Australia Sport Census: Most popular leagues in Melbourne on Twitter
The Twitter accounts from my November 18 list are the basis for this post. The league labels attached to the accounts from that date are from my November 24 post. As described in earlier posts, a list of user inputted locations was created. These were connected to City, State, Country information. This data was also matched against a generic list of cities to help make it more complete. The total location matched file has some 63,000 variations. Account followers by leagues were then combined. The duplicate followers were removed. The total followers by league were added together for each Australian and New Zealand city that appeared on the followers list.
So what’s the most popular sport league in Melbourne where people list Melbourne as their location? (This doesn’t count people who list themselves as belonging to suburbs like St. Kilda or Collingwood.)
| League | Unique Twitter Followers |
| AFL | 11893 |
| Cricket Victoria | 3262 |
| General Australian sport | 2715 |
| Cricket New South Wales | 1912 |
| Cycling Australia | 1767 |
| Swimming Australia | 1687 |
| NRL | 1578 |
| A-League | 1272 |
| Basketball Australia | 1222 |
| Cricket Australia | 1094 |
| ANZ Championship | 855 |
| World Cup Soccer | 798 |
| Association of Surfing Professionals | 648 |
| Tennis Australia | 636 |
| Super League | 609 |
| Cricket Western Australia | 607 |
| Rugby World Cup | 455 |
| NBL | 442 |
| Athletics Australia | 294 |
| Hockey Australia | 286 |
| VFL | 249 |
| Netball Australia | 227 |
| AIS | 206 |
| Australia Roller Derby | 203 |
| Yachting Australia | 184 |
| Australian Olympic Committee | 182 |
| V8 Supercars | 180 |
| AIHL | 167 |
| International Olympic Committee | 160 |
| NSW Premier League | 152 |
| Australian Baseball League | 142 |
| Netball Victoria | 128 |
| A-League-W-League | 117 |
| Golf Australia | 84 |
| Cricket Tasmania | 78 |
| Cricket South Australia | 65 |
| Triathlon Australia | 65 |
| Cricket Queensland | 61 |
| Skateboarding Australia | 46 |
| Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League | 42 |
| UCI Continental Team (Oceania Region) | 42 |
| WNBL | 42 |
| Rowing Australia | 41 |
| SFL | 41 |
| SANFL | 36 |
| Ski and Snowboard Australia | 36 |
| U18 National Championships | 34 |
| Australian Commonwealth Games Team | 32 |
| Football Federation Victoria | 32 |
| Australian Baseball | 31 |
| Cycling South Australia | 29 |
| W-League | 26 |
| Gymnastics Australia | 25 |
| AFL Canberra | 21 |
| Rugby League-State of Origin | 21 |
| Surfing New Zealand | 19 |
| Cricket New Zealand | 18 |
| Australia Paralympics | 17 |
| Semi Professional Basketball League | 14 |
| Volleyball Australia | 14 |
| NPC | 13 |
| Runaway Rugby League | 13 |
| Australian Canoeing | 11 |
| General New Zealand sport | 11 |
| AFLNT | 9 |
| Sydney League | 8 |
| Australian WaterPolo | 7 |
| Country Rugby League | 7 |
| Australian Rugby Union | 6 |
| Rugby League World Cup | 6 |
| New Zealand Roller Derby | 5 |
| AWIHL | 4 |
| Victorian Institute of Sport | 4 |
| Australian Cross Country Ski Team | 3 |
| Handball Australia | 3 |
| Netball New South Wales | 3 |
| NSWRL | 3 |
| Plenty Valley Netball Association | 3 |
| South Australian Baseball | 3 |
| Brisbane Netball Association | 2 |
| Cycling ACT | 2 |
| Gridiron Australia Nationals | 2 |
| New Zealand Rugby Union | 2 |
| Newcastle Baseball | 2 |
| Australian International Shooting Limited | 1 |
| Football New South Wales | 1 |
| NSW Touch Association | 1 |
| Skate Australia | 1 |
| Surf Life Saving Australia | 1 |
| Sydney Union | 1 |
That’s pretty fantastic news for Swimming Australia: They rank higher than the NRL. Anything else on there that surprises people?
