New Zealand sport web traffic in response to the Christchurch earthquake

This entry was posted by on Saturday, 26 February, 2011 at

I feel a bit guilty writing this because I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to exploit a tragedy for web traffic.  I’m not.  I feel really sorry about the earthquake, feel sad about the loss of life, and I wish it had not happened.

That said, the February 22 earthquake had a serious impact on the sport community in New Zealand, forcing the cancellation or rescheduling of numerous sporting events including a Super 15 match.  I was further curious as to how the New Zealand sport community responded as it pertains to my research interests.  There are a few ways that I could measure how the community responded.  The problem with Facebook and Twitter data is the population being measured could include many people who are not New Zealanders who might feel sympathetic towards a New Zealand team and either want to follow them or buy merchandise in response.  The best way, with my current data collection, to measure a New Zealand specific response is to look at the New Zealand Alexa rank for websites and see if larger patterns could be found to suggest if New Zealanders turned away from or embraced sport (by looking at sport related webites) in response to the earthquake.  The sample of sites found isn’t as large for New Zealand as it is for Australia, because Alexa only tracks the top 20,000 sites in New Zealand.  If a site has fallen off my chart for a day or two, I’ve given it a rank of 20,001.

20-Feb-11 21-Feb-11 22-Feb-11 23-Feb-11 24-Feb-11 25-Feb-11 26-Feb-11 Slope Before Slope After
saints.com.au 10,731 10,706 12,304 12,223 12,308 20,001 20,001 0.00093844 0.000259243
a-league.com.au 1,305 1,254 1,264 1,260 1,269 1,315 1,314 -0.028069375 0.040928768
athletics.org.nz 7,214 7,199 7,180 6,384 6,400 6,411 6,918 -0.058553387 0.003974693
sportandrecreation.nt.gov.au 12,156 12,083 12,074 12,006 12,103 12,045 14,320 -0.020273611 0.000890579
divingnewzealand.co.nz 20,001 20,001 20,001 20,001 10,312 10,304 10,269 #DIV/0! -0.000206664
foxsports.com.au 1,156 1,076 956 899 914 960 956 -0.009868421 0.039130827
heraldsun.com.au 110 109 110 108 108 102 98 0 -0.25
theage.com.au 334 329 324 324 323 300 295 -0.2 -0.079825835
nbl.com.au 4,667 5,043 4,221 4,196 4,235 3,643 3,838 -0.00131696 -0.003394486
wakaama.co.nz 8,542 8,523 9,897 11,580 13,909 20,001 20,001 0.001091491 0.000283146
nrl.com 2,588 2,811 2,893 2,733 2,846 2,688 2,710 0.006121302 -0.007660249
ntis.nt.gov.au 12,156 12,083 12,074 12,006 12,103 12,045 14,320 -0.020273611 0.000890579
blackcaps.co.nz 1,664 1,922 1,946 1,850 1,936 2,040 2,210 0.005768287 0.008225421
nzfootball.co.nz 12,862 12,802 20,001 20,001 14,071 14,011 13,971 0.000208348 -0.000337922
rowingnz.com 10,956 10,914 12,626 10,306 10,311 10,302 10,267 0.000875628 -0.052456286
nzrugby.co.nz 12,018 13,825 13,825 11,592 13,498 13,418 13,393 0.000830105 0.001040791
rugbyworldcup.com 834 773 796 813 742 743 734 -0.020021075 -0.028907398
rwcshop.com 6,369 6,361 8,889 8,876 8,895 8,896 8,886 0.000593348 0.059443912
ticketekhospitality2011.com 20,001 20,001 20,001 20,001 13,773 13,689 13,673 #DIV/0! -0.000321307
sparc.org.nz 7,569 7,544 7,515 7,483 7,879 11,672 14,536 -0.03696942 0.000371436
crusaders.co.nz 4,647 4,414 4,412 4,156 3,961 3,943 3,968 -0.006437298 -0.009721387
theblues.co.nz 6,516 6,070 5,443 4,831 4,846 4,844 4,393 -0.00184642 -0.004380446
slsnz.org.nz 12,954 12,902 12,931 12,850 12,925 10,943 10,925 -0.016936672 -0.001015544
triathlon.org.nz 8,944 8,930 8,906 7,284 7,318 6,629 7,499 -0.051444043 -5.05518E-05
volleyballnz.org.nz 2,153 2,298 2,175 2,395 2,281 1,933 1,778 0.001801408 -0.004374957
yachtingnz.org.nz 10,482 10,464 12,806 20,001 20,001 20,001 20,001 0.00064044 #DIV/0!

Some general conclusions:

  • The Saints were the only AFL team to have a New Zealand rank. This likely had to do with the #dickileaks , Ricky Nixon controversy that had reflared recently. New Zealander appeared to stop caring about the St Kilda story after the earthquake.
  • It appears interest in the A-League may have slipped some after the earthquake.  This could be because the season is over or because the A-League side from New Zealand is based on Wellington, much closer to the earthquake than Auckland or Australia.
  • Athletics New Zealand saw a fairly sizable jump in Alexa ranking.
  • Diving New Zealand also saw an improvement in their ranking post earthquake.
  • Fox Sports, the Herald Sun and the Age are more general news sites than sport specific sites.  They all saw an improvement in New Zealand ranking post earthquake.
  • The NBL saw an increase in its New Zealand rank post earthquake.
  • Nga Kaihoe o Aotearoa went from being fairly highly ranked to not being ranked at all post earthquake.
  • The Black Caps, who are playing the Cricket World Cup, saw a decline post earthquake.
  • With the exception of Ticket Tek and the official Rugby World Cup main site, Rugby World Cup sites saw a decline.  This suggests that Kiwis were possibly concerned about the ticketing situation and how the earthquake would impact the competition, but they weren’t interested in buying merchandise.
  • Two Super 15 teams saw an improvement in New Zealand rank post earthquake.  This could be attributed to the fact that the season has begun to get more underway.
  • Surf Life Saving New Zealand, Triathlon New Zealand and Volleyball New Zealand also saw an improvement in New Zealand ranking.
  • Yachting New Zealand saw a drop off the rankings for New Zealand ranking post earthquake.

One more thing before I present the above data in chart format: The rankings could also be skewed because Alexa users from the Christchurch area may be without electricity and Internet.  In fact, that seems highly likely.  Thus, they aren’t likely to be included in the post earthquake data and users from other parts of the country might have their interests highlighted more because the Christchurch Alexa toolbar users aren’t around to offset that.

Or it could be what I suggest at the beginning of this post: Kiwis were more concerned about some sports than others, to find out how their teams, sports and athletes were impacted in response to earthquake.

New Zealand Website Ranking Post Christchurch Earthquake

 

 

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/ANYPWFYQMNG7NRB55Q7C3PR6C4 Adelaide La Blanche-Dupont

    As far as the Rugby World Cup [in some 6 months time: September - October] may go, people were worried about the big ground in Christchurch.

    It seems, so far, that it’s not been damaged.

    As for without electricity/the Internet: have you tried other areas where this might be the case? (for example, Egypt. But the cutoff in that case would have been deliberate/government intervention).

    Pre-earthquake athletics in New Zealand were popular because of the Paralympics as well as mainstream events.

    Any NZ-specific newsites in that data? It doesn’t look like there are any. And of course there is stuff.nz.

    I think the chart is very interesting: probably one of the first looks.

  • http://www.fanhistory.com LauraH

    The data I have is the data I have. A lot of it can be garbage unless there turns out to be some use for it and in cases like this, you just can’t predict an event like this.

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