Ozzie Sport

My dissertation writing makes me a mass of total insecurities. Writing about social media is worse because the topic seems so simplistic that anyone can understand it. I also want to make sure that everyone can understand it because if it gets too highly technical, I worry that industry people and journalists who might benefit from my insights won’t be able to.

The problem is that some types of analysis are so complex I can’t understand them. Chi-Square, T-Charts, Z Numbers… I BOGGLE. Lots and lots of math. To date, math wise, I’ve used only mean, median, mode, slope, correlation, difference, percent difference.

Today, looking for sources for a chapter I’m writing about Foursquare (older data. Trying to fill in some areas of my dissertation and trying to use older data I’d not used yet to get more chapters written faster, rather than waiting for some new event to happen), I found this thesis about social media. It makes me happy as the analysis is very accessible. It doesn’t appear to be hyper academic. The writing level appears to be lower. The level of writing does not appear super formal. In short, it reaffirms to me that while I feel my writing is at times inferior, it isn’t. Some one else wrote a thesis and it got approved. (The major criticism I’d have of their dissertation is it has a lot of meaningless images that aren’t cited as figures.)

That thesis has 127 total works cited in the bibliography. I’m currently at 118. I should easily be able to get to the total that author has. I might be able to get more. I’ll need some one to edit my work to determine if I need to add citations in various places and to make sure my citations are more consistent.

Pick me ups for the win yo!

I’ve got two chapters written since December 18. I should have a third chapter written today if I stop being so lazy and off task. When I’m done with this, I should have a another long chapter that should add about 5,000 words. (Unlike some of my other analysis, because of the complexity of a particular scandal, I’m going to break it up into four different analysis: 1 player on Facebook, 1 player on Twitter, 1 player on other sites, Comparing the performance of team that those people play for to other teams.) I should crack the 40,000 word mark by the end of the day. Weeee. I think I have a 75,000 word max for my dissertation.

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By Laura Hale
December 25, 2010

A copy of this paper can be found in PDF form here along with the related appendix. This is a first draft of a paper. It should be readable on its own. This article will eventually end up as a chapter in my dissertation. Additional statistics about Greg Inglis and the social media community have been collected. Given the scope of the topic, it was not possible to integrate this data into the paper. Please leave a comment if you want that data.

There is a gentlemen’s agreement between the three major football codes in Australia that players will not be poached from one code to another. This agreement is referenced by O’Neill (2007), a former Australian Rugby Union CEO, who controversially broke during the period when rugby union transition from an amateur game to a professional one. The code poaching agreement was an underlying part of the shock in the international and Australian sport media during the winter of 2009 when Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau left the NRL for AFL expansion teams. (Pearce, 2009, July 30) (Sky Sports, 2009, October 20) (Gould, 2010) (Bradshaw, 2009, July 29) Some of the media coverage at the time implied that code poaching was intended as a publicity stunt (Bradshaw, 2009, July 29) to help build the fanbase amongst rugby league fans in a traditional rugby league stronghold.

During the winter of 2009, when a few prominent NRL players left, one player that was discussed, as another code switcher was Greg Inglis, a Melbourne Storm player, who was being actively courted by Essendon. (Gould, 2010, June 10) (Bradshaw, 2009, July 29) Nothing came of this talk during the winter. Subsequently, the Melbourne Storm went through a major salary cap controversy that resulted in the club forfeiting all their games during the 2010 season. The Melbourne Storm had to clear space to get back into compliance with the league’s salary cap. When the team wasn’t trying to keep Inglis in order to continue their tradition of winning, the team was trying to get rid of him to clear salary cap space. (Marshall, 2010, July 21) (Johns, 2010, April 26) In November 2010, it looked like Inglis was going to move to the South Sydney Rabbitohs. (Badel, 2010, November 11) In mid-December 2010, the NRL refused to certify Inglis’s contract, citing third party deals in violation of the salary as the reason. (Phelps, 2010, December 19). This led Inglis to talk to Essendon and switching codes. (AAP) Based on the author’s observation, a number of people on Twitter felt that Inglis was talking to the team in order to leverage his contract situation with the NRL and Essendon was talking to Inglis to get positive media attention. If that was the case, it worked as the NRL dropped their objections and Inglis was signed to the Rabbitohs on December 24, 2010. (Mawby & AAP, 2010, December 24)

The potential code switch for Inglis had implications for two leagues, the NRL and the AFL, and three clubs, the Storm, Rabbitohs and Essendon Bombers. Everyone involved had their own agendas. Essendon and South Sydney appeared to want Inglis to bask in the player’s reflected glory. The Storm probably wanted to clear their salary cap so they can gain back their reputation was winners. The NRL appeared to want to keep one of their best players. The AFL appeared to want to have an opportunity to gain audience share by poaching one of their competition’s best players.

Based on the author’s observation, Inglis’s code change possibility was interesting enough to warrant a number of comments on Twitter. The agendas at play are worth exploring to see if they were realized: Did Essendon see an increased amount of interest in the club as a result of their discussions with Inglis? Did interest in South Sydney differ from the result of the potentially losing one of the league’s premiere players? The social media community often responds much more quickly than the offline community: It takes a real commitment to become a club member and such a decision is not likely to be made while a player’s future is up in question. Given the speed of Inglis’s Essendon exploration and termination before signing with Rabbitohs, the online analysis approach is best. This chapter will look at the that using Alexa, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia data to see how a potential player code change effects teams on both side of the decision.

