Ozzie Sport

Distribution of Australian sports fans by league and location map

I’m trying to make a map of Australian sports fandom across various social networks.  This is going to take a long time and require a long explanation to understand exactly what you’re seeing.  This map isn’t intended to be all comprehensive.  I’m still collecting data and will likely continue to collecting data for a long time.    That’s why a long explanation is needed.

Country League Rugby: Group 21 is represented exclusively by the Facebook group SCONE THOROUGHBREDS RUGBY LEAGUE CLUB. Location was identified the location of the school network members listed themselves as belonging to.

For the NWBL, amongst the social networks I’ve checked so far, only You!Tube had people who listed the league.  And that was one person.  There were several people on Facebook who belonged the Wollongong Roller Hawks group and listed a network which I could affiliate with a city.

The AHL is represented by a Facebook group for the Tassie Tigers and three people on bebo. There were no fans on LiveJournal’s clones or blogger.

The AFL includes full data from 43things, bebo, blogger, eacademy, Daniel Jackson – TIGER TUFF!, Law Hawks and No matter how bad they are, I will still barrack for the Richmond Tigers! groups on Facebook, Gaia Online (but no one was an AFL fan who listed a city), LiveJournal and its clones, only Collingwood from MySpace profile search, only Brisbane Lions, Collingwood Magpies and Carlton Blues from orkut, only the scrapheap_afl mailing list on Yahoo!groups, and only the Geelong Cats on YouTube.

For the NRL, the following Facebook groups were included: Matt Johns to coach the Newcastle Knights in 2010! , Wests Tigers NYC and Melbourne-based Wests Tigers Fanatics. Only the Brisbane Broncos were looked at on 43things. Every team was searched for on bebo, blogger, Gaia Online, LiveJournal and its clones. The sample is much smaller than the AFL. (Though the community on bebo is much larger than AFL community on bebo. It might sort of make up for that.)

WNBL totals came from YouTube, MySpace, eacademy, bebo and LiveJournal clones.

For the NBL, only the Brisbane Bullets were looked at on 43 things. On Facebook for the NBL, unlike for most leagues looked at, an attempt was made to find every group connected to the team. Thus, the following groups and fanpages are represented: Townsville McDonald’s Crocodiles, Adelaide 36ers, Adelaide 36ers are the greatest team of ANY kind EVER!!, Adelaide 36ers Fan Zone, Bring Allen Iverson to the Adelaide 36ers!, Bring Dusty Rychart back to the Adelaide 36ers ~ beg, plead, grovel ;p, Cairns Taipans , Croc Nation, Early 90’s Perth Wildcats appreciation group, Gold Coast Blaze, Melbourne Tigers, melbourne tigers are the best team, Melbourne Tigers Basketball Club, Melbourne Tigers cheer squeda east and south ends , Melbourne Tigers NBL HUMMER CHAMPIONS 2007/08, Melbourne Tigers NBL supporters, New Zealand Breakers, Official Perth Wildcats, Perth Wildcats, Perth Wildcats, Perth Wildcats (Catties Fans), SAVE OUR MELBOURNE TIGERS NBL TEAM , THIS SEASON., Save Our South Dragons:www. saveourdragons.com, South Dragons 2008/09 Nbl Champions, South Melbourne Dragons, The Melbourne Tigers Fan Group, The Official Adelaide 36ers Page, Townsville McDonald’s Crocodiles and Wollongong Hawks. If this was done with other clubs and leagues, the representation for the AFL and NRL would probably be much, much bigger. Every team was looked at on bebo, blogger, LiveJournal and its clones. It also includes members of melbournetigers on Yahoo!Groups.

For the VFL, only the Geelong Cats and Coburg Tigers were checked. On MySpace, Frankston Dolphins , Sandringham Zebras , Werribee Tigers , Collingwood Magpies and Geelong Cats were checked. All teams were checked on LiveJournal and its clones, blogger and bebo.

