Australian Athletes Being Under Marketed? by SportSpiel on May 11, 2010
• Sports: ESPN to air segment on “corrective” rape, tonight at 7pm EST by Personal SA on May 11, 2010
• Sports: Personal best: the politics of sex and sport by Personal SA on May 11, 2010
• Sports: Michigan may pass a law that kills players’ rights to video game revenue by Craig Calcaterra on May 12, 2010

• Sports: “…until independent experts agree that the treatment has been effective.” by Personal SA on May 14, 2010
• Sports: Kagan once played softball, which means she’s gay? by Sports, Media & Society on May 15, 2010

• WNBA: Why Condoleeza Rice loves the WNBA by Pleasant Dreams – An Atlanta Dream Blog on May 15, 2010

Related Posts:

• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (December 11)
• Most popular sport league/team websites in Australia
• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (December 1)
• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (November 24)

One of the major issues with the research I will be conducting is going to be definitions of word like fandom.   Given my experience with Fan History, I’ve pretty much internalized a definition of fandom and how to research fandom.  Rather than restate it, I’m just going to copy and paste the relevant section from Fan History.

Fandom Definition and Approach

Fan History defines fandom as a collection of different cultures. These cultures are dependent on the communities created based on the source of the fannishness, the canon that a community has adopted. This philosophy underlines the whole of the wiki. This approach is categorically different than most of the research being done on fandom, which focuses on fandom as an extension of the source. Fan History rarely focuses on the product that was created by fans, but on fans themselves.

This approach to fandom is used on Fan History as the maintainer and creator of the Fan History comes from an educational, historical and interdisciplinary approach to fandom studies. The maintainer has Masters of Education in Instructional Technology. Her exposure to feminist and literary approaches to critique fandom are thus limited. Educational research tends to focus on different population groups. The characteristics of the population are defined. They are then sorted into subpopulations based on their differences. The subpopulations are then evaluated, compared back to the larger population and conclusions are drawn. Education puts an emphasis on highlighting differences and puts tremendous value into defining those differences. This is not the case in other disciplines.

One example where this is most clear is in defining fan fiction communities. A literary, sociological and communications approach would define fan fiction based on Star Trek and Good Charlotte as fundamentally the same because both types of fan fiction include stories derived from other sources. These groups would then be subdivided into Media fan fiction and Real Person Fan Fiction. The difference is based on the source of the material for which the fannish texts are derived. Fan History, because of the educational perspective, defines the communities differently, based on the culture around which the fans are creating their products, the demographic composition of each group and the histories of each population. The boundaries of Media fan fiction and Real Person Fic are viewed as artificially imposed and do not necessarily reflect real differences in the communities. Fan History would argue that while they are both writing fan fiction, Good Charlotte fans are not similar to Star Trek fans because of demographic and historical differences in their communities.

Documenting History

Fan History is about preserving, documenting and writing fandom history. To this end, Fan History:

• Does not have a requirement for article notability.
  • The belief is that all the little details help to give a complete and more accurate picture of what is going on and what went on in fandom.
  • The belief is intentionally excluding information can be seen as assigning value statements to fandom. As a history wiki focused primarily on documenting history, we don’t feel that is our place to do that. It is the place of others.
  • The belief is if minor information becomes too tedious, segments can be moved to other pages to tell histories of subfandom in larger fandom communities. Example: Premiere dates are found on many fandom pages. They include international dates for release. If this information becomes too much, it can be moved to another page: Angel movie premiere date for Germany and other German X-Men fandom info can be moved from the X-Men page to a page called Angel fandom in Germany.
  • The belief is that little examples of activity can later be written into a more prose type article which can contextualize those events, to make them appear less random. Those little details might be emblematic of bigger trends that won’t be visible until you have a whole lot of them.