Alexa

Alexa allows people to track the comparative amount of traffic to websites. It works using a toolbar that people install, which then tracks sites the people install. (alberto, 2009, July 13) Alexa is one of the few sites that provides traffic ranking for Australia. While it cannot tell people exactly how site visitors, it can give an idea of the site ranking amongst technology, public relations and social media friendly users. From December 4 to December 25, the world rank and Australian rank for the official websites of the Rabbitohs, Melbourne Storm, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Sydney Roosters, Essendon Bombers, Geelong Cats and Collingwood Magpies were recorded. The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Sydney Roosters, Geelong Cats and Collingwood Magpies were included as controls. The AFL and NRL sites were not included as a controversy involving St. Kilda Saints players occurred during the same period. That situation involved a fair amount of criticism for the AFL’s response.

Figure 1. Alexa Australian AFL and NRL site rank from 4 Dec to 25 Dec.

News that Inglis was talking with Essendon began around December 18. The Rabbitohs saw a drop in traffic around that time, before it grew back. The day after the Rabbitohs officially signed Inglis was when they saw the most traffic during the Inglis affair. During that same period, the Melbourne Storm’s rank mostly fell, with a one-day spike the day after Inglis’s official departure. As a point of reference, the Australian rank for Sydney Roosters steadily increased and the Bulldog’s rank steadily decreased. Over in the AFL, Essendon saw a steady increase in traffic while Inglis was talking to the club. A drop in rank occurred for Essendon on the day the Rabbitoh’s announced Inglis’s official signing. During that same period, Collingwood’s traffic rank steadily declined. Geelong’s traffic stayed in the same general range, with a traffic boost on Christmas day.

World rank data, available in Appendix 10, shows the Rabbitohs rank had a greater fluctuation over that period. It went from 753,186 on December 18 to 772,298 on December 23 to 739,137 on December 25. Traffic appeared to drop off as it looked like Inglis may not sign, only to pick up again when people began speculating that Inglis’s were a feint to get the NRL to agree to the contract. From December 18 to December 25, the world rank for the Melbourne Storm, Sydney Roosters and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs all decreased. In the AFL during that same period, Essendon saw a steady increase in their traffic rank while Geelong and Collingwood saw a steady decrease.

Australian and world rank both suggest that Essendon benefited from an increase in site visitors in response to Inglis’s talks with the clubs, while the Rabbitohs saw a decrease in traffic until it looked like Inglis was actually going to sign with the club. This suggests that Essendon’s flirting with Inglis helped create interest in the team.

Beyond traffic rank, Alexa can provide demographic data about a site’s visitors. On December 9, the information that Alexa provided about the Rabbitoh’s website was:

Rabbitohs.com.au is ranked #717,638 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. This site is in the “South Sydney Rabbitohs” category of sites. The site is relatively popular among users in the cities of Invercargill (where it is ranked #132) and Sydney (#10,897), and visitors to Rabbitohs.com.au view an average of 2.8 unique pages per day. Approximately 18% of visits to the site are referred by search engines.

Besides a little fluctuation in the numbers, the profile did not change by December 25. Essendon’s site visitors were described as follows on December 11:

There are 248,437 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Bomberland. While the site is ranked #4,157 in Australia, where roughly 84% of its visitors are located, it is also popular in Malta, where it is ranked #440. The demographics of the site’s audience do not show substantial differences from internet averages. Bomberland’s content places it in the “Essendon Bombers” category. Search engines refer approximately 6% of visits to the site.

Like the Rabbitoh’s, Essendon’s visitor profile did not change by December 25. While Essendon may have benefited traffic wise and the Rabbitohs may have been slightly punished for the potential loss of Inglis, in neither case was there enough of a difference to change Alexa’s profile of visitors to the official club sites.

Facebook

According to Alexa, Facebook is the second most popular site in Australia. (Alexa Internet, Inc., 2010, December 25). AFL clubs were quick to start using the site; clubs in the NRL were a bit slower and not all of them had official fan pages until partway through the 2010 season.

Facebook fan page membership is a good way to measure comparative interest. Membership totals were recorded for the same clubs looked at on Alexa on December 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. This data can be found in Appendix 10. Once this was compiled, the membership difference and percentage difference was calculated for the period between December 5 and 16, December 16 and December 25, December 16 and December 22, and December 22 and December 25. This data can be found in Table 1. These time periods represent a period before the code change speculation, during the whole of the code change speculation, the period before most speculation that the talk was a ploy, and during period where most of the speculation occurred.

Table 1
Growth for official NRL and AFL fan pages

The South Sydney Rabbitohs percentage growth was similar to that of the Bulldogs and the Roosters across all periods. They were outperformed by the Melbourne Storm, who were losing Inglis. For total growth, all the NRL teams looked at outperformed the Rabbitohs. Essendon outperformed its two AFL counterparts, both in total new fans and percentage growth. These differences do not change when the slope calculation is used. This data supports the idea that Essendon benefited from its brief flirtation with Greg Inglis, whereas Inglis’s contract and potential contract did not provide the Rabbitohs with any benefit in terms of Facebook followers.

On December 23, a search was run on Facebook for unofficial fan pages about Inglis. Of the groups found, only one referenced the AFL. It can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greg-Inglis-to-AFL/118712858169963 . Between December 23 and December 25, the page gained zero new followers, maintaining its fan level at 15. Based two links submitted to the page, it dates back to the earlier speculation that Inglis might have made a code switch. There were no fan pages that referenced his possible signing by the Rabbitohs and two fan pages about his abortive move to the Brisbane Broncos. One of these pages, Im going to Brisbane Broncos, LOL JK!! Im Greg Inglis, saw an increase of two members between December 24 and December 25. This increase could be interpreted as annoyance over the continued issues regarding Inglis’s perceived loyalties and willingness to keep promises to clubs/fans that he was perceived soon to be signing a contract with. Beyond that, the lack of creation of groups dedicated to Inglis and the Rabbitohs/Essendon could signal a lack of interest by Facebook fans of those clubs in having Inglis play for them.