A-League is represented by a search of all teams on bebo, blogger, LiveJournal and its clones. Orkut was searched for Melbourne Victory fans. It might not show up on the first version of this map because after about seven layers, the mapping software gets slow.

Distribution of Australian sports fans by league and location map

Related Posts:

• Based on data to date: Biggest Australian sports fandom
• Online Activity in the Wake of the Melbourne Storm Controversy
• Popularity of Australian sports leagues across various social networks
• WNBL on LiveJournal and bebo

The league was discussed in the previous post.  I just don’t want to group too many networks in one post, even if there isn’t much to say.  In this case, while LiveJournal has a much larger comparative Australian audience than LiveJournal clones, the size of the community for AFL Canberra teams is still practically non-existent: Only one person list a team as an interest.  This would be a Belconnen Magpies fan from Melbourne who was born in 1975.  The situation on blogger isn’t much better: No one lists one of these teams as an interest.

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Wikipedia says that the AHL is Australia’s “premier national domestic field hockey competition. Despite its non-professional nature, AHL is considered one of the strongest and most competitive national field hockey leagues in the world.”  There is a men’s and women’s league.  On the men’s side, the teams include New South Wales Waratahs, NT Stingers, Southern Hotshots, Tassie Tigers, Victoria Vikings, and WA Thundersticks.

Unsurprisingly, no one lists these teams as an interest on blogger, LiveJournal or LiveJournal’s clones.  These are niche teams for a small audience.  The sport isn’t likely to have much international interest.  The league isn’t professional.  The Australian audience on these services isn’t that big or active.  It seems unlikely that they will ever garner a community around them unless some one comes in and brings their own audience for this content.

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New Zealand has several professional sports teams that compete in Australian and New Zealand based leagues.  The leagues that are involved with include the the A-League, ANZ Championship,  National Rugby League, and Super 14. The teams include Wellington Phoenix,    Northern Mystics,     Southern Steel,     Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic,    Canterbury Crusaders, and  New Zealand Warriors.  The map below only includes bebo and blogger users who list the team as an interest and list a city in New Zealand as their place of residence.  (I haven’t done LiveJournal and there were no fans on LiveJournal’s clones.)  The city communities involved are really small compared to some of their Australian peers.   Brisbane has 121 compared to Auckland’s 11.  To be fair though, Auckland had fans of Australian based teams and if those were included, they’d be at 22 instead of 11.  (Those 11 fans are all NRL fans of the following teams: Brisbane Broncos, Canberra Raiders, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Gold Coast Titans.

New Zealand 18 4 1 Wellington Phoenix Northern Mystics Southern Steel Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic Canterbury Crusaders New Zealand Warriors

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I’ve finished tallying the number of fans by team for blogger.  The following chart is sorted by most popular teams first, least popular teams last.

Australian Sports Fandom on Blogger

What I didn’t find all that surprising was the dominance of AFL teams at the top.   They have eight of the twelve spots for teams with double digit fans on their service.   Of the remaining four spots, two are for the A-League and two are for the NRL.  The presence of the A-League feels a bit surprising as I didn’t think that soccer was that popular in Australia, at least compared to the NRL.  I do recall a fair amount of advertising for the A-League and they are beginning to build more soccer purpose built stadiums in Australia.

For the 28 teams with 1 to 9 fans, all are from the NRL, AFL or A-League with the exception of the Melbourne Phoenix  who played in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.  I am a bit surprised that some of the more popular netball teams on Facebook, Twitter and bebo didn’t make the list for blogger.   I’m not surprised that other leagues didn’t make the list as most of these leagues are for secondary sports.

There are 227 total listings for people who list a team as an interest.  (There may be duplicates, where a person lists more than one team as an interest.)  Of the population, 144 or 63% identify themselves as male, 63 or 28% identify themselves as female and 20 or 9% do not identify a gender.  This feels in line with how sports fandom tends to be depicted when looked at by gender: Male dominant but with a growing female demographic.

