New Zealand Sport Census: League popularity on Twitter: Wellington vs. Auckland

This entry was posted by Laura on Wednesday, 1 December, 2010 at

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.


Before reading further if you’re a fan of the NPC, please look at the Twitter list. I’d love to see more NPC and regional club sides on my Twitter list for New Zealand rugby union and league. Either they don’t exist or people near me aren’t tweeting with links to them. Two of the major ANZ Championship Twitter accounts weren’t added to my list until after this data was compiled. Therefor, that competition is likely to be under represented. The lack of accounts for various New Zealand sport probably means that the patterns are a bit out of sync with the actual situation in New Zealand’s offline fan base.

I’ve listed Auckland first because it falls that way alphabetically. I’ve also included Christchurch because I had the data and it is one of the three major metro areas in New Zealand. Each city appears to have its own flavor of sport loyalties based on who is followed. Fascinating stuff. If there are any Kiwis who could explain to me why each city likely follows the way it does, that would be awesome. I’m guessing the A-League is so high in Wellington because the national team for soccer comes out of there and the Wellington Phoenix play there.


Auckland Total Followers
Rugby World Cup 1037
NRL 742
Super League 653
General New Zealand sport 218
Cricket Victoria 187
AFL 150
Cricket New South Wales 129
Cricket New Zealand 101
NBL 85
A-League 83
New Zealand Roller Derby 75
Cricket Australia 66
Surfing New Zealand 46
Association of Surfing Professionals 43
Cycling Australia 41
Swimming Australia 41
Cricket Western Australia 38
NPC 38
General Australian sport 37
Basketball Australia 21
Yachting Australia 18
World Cup 16
Triathlon Australia 16
ANZ Championship 16
International Olympic Committee 14
V8 Supercars 14
Tennis Australia 13
Netball Australia 8
New Zealand Rugby Union 8
Rugby League-State of Origin 7
Sydney League 6
Athletics Australia 5
Baseball New Zealand 5
Australia Roller Derby 5
Cricket Queensland 4
Australian Olympic Committee 4
Golf Australia 4
NSW Premier League 3
Hockey Australia 3
Netball Victoria 3
A-League-W-League 3
AIHL 2
Australian Rugby Union 2
Cycling South Australia 2
Rugby League World Cup 1
NSWRL 1
Volleyball Australia 1
Rowing Australia 1
AIS 1
Cricket Tasmania 1
Runaway Rugby League 1
Netball New South Wales 1
Christchurch Total Followers
Rugby World Cup 209
Super League 169
NRL 108
General New Zealand sport 45
Cricket New Zealand 37
Cricket Victoria 34
Cricket New South Wales 28
A-League 24
Cycling Australia 19
AFL 18
Cricket Australia 14
NPC 11
General Australian sport 9
NBL 9
Surfing New Zealand 9
Swimming Australia 7
International Olympic Committee 6
V8 Supercars 6
Cricket Western Australia 6
Association of Surfing Professionals 5
Triathlon Australia 5
Athletics Australia 3
Australia Roller Derby 3
Yachting Australia 3
ANZ Championship 3
Basketball Australia 2
Tennis Australia 2
New Zealand Roller Derby 2
NSW Premier League 1
Netball Australia 1
Australian Canoeing 1
Australian Baseball 1
WNBL 1
World Cup 1
AIS 1
Golf Australia 1
New Zealand Rugby Union 1
Australia Paralympics 1
Baseball New Zealand 1
Runaway Rugby League 1
Wellington Total Followers
Super League 646
Rugby World Cup 480
A-League 297
NRL 220
NPC 214
New Zealand Roller Derby 207
General New Zealand sport 160
Cricket Victoria 93
AFL 73
Cricket New South Wales 62
Cricket New Zealand 60
Cycling Australia 25
Cricket Australia 24
NBL 20
Surfing New Zealand 20
Swimming Australia 19
General Australian sport 17
New Zealand Rugby Union 16
Association of Surfing Professionals 13
V8 Supercars 12
ANZ Championship 11
NSW Premier League 9
Netball Australia 9
Cricket Western Australia 9
Australia Roller Derby 9
A-League-W-League 9
World Cup 8
Basketball Australia 7
International Olympic Committee 6
Triathlon Australia 6
Yachting Australia 6
Tennis Australia 5
Sydney League 4
Athletics Australia 4
Australian Rugby Union 3
Australian Olympic Committee 3
Rugby League-State of Origin 2
Hockey Australia 2
Cycling ACT 2
Netball Victoria 2
Cycling South Australia 2
Cricket Queensland 1
W-League 1
Australian WaterPolo 1
Country Rugby League 1
WNBL 1
Sydney Union 1
Rowing Australia 1
Football Federation Australia 1
Golf Australia 1
SFL 1
Baseball New Zealand 1

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