Facebook growth indicates that Essendon benefited from the speculation that Inglis was going to switch codes and play for them. The Rabbitohs did not receive an answering bump. Fans were not motivated to join or create pages about the possibility of a code switch for Inglis. There was some benefit for Essendon, but if the latter had happened, it would have made a stronger case of Inglis being a benefit to the club.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging site, allowing users to share their thoughts in 140 characters or less to anyone who chooses to follow them. According to Alexa on December 25, 2010, it is the ninth most popular site in Australia. Like Facebook, it is popular with Australian sport clubs; every club in the AFL and NRL has an official account.

Like Facebook, one way to determine if the Rabbitohs or Essendon received any benefit from Inglis’s code changing talk is to look at the official account for the team. This data was gathered every day from December 8 to December 25, with the exception of the 22, for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Melbourne Storm, and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. As Sydney Roosters data was not gathered, the Newcastle Knights will be used for comparison purposes. Over that same period, data was collected for the Essendon Bombers and Collingwood Magpies. As Geelong Cats data was not, they have been replaced with the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn Hawks. This data can be found in Appendix 10.

Once this data was collected, the difference, percent difference and slope was calculate for the period between December 11 and December 18, December 18 and December 25, December 18 and December 23, and December 23 to December 25. This data can be found in Table 2.

Table 2
Twitter Follower Statistics

Using the NRL other teams as a benchmark, the Rabbitohs did not derive a follower benefit as a result of the Inglis code change story. On the other hand, Essendon likely derived some benefit from the Inglis story as their percentage growth changed substantially from the period before the Inglis story broke, during the story, and after it was confirmed that Inglis signed with the Rabbitohs. Collingwood, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs had much more consistent, but smaller percentage and total growth over all periods.

Another way to look at the Inglis code change flirting on Twitter involves using a tool called Twitter Venn, found at http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterVenn/view.php . This tool allows users to input three terms. A venn diagram is then created using Twitter search to show how many times these terms were used together. This was done with the keywords Inglis, Essendon and Rabbitohs. The results are viewable in Figure 2. Another venn was created using the keywords Inglis, AFL and NRL. This venn can be found in Appendix 10.

Figure 2 . 25-Dec Twitter Venn.

The Twitter venn suggests that people were more interested in talking about the possibility of Inglis joining Essendon than they were interested in talking about Inglis’s contract with the Rabbitohs.

Both Twitter follower patterns and the Twitter venn suggest there was increased interest Essendon as a result of the possible code switch. The Rabbitohs did not benefit from increased followers, nor was there a similar level of conversation about the Rabbitohs as there was for Essendon. The code switch talks helped Essendon.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The English language version has over a million articles. According to Alexa (2010, December 25), Wikipedia is the eighth most popular site in Australia. There is an active movement by Australian Wikipedians to improve the quality of AFL and NRL related articles. Some of these articles have over 2,000 edits.

Wikipedia often acts as a major news portal when scandals hit and related articles often get a large number of page views. During the Akermanis and Monaghan controversies, there was an increase in views to the player’s pages; there was a smaller increase in article views for the clubs the athletes played for. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, where users actively discuss a topic, or chose to identify with a club by following or fanning them, viewing a Wikipedia article can be seen as a form of passive interest in that no one sees this expression of interest. Reading an article does not imply the same level of interest. Article view data is still worth examining in order to gage the level of non-fan interest around a topic, epitomized by the aforementioned Akermanis and Monaghan situations.

Article view data is available from Wikipedia article traffic statistics at http://stats.grok.se/ . The page views per article for the period between December 1 and December 24, 2010 were recorded for the following articles: Melbourne Storm, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Newcastle Knights, Sydney Roosters, Essendon Football Club, Geelong Football Club, Collingwood Football Club, and Greg Inglis. This data can be found in Appendix 10. A line graph was created using this data for the period between December 10 and December 24 and can be found in Figure 3.

Figure 3 . Wikipedia Article Views.

Just looking at the graph, neither Essendon nor the Rabbitohs saw a large traffic increase on December 22, when the Greg Inglis article saw the greatest number of views. This observation can be verified by looking at the correlation between the club article and the Greg Inglis article. In the period between December 1 and December 24, the Inglis/Essendon correlation was -0.02 and Inglis/Rabbitohs correlation was 0.03. This correlation is so small, it suggests a random pattern between the two. If the period is shortened to between December 18 and December 24, the period when speculation about a code change was at its greatest, the correlation for both strengthens a bit to 0.20 and -0.36 respectively. Still, these numbers still largely imply a random relationship. A meaningful correlation does exist between Essendon and the Rabbitohs in the period between December 18 and December 24: 0.76. This says that views for the articles both went up and down together. For the period between December 1 and December 24, the correlation was 0.45. While the Essendon/Rabbitohs correlation appears meaningful, the pattern of increasing and decreasing could relate to overall patterns increasing and decreasing interest in the AFL and NRL: There is a correlation of 0.83 between Geelong and Collingwood. Neither of these clubs was involved in any major trades or controversies during that same period.

Wikipedia correlations and the line graph suggest that neither Essendon nor South Sydney benefited with increased page views as a result of the Inglis code switch story. Put in the context of Facebook and Twitter, there was much less interest by the general public in this story. People on Wikipedia did not care much about Inglis’s possible code change.

Conclusion

In mid-December 2010, Greg Inglis talked with Essendon’s coach about the possibility of playing for the club as the NRL had refused to certify Inglis’s contract with the South Sydney Rabbitohs. This topic was talked about on Twitter, Facebook and other places on the Internet. There was speculation that this was a play for media attention by Essendon, and that Inglis was using Essendon to strengthen his position with the NRL. Whether or not this speculation was on the mark, Inglis’s actions had an impact on online actions taken by fans.