Of the 227, only 154 listed their birthdate and had their astrological sign displayed.   The distribution amongst various astrological signs is pretty even with the smallest representation at 7 or 5% for Taurus and the largest at 17 or 11% for Pisces.   The distribution for specific teams is much less even, but much of this can be attributed to the small sample size.

142 of he 227 list their age when problematic ages, like 253, are removed.  The oldest fans are those for the Richmond Tigers, who average 41.6 years.  This community is small though, with only three people listing their age.  The Parramatta Eels have the oldest average age for a team with five or more people who list their age.  Their average age is 35.8.   The NRL and AFL are evenly distributed for teams with the oldest fans.  Penrith Panthers has the youngest average fan age at 18, but the population size is only one.  For a team with five or more people listing them as an interest, the Melbourne Victory win with an average age of  22.8.

167 fans list an Australian state of residence.  (There may be more Australian in this sample but they don’t necessarily list their state.)   The most popular state for sports fans on blogger listing an Australian team as an interest in New South Wales, with 62 people.  Victoria is second with 43.   Queensland is third with 28.  Western Australia is fourth with 15.  South Australia is fifth with 11.  The ACT has 5, Tasmania has 2 and the Northern Territory has 1.  In the ACT, the most popular team is the Brisbane Lions with 2 fans.  In New South Wales, Syndey FC is the most popular team with 16 fans.  The Roosters are the second most popular with 7 fans, which is a pretty big difference between the most popular and second most popular teams.  The Collingwood Magpies are the most popular team in the Northern Territory with 1 fan.  The Brisbane Lions are the most popular team in Queensland with 7 fans.  The Broncos are the second most popular with 4 fans.  The Adelaide Crows are the most popular team in South Australia with 8 fans.  The only other team listed as an interest by people listing the state as their place of residence were Adelaide United of the A-League.  No NRL team interested people from that state.  From Tasmania, 1 person listed the Geelong Cats as an interest and 1 person listed the Richmond Tigers as an interest.  In Victoria, the Collingwood Magpies were the most popular team with 12 people listing them as an interest.  The second most popular team with 7 fans was Melbourne Victory.  In Western Australia, there are two most popular teams: Fremantle Dockers and Perth Glory with 5 fans each. There is no second most popular team.  The other five people from the state evenly distribute their interest with one fan for five teams.  I don’t feel well enough informed at this point to know if this reflects on existing regional sports fandom patterns.

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This post looks at the size of the Wests Tigers community on blogger.  The Wests Tigers are a Sydney based National Rugby League team.  The team is relatively new, having been founded in 2000 as a merger of the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies.

So far, the only other NRL team on blogger that has been looked at is the Brisbane Broncos.  That team has 12 people who listed them as an interest.  In comparison, the Wests Tigers have ten people who list them as an interest.  That they are so close is a bit surprising as Roy Morgan Research indicates that the fanbase for the Wests Tigers is substantially smaller than that of the Broncos.

Of the ten West Tigers fans, seven are from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from the United Kingdom and one who does not identify their country of origin.  Compared to other NRL teams, the percentage of Australians is low: 100% of Brisbane Broncos fans on blogger and Dreamwidth are all Australian, 100% of Melbourne Storm fans on LiveJournal are Australians, 85.7% of Canterbury Bulldogs fans on LiveJournal are Australian, 81.1% of Broncos fans on LiveJournal are Australian.  Of the networks and teams sampled, only the Broncos community on bebo has a smaller percentage, 71.1%, of Australians.

Of the Australians, three are from Queensland and three are from New South Wales.  This makes as these states are strong holds of Rugby League.  Added to that, Melbourne and Sydney have traditionally had a rivalry so you wouldn’t necessary expect a Victorian fan population.

The astrological sign data is really interesting and would be more interesting if it the samples were larger to see if some sort of statement could be made about a team’s fanbase.  That said, six people list their date of birth for Blogger to calculate their astrological sign.  Three are Leos, and with one person being a Cancer, Capricorn and Pisces.