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• Two rounds (minus tonight's game), Essendon Bombers have averaged highest 4^2 checkins with 60. #
• Two rounds (minus tonight's game), Hawthorn Hawks have averaged highest at home 4^2 checkins with 89. #
• Two rounds (minus tonight's game), Essendon Bombers have highest total 4^2 checkins with 120. #
• Two rounds (minus tonight's game), Hawthorn Hawkns have highest total home 4^2 checkins with 96. #
• I've been in Canberra two weeks now. #
• What's the difference between AAMI Park and AAMI Stadium? What is the foursquare url for each? #
• Missed that venue on my Foursquare list. Makes my NRL data less complete. Doh! #
• The Melbourne Storm website appears to be getting more popular… #
• Of course, the AFL and NRL sites have also gone up in the past week. Are Aussie sports fans downloading Alexa to improve those sites ranks? #
• Melbourne Storm's facebook page got almost 100 new followers in the past 24 hours… #
• The NRL on Foursquare : bit.ly/dkKeEG #
• Google likes to think that Australian rules and soccer are both footy, so turn up results for both when I really mean the word FOOTY. #
• North Melbourne Kangaroos do not appear to be very popular on bebo. #
• Interesting to note: AFL cheersquad official pages appear to be hosted on AFL pages and lack online interaction. #
• Need to write a blog of methodology of data gathering on social media sites… #
• RT @KateEllisMP Budget: biggest funding injection to sport in nation's history $195 mil in new funding for grassroots, development & elite. #
• Random data is random: Getting some data about the socceroos. Should be doing other work #
• Are the socceroos more popular in Canberra than Sydney and Melbourne? soccers + canberra has the city winning on google.com.au. #
• What is more popular: Socceroos or the Super 14? bit.ly/aMptw9 #
• Why are the Carlton Blues so popular in Launceston, Tasmania? #
• Google logged in changes search result totals. Problematic but explains my Launceston, Tasmania problems. Now corrected. :/ #

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One  of my favorite blogs does a lot of analysis based on Google  search results for a location.  I’m not equipped to do their level of analysis but I figured I could do something smaller to see if I could find any interesting patterns about sports in Australia.  What I did was develop a list of the major metro areas in Australia based on a list on Wikipedia.  I then searched for each city plus the term “Super 14″ or Socceroos.  An example search: “Super 14″ Canberra.  Next, I recorded the number of search results for each search.  Having done that, I got the following results:

Socceroos more popular:

• Albury, New South Wales
• Ballarat, Victoria
• Bathurst, New South Wales
• Bendigo, Victoria
• Bunbury, Western Australia
• Bundaberg, Queensland
• Burnie, Tasmania
• Cairns, Queensland
• Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
• Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
• Devonport, Tasmania
• Dubbo, New South Wales
• Geelong, Victoria
• Geraldton, Western Australia
• Gladstone, Queensland
• Hervey Bay , Queensland
• Hobart, Tasmania
• Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
• La Trobe Valley, Victoria
• Launceston, Tasmania
• Lismore, New South Wales
• Mackay, Queensland
• Mandurah, Queensland
• Mildura, Victoria
• Nowra, New South Wales
• Orange, New South Wales
• Queanbeyan, New South Wales
• Rockhampton, Queensland
• Shepparton, Victoria
• Toowoomba, Queensland
• Townsville, Queensland
• Tweed, New South Wales
• Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
• Warrnambool, Victoria
• Wodonga, Victoria
• Wollongong, New South Wales

Super 14 more popular:

• Adelaide, South Australia
• Bomaderry, New South Wales
• Brisbane, Queensland
• Darwin, Northern Territory
• Gold Coast, Queensland
• Melbourne, Victoria
• Newcastle, New South Wales
• Perth, Western Australia
• Port Macquarie, New South Wales
• Sunshine, Queensland
• Sydney, New South Wales
• Tamworth, New South Wales

Socceroos and Super 14 equally popular:

• Boulder, Western Australia

It looks like  regional patterns of liking rugby in Queensland and New South Wales hold up.  Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth can probably be explained as being larger media markets where they have a number of newspapers covering national leagues and a large number of book makers in the area who promote their Super 14 related betting.  Melbourne and Perth can probably also be explained as they both have teams.  The absence of the Super 14 possessing team Canberra is likely a result of the Socceroos playing a number of games in Canberra, and the commitment of the government to supporting its national sides.

Boulder is something of an enigma.  I cannot explain it.  I searched for both later in the day and there was a 30 results difference that favored the Socceroos by 30 results.