Alexa data suggests that Essendon benefited from talking with Inglis, while the Rabbitohs may have been punished with less traffic as a result of a major signing not happening. Alexa also suggests that despite traffic patterns changing, the web audience for both clubs did not change: The Rabbitohs and Essendon kept their established demographic patterns. Audience activation or deactivation was inside its own fan community pool.

Essendon also saw a bump in new fans on Facebook, where the Rabbitohs did not. Despite the increase in followers, Facebook fans did not create or join groups and fan pages to support Inglis joining their club. Essendon benefited on Facebook but not as much as they could have.

Twitter data show that Essendon again got a follower bump as a result of Inglis’s code change flirting; the Rabbitohs did not. Beyond follower count, more of the discussion on Twitter involving Inglis mentioned Essendon than the Rabbitohs.

While Essendon saw an increase in followers and traffic on the previous sites, it did not see a similar bump on Wikipedia in response to Inglis’s talks with them. Likewise, the Rabbitohs did not see an increase or decrease in article views as a result of the Inglis’s actions.

Inglis’s actions suggesting he might play for Essendon helped the club activate its fanbase, getting the team increased web traffic, more Facebook followers, more Twitter followers and generated more discussion on Twitter than Inglis and the Rabbitohs. The South Sydney Rabbitohs either were punished for Inglis’s possible defection or had no change in fan community behavior. This sort of flirting might be a good thing for clubs who desire some short term attention online.

References

• AAP. (2010, December 24). Future of Greg Inglis up in the air after talks with Essendon coach James Hird. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/future-of-greg-inglis-up-in-the-air-after-talks-with-essendon-coach-james-hird/story-e6frf9jf-1225975786549

• alberto. (2009, July 13). “How are Alexa’s traffic rankings determined?” Alexa. Retrieved June 8, 2010, from http://www.alexa.com/help/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17&sid=70b7eee4fd8d92a4f74c66e3680d1275

• Alexa Internet, Inc. (2010, December 25). Facebook.com – site info from alexa. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com

• Alexa Internet, Inc. (2010, December 25). Twitter.com – site info from alexa. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.com

• Alexa Internet, Inc. (2010, December 25). Wikipedia.org – site info from alexa. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org

• Badel, P. (2010, November 11). Crowe and Mundine turned GI, says Pearl. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/crowe-and-mundine-turned-gi-says-pearl/story-e6frfgbo-1225951401604

• Bradshaw, F. (2009, July 29). Bronco Karmichael Hunt to switch from NRL to AFL. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bronco-karmichael-hunt-to-switch-from-nrl-to-afl/story-0-1225755775191

• Clark, J. (2010). Twitter Venn. Twitter Venn. Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterVenn/view.php

• Gould, J. (2010). Tonga taunt. Rugby League Week, 10. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

• Gould, R. (2010, June 10). Greg Inglis’ path to Essendon. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/greg-inglis-path-to-essendon/story-e6frf9if-1225877655582

• Johns, A. (2010, April 26). Storm must shed star player. Herald Sun. Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/storm-must-shed-star-player/story-e6frfgh6-1225858112043

• Marshall, M. (2010, July 21). Storm star Greg Inglis set for Brisbane Broncos. The Courier-Mail. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/storm-star-greg-inglis-set-for-brisbane-broncos/story-e6freomx-1225894993769

• Mawby, N., & AAP. (2010, December 24). Greg Inglis signed to South Sydney Rabbitohs. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/greg-inglis-signed-to-south-sydney-rabbitohs/story-e6frfgeo-1225975989228

• O’Neill, J. (2007). It’s only a game, a life in sport. North Sydney: Random House Australia.

• Pearce, N. (2009, July 30). Karmichael Hunt stuns Australia by making historic code switch to Aussie Rules. The Telegraph. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyleague/5939159/Karmichael-Hunt-stuns-Australia-by-making-historic-code-switch-to-Aussie-Rules.html

• Phelps, J. (2010, December 19). South Sydney Rabbitohs offload Beau Champion, Ben Lowe and Michael Crocker after Greg Inglis deal blocked. Herald Sun. Newspaper, . Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/south-sydney-rabbitohs-offload-beau-champion-ben-lowe-and-michael-crocker-after-greg-inglis-deal-blocked/story-e6frf9if-1225973353047

• Sky Sports. (2009, October 20). Hunt heading to Biarritz. Sky Sports. Retrieved December 25, 2010, from http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,16616_5639530,00.html

Appendix 10

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My dissertation needs a lot of editing. Luckily, I have two highly educated parents. These parents are also exceptionally nice. I’ve basically roped them into editing my dissertation. They’ve heard about my fandom analysis for about 12 years now. The topic isn’t completely foreign to them. Babbling.

Anyway, they are editing my dissertation and an issue has come up: Where do I explain how specific sport social media communities function? And how do I do this? They’ve made the argument that a lot of this content feels irrelevant and offtopic. It would best be addressed as a separate chapter, after my lit review or my methodology. They think it would be a good idea to talk about world rank, Australian website rank and New Zealand website rank. They think I should talk in general about who uses them, why they use them, how people can interact and form community on these sites. If this is done, I don’t need to be as repetitive with this content inside my chapter. At the same time, I will also help people who are not familiar with various social networks and websites gain familiarity with them: Not everyone in the Australian sport marketing/history/sociology space has the same knowledge expertise that I have and this chapter would bridge that.

On one level, yeah, doing that makes sense. On another level? No. That sort of analysis is often at the heart of my research. This is the existing community and this is how it responds to controversy. Removing that information from inside chapters takes away a lot of the context. I’m also leery to do it because in the chapter, the fact that I’m doing qualitative, contextual analysis can kind of be hidden. I don’t need all the citations for it. If I pull it out, I would likely need to improve the citing of these observations and do a separate qualitative methodology. Again, I’m not sure how to go about doing that. I can kind of tell you how Australia’s sport Facebook community functions but it isn’t universal and it changes when Facebook changes settings. (Except the Wests Tigers don’t behave like the Canberra Raiders who don’t behave like Anna Meares fans who don’t behave like the GWS Giants.) E-Bay’s community of people listing merchandise I haven’t quite figured out yet as I don’t have the data for it. Wikipedia is probably the most consistent but how it functions and its demographics are part of the results. If LiveJournal has a major privacy controversy, it could lead to an exodus of users. This might impact the chapters 9, 10, 11 but the change predates chapters 4, 5, 6. Hence, it makes sense to me to put this information inside the chapter.

