Ozzie Sport

I had a discussion the other day. My observations, based in a small part based on my American issues, is that Americans are more sport bad and are more likely to support their professional sport teams than Australians are. These sort of allegiances (well expressing them) just appear more fundamental to being an American than being an Australian. (This is based on the perception of people wearing sport related apparel for local teams.) The question is: How do you test this? Is there a way to prove that Americans or Aussies are more likely to barrack for their national professional leagues and clubs?

I’m not sure how feasible doing that is and any methodology seems like it could have holes easily torn in it. That said, coming from a place of some one who likes online population studies, the following is my proposed methodology:

1. Get all the follower location data for people who follow the major national based leagues Twitter accounts in the United States and Australia.  In this case, @AFL, @NRL for Australia and @MLB, @NCAA, @NFL, @NBA for the USA.
2. Get a follower count of the total Australians following Australia’s leagues.  Get a count of Americans following Australian leagues.  Get a follower count of the total Americans following American leagues.  Get a follower count of the total Australians following American leagues.
3. Determine the percentage of the total population in Australia following Australian and American leagues.  Determine the percentage of the total population of the USA following Australian and American leagues.
4. Repeat the above process focusing on local teams: @sydneyswans, @nrl_bulldogs for Sydney. @stkildafc @MelbStormRLC for Melbourne. @NHLBlackhawks , @chicagobulls @whitesox @Cubs for Chicago. @Mets , @YANKEES, @thenyknicks , @nyjets for New York.  Instead of national focus, include only population from the metro area for each city.

Combine the above with a Facebook geography:

1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ . Get the total population of fans in Australia and the United States for the AFL, A-League, W-League, NRL, WNBL, and ANZ Championship.  Get the total population of fans in Australia and the United States for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA, MLS, WPS and WNBA.
2. Determine what the percentage of Facebook fans is relative to the total population of the country.
3. Repeat for local teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles in the United States.  Count only people living with in 50 miles of the city.

The results should show that one country has a greater population expressing interest in professional sport.  This country could them be deemed more sport mad than the other.

Does it sound like a methodology that could show what I think it shows?  Are there any better methods for determining which country is more sport mad?

So I decided to get some of this data for Facebook. When getting interests, I tried to use every relevant interest related to a team. The population data for the metro regions comes from Wikipedia. The population data for the country comes from Google. Analysis later. Early observation: Australia as a whole more dedicated to leagues. Americans are more dedicated to local club support.

Related Posts:

• One week Twitter change for Australia/New Zealand sport related accounts
• Most popular Australian (and New Zealand) sport related Twitter accounts (December 11)
• Popular sport sites in New Zealand
• Most popular sport league/team websites in Australia