I’m not sure what this means in terms of any larger patterns that could be discussed.  It would need a larger sample of search terms to have real meaning about the comparative interest in soccer versus rugby.  It is something I may consider doing in the future.

Related Posts:

• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (December 1)
• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (November 24)
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I recently read a chapter in Fanfare: spectator culture and Australian rules football / edited by Matthew Nicholson about the history of AFL cheer squads.  When I had visited Australia in July, an Australian acquaintance explained to me the importance of cheer squads and talked a little bit about what they did.  The banners they do are really impressive and as an outsider, the organization do to something like that seemed pretty complex.  How do you organize the fans?  How do they all know where to sit and how do they make sure to get tickets to sit in those sections?  How much of that is done online?

My assumption was that a fair amount of the organization would have to be done online and that the organization online could be a key component for keeping a highly mobilized to participate fan base even more mobilized.  I mostly used a little Google-fu and some searching on Facebook.  What I’ve learned is that the team cheer squads information appears to be hosted on the official pages for the corresponding club.  The level of information provided is slightly different but most have contact information for an organizer.  The cheer squad pages don’t appear to have a separate Twitter accounts or Facebook fanpages or mailing lists.  In some cases, fan pages or groups on Facebook have been created.  These fan pages and groups tend to have extremely limited membership and at least one was for a single season.  If there is a separate effort for members to create their own outreach, it isn’t obvious.

I really need to spend some more time looking at this and to check other networks to see if something exists.  I’ve been through bebo a lot and don’t recall having seen anything there.  I also haven’t seen anything on Twitter… maybe old school fansites?  Anyone have any better information or a history of cheer squads online?

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I’ve been busy going to the library to get books to find out about research degrees, being an international student, Australian sports and reading areas that I’ve been recommended to be more familiar with.  The following list includes some of the books I’ve been reading and browsing through:

• The business of sport management / edited by John Beech and Simon Chadwick.  Checked this out today.  Goes into some of the topology of sports fans.  Mentions the AFL in a case study.  Still skimming the book.
• The international student’s handbook : living and studying in Australia / Danny Ong.  Not useful for international research students who have a native language of English who come in mid-term.  Less useful in general for research students.  Separately, less useful for students who speak English.  (At the same time, written at a level that seems like it could be out of reach for non-English speakers.)   The book is mostly aimed at non-English speaking 18 to 19 year-olds who have never lived on their own before and are first time undergraduates.
• Excellent dissertations! / Peter (something).   Did not find it useful.
• The postgraduate research handbook: succeed with your MA, MPhil, ED and PhD / Gina Wisker.  Written for an American audience.  Focuses a lot on coursework underlying the research.  Timelines along that.  Not so helpful for an international student inside the Australian system.
• Inside sports / edited by Jay Coakley and Peter Donnelly.  Skimmed a bit.  Did not seem particularly relevant to my interests.
• Fanfare: spectator culture and Australian rules football / edited by Matthew Nicholson.  Slowly reading this for content and to learn about the fans and underlying behaviors, demographic patterns and allegiances.  This would be helpful as background knowledge to explain social media patterns.  Section on the cheer squads was interesting.
• The research student’s guide to success / Pat Cryer.  Best of the books about this topic.  I’m reading parts mostly to understand parts of the process, figure out if there is anything I’m obviously missing and to get an idea for what the text should generally look like in terms of organization.  Helpful for that.  Mostly skimming when I’m not doing other things.

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• University of Canberra on Foursquare
• May 12, 2010 Meeting Notes
• May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes

This isn’t related to sports or academics at all.  It mostly has to do with my Foursquare obsession and adding buildings and places at the University of Canberra to Foursquare.  If you are on campus, there are a number of locations that have already been created that you can check in to.  They include:

• University of Canberra
• University of Canberra Library
• University of Canberra, Coffee Lounge
• University of Canberra, Building 12
• University of Canberra, Post Office
• Cafe Mizuna

There seems like there should be a way for universities to use Foursquare but I’m not certain what at the moment.  I’m more me centric of yay! Lots of university buildings for me to become the mayor of as I go from place to place around campus.

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Research Question: What are the demographic, geographic and social characteristics of online AFL fandom and the implication of these for AFL clubs?