There are good arguments both ways. I can see where my parents are coming from. I just am not sure I agree with them. To me, given the different nature of the communities, the explanations need to take place inside chapters. It also feels like the summaries I’d be doing for these sites are part of the conclusions I am ultimately drawing.

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For the past month or two, one of the Australian sport clubs I’ve talked most about via instant messenger services and e-mail, on the phone with a few acquaintances and in person with anyone who will listen to me is Greater Western Sydney. I’ve talked about their web strategy, their Twitter strategy, their off line engagement strategy, how they’ve reached out to Canberra, their team colours (or color if you’re American like me) and team name, their Facebook strategy.

I just haven’t blogged much about it beyond GWS Giants web traffic performance and Fundamental problems in the GWS Giants fanbase?. I’ve been intending to write a chapter on them for my dissertation. (I just haven’t been able to find the motivation to do that.) I’ve had a few conversations about why I’m not doing the blogging thing given all my obvious issues. The reasons are many: I might like the AFL to hire me when I graduate and I’d really rather not piss them off by being highly critical of their engagement strategies. (This was countered with: But what about academic honesty? Isn’t that inherently dishonest not to publish results because they are unfavorable? I’m not even sure how to answer that. True but not right?) I’ve argued that I would rather be some what clinical and have as much data as possible to support my conclusions. (I honestly haven’t done much research about the market implications of jersey color selection and the sale of merchandise/size of a fandom. ) I’ve argued that I can really only tell things three ways: Glowing praise, neutral/dispassionately with data to support my possibly unfavorable conclusions, tactless and attacking. Given my issues, I was stuck on the third one as I just don’t feel constitutionally able to set aside what I see as some major fail. I’ve also argued that I’ve been trying to get a hold of Greater Western Sydney to provide context for their actions so I can be more fair. (I’ve called several times. I’ve e-mailed a number of times. I’ve even used their feedback form. I’ve never heard back.) I’ve also argued that the one time that I did get to meet with GWS people, my advice seemed to be summarily ignored and a promised follow up never happened. I was later told by third parties that the GWS people I met with were not interested in numbers, didn’t have enough of a grasp of social media to understand what I was talking about… oh and yeah, one of the people I met wanted to do a PhD in a similar area as me. Thus, providing GWS with additional data and analysis that would fall on deaf ears? Not interested in it. I’d rather have my private discussions. I’ve also been avoiding blogging about the GWS Giants because my department has a relationship with them. I don’t want to be critical of their social media performance because I don’t want to spoil any potentially good work that my department may do with them. That would not only hurt my relationship with the GWS Giants and the AFL, but with my department.

I’ve also hesitated because I feel like I’m at a disadvantage. I’m an American who has been in Australia all of 9 months. I only started researching the AFL about a year ago. I’m a female operating in what I see as a traditionally male dominated space. Whine whine whine. In talking to some people who haven’t read my blog and seen the research I do and who don’t understand social media, I feel like this puts me at a disadvantage because who is this pushy American female who comes in and tries to tell Australians about their national game?

To a degree, I sometimes feel goaded into speaking my mind (even if I don’t actually post). Several people have told me to ignore my issues and insecurities and go for it. I’ve done that in the past. I’ve lived to regret it. There are certain people you don’t criticize in public because the consequences are that bad. There are certain people you avoid criticizing in private as you don’t want it to get back to them. I always fear when I am goaded into things, that I won’t have any support or that having promised support will cost people and I hate seeing people punished because of me. It makes me hesitant to do so.

The reasons why I don’t criticize Greater Western Sydney are similar to why I don’t criticize other sport teams and athletes. These reasons are why I tend to post tables full of data and dissertation chapter type material, and material where there largely appears to be a positive takeaway (or possibly funny, if I can write that post on Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley.). Is this hesitancy good for my research? I don’t know. By not criticizing, I could gain access to people and insight I might not otherwise. If I do, the research could be better.

There are no easy answers and I’ve yet to get over myself.

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If you’ve been following along with my blog, you know that the end goal is for me to complete my dissertation and get my PhD.  At various times, I work on various chapters.  I’ve done some editing on the methodology chapter and the literature review section.  I’ve done additional editing on my introduction.  I still need to figure out what I want to do with my footnotes.  (For the Storm chapter, I just totally removed them.  I didn’t bother with them in the Monaghan piece.  I forgot that I had them in Akermanis paper.)   Do I want them in or out?  Bah.

I wanted to give people an idea of where I really am in this process.  Thus, I’ve put everything together into one pdf file.

This is my dissertation so far.

If you have any feedback on it, please feel free to share.  Feedback is love.

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In February and March, I’m planning an extended tour around Australia. (My department told me to put the funding request through. I’ll get that in Monday.) My current planned itinerary runs something like this:

• Sydney (Manly, Parramata, Newcastle, Wollongong): 10 days.
• Brisbane (Robina, Gold Coast): 6 days.
• Townsville: 4 days.
• Darwin: 2 days.
• Perth (Fremantle): 6 days
• Adelaide (Port Adelaide): 6 days
• Melbourne (Burwood, Geelong, Fitzroy): 10 days
• Hobart (Launceston): 5 days

The goal of this trip would be to talk to sport culture/management academics in sport studies departments, to talk to league and club officials and to try to talk to representatives of government bodies about sport fandom in Australia. I want to talk to these groups about what they are doing to develop sport fandom, athlete and organizational policies in regards to social media, and to talk about how they are using technology increase participation rates in their sport.

Are there any sport cities I am missing that have people I really should be plan on trying to talk to? Does it look like I have enough time in each city?

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A good friend today said that the real purpose of my dissertation is this: The use of quantitative data methods can be used to analyze sport fandom.

This perspective is very much appreciated as sometimes, when I’m looking at this data and explaining what it means, I tend to look down on it as almost all the work that I’ve seen and almost all of the media coverage that I’ve seen is for qualitative research. Qualitative is awesome in some ways. It is easy to frame a narrative around specific individuals. You can easily take pictures. With quantitative data, it is much harder to frame that narrative. It gets even harder when your quantitative approach is entirely online. This issue can be depressing.

The focus of my dissertation is still demographic, geographic and social characteristics of Australian sport fans online. The analysis just needs a framework to present it. This includes why patterns in fannish behavior change (or don’t). How do you measure change? You hope you have data before an event takes place and then you get data after the event. Did the pattern of membership change? Did the population’s geographic characteristics change? Did the demographic characteristics change? I’ve got a few chapters done. They include the response to the Melbourne Storm controversy, the Jason Akermanis controversy and the Joel Monaghan controversy. I have a few potential micro-chapters. They include Soccer World Cup checkin patterns, how Julia Gillard impacted the Western Bulldogs, and what AFL team was more popular in the North Territory using Google search results totals. Beyond that, I have the data to look at the development of the Greater Western Sydney. These particular situations can help explain what is happening in sport fandom, what the existing communities for these fandoms look like and how they are shaped by controversy. (Hint: Most of the time, major events don’t appear to change the fundamental demographic and geographic characteristics of a fandom. Other events tend to be at play.)

One of the frustrating things about my particular research area is that it can be hard to talk to people about it. To get a lot of it, you have to know a lot about social media across several different sites, to generally understand how sport fandom operates (and how it differs from media fandom.) and then understand how a particular sport fandom works. How do people use YouTube? How does the sport fandom on YouTube use it? What are the fundamental characteristics of a particular fandom manifested on YouTube and are they manifested in a similar way on YouTube or does Youtube present a unique subgroup of fans? This type of approach is just different. It isn’t a usability study. (Though yes, usability can and does play a role in how communities get together on the Internet. If there are barriers to entry, the population may be “abnormal” and not as representative.) It isn’t content analysis. (Though that’s a legitimate method of critique. That methodology tends to be similar to traditional media fandom studies.) It is a population study. This approach just isn’t generally done. When I talk to a lot of people, it feels like I need to present a lot of back story in order to get understanding. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It helps me refine my thoughts and my thinking. It just gets frustrating in that I can’t sit down with people and start discussing these things. (Which is probably the case for a lot of PhD students. You’re the specialist in your area. You should be going deeper than anyone else has on your subject. If it was easy for everyone to understand, then some one would have done research on it already.)

So yeah. At the moment, I’m a bit frustrated. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m making progress. I feel like I’m drowning in data. I can’t always figure out how to provide context and narrative to make my research more compelling and easily understandable to stakeholders and casual fans.

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I’ve been participating in an e-mail conversation with two of my supervisors about the institutional roles related to social media policy in response to the story about country Victorian football players getting suspended as a result of things they said on Facebook.  Different groups have different policies.  Sometimes, what these policies are feel unclear and the media rarely quotes or mentions specific policy regarding how athletes are governed by their leagues and federations in terms of social media usage.  One of my points was that we should see if we couldn’t get our hands on some of these policies and see how they specifically address incidents like the ones referenced in that article.   There seem to be some problem areas where policies stand now.  If we could get our hands on existing policies, maybe we can use those policies as a starting point to offer some sort of training to sport organizations to help them better refine those policies.

The first problem of course is that we don’t exactly have copies of these policies.  To address this problem a bit, I called up a few organizations and asked them about their policies, etc.  This is a summary by organization regarding policies.  (And many thanks to the people who answered.  Calls out of the blue from Australian PhD students with American accents asking about institutional policies probably sounds a little bit questionable… but everyone I talked to was beyond nice.)  With my notes, please realize that the conversations I had probably lasted no more than five minutes.

• Athletics Australia: No specific policy regarding social media.  They do it through media training.  Not restrictive in their policies.  They just ask them to be aware of what they are doing.
• Badminton Australia: No policies.  Olympic policies they have to follow.  They have Facebook and not Twitter.  Will have an athlete who maintains Facebook and the website follow up for me with more information.
• Australian Baseball Federation: No policies on social media usage.  Probably should. No day to day athletes so a bit less need for it at the moment. ABL teams are not focused on social media yet but separate entity so the federation is not involved in setting their policies.
• Australian Baseball League: There is an intention to do create policy and create some sort of training for players.  The policy will cover things such as acceptable behavior on sites like Twitter and Facebook. These policies should not differ much from how players should talk to the media as both are open forums.  Player contracts have clauses regarding bringing the game into disrepute so if a player did something online that would be a problem, they could face consequences based on that clause.
• Basketball Australia: There is no separate national team policy regarding social media usage.  There are advisory guidelines regarding behavior that were written based on the guidelines set by the Australian Olympic Committee.  Beyond these, all athletes are subject to a player agreement that includes a code of conduct.  The code of conduct includes topics such as endorsements, talking about your team mates, talking about referees and other competitors.  Athletes cannot say things that contradict the positions of the organization. For the most part, in terms of competitions, athletes are only really allowed to talk about their own experiences.  None of this explicitly covers the Internet but what they do online does apply.  (The level of policing of athlete activities online is low because they do not have the personnel to dedicate to that.)  The code of conduct means that if an athlete for Basketball Australia had said something like Stephanie Rice did, she would be subject to the code of conduct and consequences outlined there would apply.  Basketball Australia provides support for state organizations on this topic should they want it.  They do not force them to implement these policies as state organizations are independent entitites.
• Diving Australia: Kids have been advised about social media. Can use social media but not during dives and the competitions.  (They will get back to me with more information.)
• Bowls Australia Inc: There is an athlete agreement for public online and offline. Does mention online.  May see about getting me a copy of that athlete code of conduct.
• Equestrian Australia: No specific social media policy regarding members.  Comprehensive codes of conduct so things like criticizing competitors and judging would be covered in both.  Same for sportsman like behavior.  Bad social media usage hasn’t been an issue.  You can’t use mobile phones during competitions.  (Athletes do use them to get in touch with people to help them change horses, move from place to place, get a hold of people.  That’s allow.)  Most of the time they just don’t have time.  Horse people are really on Facebook.    Some recent stuff has been appearing on Twitter.  They’ve started venturing onto YouTube and Twittering.  Athletes are doing that but not when they are competing.  Hamish and Dave.
• Golf Australia: No formal policy.  Professional tours are developing policies.  Players can tweet during rounds.  Not really an issue that Golf Australia has had to face during their opens.  A female American player was listening to her iPod.  issue because of a courtesy to fellow players.  They thought it was an issue.  No formal policy.  When over seas, it is a less of an issue and they are allowed to do that as they control themselves.  (Americans appear to be more likely to tweet during rounds than other nationalities.)