Tasks for May 19, 2010: Write a short research summary.  It should include the research question, how I came to be interested in the topic, methodology description and some of the topics covered.  Purpose is to make sure everyone understands what I’m doing and why.  This can almost be an introduction for the actual thesis.

Find out about the cheer teams for the AFL.  Do they have a web and social media presence?

Ongoing tasks: Check the media pages from The Australian to see what they have to say about social media and online activities in Australia.

Paper notes and tasks: Questions around how the review of literature should be done.  One idea suggested was to write the thesis as a series of almost independent papers and to publish them as I go through it.  When I’m done with all the various chapters, the citations can be synthesized in order to do a shorter, citation dense review of literature.

Cover bases for the literature review.  It needs a clear (a)cademic statement.  Possible structure for it could be:

• What are fans?
• How do fans show allegiance to a league?  To clubs?
• What is the link between fans and social media?

The last part may be the most difficult as there is little available information about the topic.  This is both good and bad.

Discussion about the topology of online sports fandom.  Three types:

• Undefined allegiance.

• Formal membership.

• Association.

Question of: Can the different types of fans be determined on social networks?

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• May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes

As I remember and have the time, I’m going to try to type up my notes from meeting with my supervisor(s) and post them to this blog.  (I’ll probably most more academic related content that is less specific to Australian sport and more specific to the academic process.  I’ll update the about page to reflect that.) This serves several purposes.  First, it keeps people at the University of Canberra who are following my research up to date.  Second, it might help those who are thinking about doing or just starting  an idea on a bit of the process involved in completing a research degree.  Third, it serves as a back up for my own notes and can help keep me a bit more on task.  When looking at my notes, realize that this is all a work in progress and nothing is set in stone: Processes and focus can change.

May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes

Research Question: What are the demographic, geographic and social characteristics of online AFL fandom and the implication of these for AFL clubs?

Tasks for May 12, 2010: What is the literature at the moment?  Be able to provide an overview of some of the current research being done on social media and sports.

Look at sports sociology books for the definition of fandom.  Familiarize myself with some Australian sports management books.  Look at Coakley and Wernerr.

Ongoing tasks: Check the media pages from The Australian to see what they have to say about social media and online activities in Australia.

Paper notes and tasks: Style will be APA.  Data copyright is mine.  Copyright of the dissertation will be looked into.

In the introduction, fandom and online will need to be defined, along with a potential rational for these.

Create a working dictionary for paper.  Include terms like fandom, online and other phrases that involve basic underlying assumptions for the dissertation.

Current operating definition of fandom: The community of people expressing interest in the AFL and its clubs.  This includes casual fans who belong in it for social reasons and die hard, super fans who attend every game, have club membership, belong to fan clubs and buy a lot of merchandise.

Current operating definition of online: Activity that takes place over the internet on the world wide web, usenet and possibly mediated by mobile devices.  Includes sites/tools like Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, bebo, LiveJournal and its clones, blogger, Yahoo!Groups, YouTube, bebo, online newspapers.  It does not include fantasy sports and gambling related sites.

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Unlike my AFL dataset for foursquare, this one is a bit incomplete. I was missing at least two stadiums and for the first week I looked at, there might have been checkins not related to the game as there were four days between the time I recorded the data. I just wasn’t completely trusting of that for a venue that I didn’t think was single use.

That said, these are the games that I have recorded:

When that is broken down by team, it looks like:

NRL fans are appear to be less likely to check in to events. In one case, the venue where games are played is not even listed on Foursquare. The venue issue here appears differently than the AFL where at least two venues are actively promoting foursquare on social media sites like Twitter and encouraging people who attend games to checkin in order to get a swarm badge.

Non-mixed use facilities and facilities that are not shared with the AFL are also likely to have fewer seats with lower average attendance than the AFL. This could be a secondary factor for why there are fewer checkins. Another reason could be that adoption rates for foursquare are higher in Victoria than they are for New South Wales.

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• More popular Australian (and Kiwi) sport related Facebook fanpages and groups (November 23)
• More popular Australian (and Kiwi) sport related Facebook fanpages and groups
• One week Twitter change for Australia/New Zealand sport related accounts
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