It looks like most of the organizations I was able to get a hold of do not have formal policies.  (And I just wasn’t pressing to get copies of athlete codes of conduct.)  This is interesting but not unexpected.  Back to my e-mail chain, the question came up of why not?  I don’t know but I’d speculate that they do not have them for the following reasons:

• Athletes in their federations are pretty well behaved and use social media in a non-offensive manner.  They have not drawn unwanted media attention or attention from sister federations in other countries.  Given that, they do not feel a pressing need to develop social media specific policies.
• Athlete behavior is viewed as already being covered by codes of conduct.  You cannot criticize competitors and judges/umpires/referees.  It doesn’t need to be stated that if you cannot do that on the grounds or in the media that you shouldn’t do this online.
• Federations do not see how drawing attention to and encouraging social media engagement by their athletes with the wider community would help them meet institutional objectives.  This could/is probably coupled with federations having contracts with some of their athletes regarding media appearances and they do not want to spend those appearances on social media.  They’d rather try to leverage athlete media commitments to help them get main stream media attention.

All of these reasons are perfectly valid to a degree.  If they aren’t going to create specific policies, it might be worth trying to do some training with athletes to make sure they understand that codes of conduct apply to social media engagement, and encourage athletes to engage if they have the time and inclination in order to encourage greater participation in the sport/get additional media attention.  Beyond that, it could help put their organization in a position where they can be proactive in case a social media related story involving their athletes.

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As I’ve been visiting libraries and bookstores, I’ve been writing down and taking pictures of materials that I would like the University of Canberra Library to acquire.  If that isn’t possible, I’ve been noting these with the hopes that some random reader may have these books or books like these that they might want to permanently part (trade?) with so that I can read them.  (It never hurts to ask.  You never know.  If you have some Australian or Kiwi related sport books that you want to get rid of, let me know.  If you have general books about Australian rules football or netball or field hockey, also let me know.)  This is the list that I’ve come up with so far:

If there are any books you think I should be reading that deal with Australian sport fans or Australian sport history, let me know.

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Between October 21 and November 1, 2010, I’ve been busy reading books about Australian and New Zealand sport. Some of this has been for entertainment. Some of this has been with the general broad goal of better understanding Australian and New Zealand sporting cultures. Some of it has also been to try to learn more about the demographic and geographic characteristics of these particular sporting cultures. I’ve spent time in public and universities, in chain bookstores, in independent bookstores and in used bookshops. Beyond what you see here, I’ve developed a rather lengthy list of books that I want the University of Canberra’s library to purchase in order to build up its sport cultures and sport history sections. (The University of Victoria Footscray Park campus library sport section blew me away. I want that at the University of Canberra.) In some cases, I’ve taken pictures of the covers and relevant pages while reading as I didn’t always have paper on hand. Notes from these pages may eventually be written up. That said, my notes to date with a focus on understanding fans.

League of Legends, 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia. Chapter: Rugby League: A Work in Progess by David Middleton. pg. 31.

In the early 1980s, the NRL expanded outside of its traditional base in New South Wales. Fears at the time were that if the National Rugby League failed to expand that the AFL would take over the country and kill their game.

League of Legends, 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia. Chapter: Grass Roots: On Being a Rugby League Fan by Debbie Spilane.
“Pay television and the internet are two of the other major changes in attracting fans.”

“But, for the majority, being a fan is all about a bond with a team and a fellow fans, the memories it holds and the hopes it embodies for the future. It’s about emotion and shared experience and loyalty.”

Sporting Island, A history of Sport and Recreation in Tasmania by David Young.
Rugby league returned to Tasmania in 1990. In 1998, the Melbourne Storm played the Adelaide Rams at the North Hobart Oval. They hoped to get 5,000 fans at the game but only 2,395 showed. This wasn’t a good sign for Rugby League on the island.

A National Game, The History of Australian Rules Football by Rob Hess, Matthew Nicholson, Bob Stewart and Gregory De Moore.

pg. 51: As the game spread during the 1860s, “teams became identified strongly with local communities.”

pg. 66-67: Female fans were depicted as being fans of the team by the 1870s. They appeared in artwork from the era. The percentage of female fans for Australian rules has always been higher than other football codes. In terms of attendance, during the 1870s, they are said to have made up 1/3 to 1/2 of all spectators. Female football fans turned out at all levels of plays. The people who managed the fields and the newspapers were keen to provide and promote the nicer seating accommodations for female fans. Early female fans were not necessarily there to look at the attractive male form as early uniforms were not as form fitting. Only as the 1870s unfolded did the uniforms become tighter and similar to that of rugby.

pg. 96: Local newspapers were important in terms of helping share club news, create fan identity and develop a fan base. An example of this was the Independent, which promoted the Footscray Football Club.

pg. 96-97: Supporters “adopted a variety of emblems, totems and flags in their search for a visible form of community identity in an increasingly competitive suburban competition.” Club colors were worn on scarves, clothing, in rosettes, silk ribbons and other paraphernalia sold by local shopkeepers. Football clubs helped legitimize local communities, were vital to the community’s social structures and supported local businesses. “In essence, the more formal organization of the VFA created the conditions by which casual onlookers to the game evolved into loyal barrackers with an emotional investment in the results of matches. With the creation of this specific audience in the 1870s and 1880s came a consumerist mentality that helped to boost commercial dimensions of the code.

pg. 158: “It should be understood that the relationship between women and football is multifaceted rather than one-dimensional. The obvious presence of a large number of female spectators is clearly distinctive to the code, and the press description of female barrackers stoically sitting in the rain yelling abuse at the umpire, or decorating their prams in club colours, are enduring reflections of the passionate commitment that women displayed for Australian Rules football.”

pg. 164: Contains a map of the Barassi-line.

pg. 165: During the 1920s, Melbourne was the spiritual home for Australian rules football because the game had been invented in Melbourne. During the 1920s, Melbourne supported two leagues: The VFA and the VFL.

pg. 167-168: Adelaide and South Australia were also heavily involved with Australian rules during the 1920s. Population of 295,000 and they could get 20,000 to big matches, 8,000 on average,

pg. 169: Western Australia was also into Australian rules. The same was true for Tasmania.

pg. 170: Australian rules was less popular in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT though these states all had competitions.

pg. 171: The Northern Territories during the 1920s and 1930s were into Australian rules, especially amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander populations.

pg. 215: Pascoe is cited along with his rational for why Rugby took off where it did versus Australian rules and where it did. (Structure and team oriented coming out of a convict pass for rugby. Less structured and more individualist for a more a society created in the freewheeling period of the late 19^th century.

pg. 244: North Melbourne tried to move to Coburg in the 1960s but locals felt disloyal to their VFA team and did not like having to pay for the team to be there.

pg. 246: “Carlton was a magnet for immigrants in the 1950s because of its low-cost rentals, high-density housing and proximity to the city.” Lots of Italian immigrants settled there. Some played soccer but a few tried Australian rules and were good at it. Because of the multi-cultural composition of the team, the nature of the fanbase changed while maintaining its middle class aspirations. In Western Australia, other immigrant groups and Aboriginals began playing for and supporting local Perth area club sides.

pg. 248: The galas put on by the ANFC weren’t that successful as many Australians were more interested in their local club sides than they were in state teams.

The Winter Game, Rediscovering the Passion of Rugby by Todd R. Nicholls.
pg. 47: Super 12 brings in non-hardcore fans of rugby more into the game. As of 2005, no study has been done to examine the economic impact of the Dunedin Super 12 team on the local economy. A study was done on the economic impact of test rugby.

pg. 97: In New Zealand, you’ve got crowds of 20,000 people going to a Super 12 game. Fans pay a lot of money to attend. Amateur rugby is a problem because fewer players continue playing in their 20s. This is similar to the problem of soccer in New Zealand. If players do not go on, it can be a problem for the game.

pg. 129: “It’s as if a notion of the nation is that much more difficult for a rugby fan to grasp. The All Blacks are, well, New Zealand’s team but the ‘us’ is bigger than when the Crusaders are playing and perhaps harder to identify with.”

pg. 130: “I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness as I contemplate this, a real sense of loss that the average fan has to some degree been left behind in the move to professional rugby.”

pg. 141: Rugby union in Australia is a game more for Australia’s elite. This can be seen in how fans dress to attend matches. It can culturally also be seen in the demographics of fans in Australia: Private school educated, using the game to reaffirm business connections, richer and belonging to a more exclusive class.

pg. 158: Rugby is something fitted around school, work and family for most New Zealand rugby fans. For club rugby and the NPC, the author thinks that the smaller provinces are better in that they get behind their teams more in the local community, in the newspaper and on the street. He asserts that winning the NPC means more the community than it does in bigger communities.

pg. 277: Being an All Black meant behaving a certain way, doing certain things, treating fans a certain way. Professionalism has tested these traditions and expectations for what it means to be an All Black.

pg. 288: Rugby fans vote for the “RBS Player of the Championship” in the Six Nations competition.

pg. 297-298: The Barmy Army has a project manager. His job is to create events for fans to attend while the Lions do tours and compete in Tests. Lions fans are madly passionate, at the author and the project manager assert. In the tour of New Zealand, they out number the Kiwi fans and out sang them. The local economy makes a lot of money off these visiting fans, as will the organizers with their high ticket prices and expensive kit. Still, some of the officially organized events had low attendance and appeared to the author less celebrating a love of rugby and more about trying to make as much cash as possible.

pg. 320: The vast majority of the members of the Barmy Army are Lions fans traveling all around New Zealand anyway or are older fans on expensive tour packages. A lot of others are Kiwis who support the Lions.

pg. 322: Losing doesn’t matter much to the Lions fans attending the New Zealand tour. It is all about having a good time and supporting their team.

pg. 347: The increase in the number of Super 12/14 games and TriNations games did not necessarily increase the demand for rugby. The start of the Super 14 competition had smaller attendance in New Zealand than in previous years. The expanded schedule also meant increased competition with other sport schedules in all three countries.

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