Seven of the ten fans list their age, with two of these being obviously incorrect; a person cannot be 253 years old.   If those two are ignored, the average age of a Wests Tigers fan on blogger is 28.8 and a median age of 22.  This average makes the team’s fans older than some of the other NRL team fans on networks that I’ve looked at including Broncos fans on bebo and LiveJournal,  Canterbury Bulldogs fans on LiveJournal and Melbourne Storm fans on LiveJournal.  The only team and network with a higher average is the Broncos community on blogger.  The above average age compared to other fan populations may end up being a result of people self selecting networks based on age: the youngest fans prefer bebo, fans in their mid 20s prefer LiveJournal and older fans prefer blogging.  As we age or as a result of a generational gap, we might prefer going from shorter method of communicating to a longer one.

Seven people list their gender as male, two as female and one does not identify their gender.  This is higher percentage of male fans than  the Broncos on either bebo or blogger.

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• Based on data to date: Biggest Australian sports fandom
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• Alexa rank for Australian leagues and clubs
• Online Activity in the Wake of the Melbourne Storm Controversy

Based on the somewhat data I have so far from Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and its clones, blogger and bebo, the Melbourne Victory are one of the most popular teams in Australia.  They are only behind Collingwood Magpies, Carlton Blues, and the  Queensland Maroons.  A lot of this is attributed to the 46,620 people who list the team as an interest on Facebook and 1,432 people following the team on Twitter.

So far, only 28 teams have been looked at on blogger and here, the Victory fall in the middle of the pack with only 11 people listing them as an interest.  Most of the sampling on the network has involved the AFL and Queensland based teams.  Teams ahead of the Victory include Sydney Swans, Collingwood Magpies, West Coast Eagles, Adelaide Crows, Brisbane Broncos, Brisbane Lions, Geelong Cats, and the Western Bulldogs.

What does this small community look like?  Of the eleven, nine list their country of residence.   Of these nine, eight are Australians and one is likely an Australian who is currently traveling the United States.   Of the nine Australians, seven list their state of origin and they are all from Victoria, six listing Melbourne as their home and one listing St. Kilda as theirs.  This is a team that draws, at least on blogger, from where it is based and does not have a larger, national following.

Seven people list their age.  For mean, median and mode, age is the same: 22.  This is a relatively young fan community, especially when compared to a few of the AFL team communities on blogger.  The community is also a more likely to be male with 6 people identifying as male, 3 identifying as female and 2 not identifying.  Between the Adelaide Crows, Brisbane Broncos, Brisbane Bullets, Brisbane Lions, Carlton Blues, Collingwood Magpies, Essendon Bombers, Fremantle Dockers, Geelong Cats, Hawthorn Hawks, Melbourne Demons, and North Melbourne Kangaroos communities, only the Carlton Blues, Collingwood Magpies and Geelong Cats communities have a smaller female fanbase.

It will be interesting to see how this community eventually compares to other A-League teams on the network.

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This post is a series of posts looking at the size of Australian sports leagues on LiveJournal, its clones and other social networks. Earlier posts include Australian Football League on JournalFen , Australian Football League community on DeadJournal , National Rugby League on DeadJournal and JournalFen,  Australian Football League on LiveJournal clones like Blurty, Dreamwidth Studios and InsaneJournal, Adelaide Crows community on LiveJournal, its clones and Blogger,and Official Australian Football League Twitter accounts and follower population by country. and Brisbane Lions community on LiveJournal, its clones and Blogger. Methodology for this post has been discussed in earlier posts.

Brisbane has a number of professional sports team including the Brisbane Broncos, Brisbane Lions, Queensland Maroons, Brisbane Roar, Brisbane Bullets (defunct), Queensland Reds, Queensland Bulls, Queensland Blades, Queensland Firebirds, Queensland Rams and Queensland Sundevils.  For all but two of these teams, the Blades and Rams, there is some small community on one of the following social networks: bebo, blogger, LiveJournal and its clones, Twitter.  If Twitter is excluded, the Broncos have the largest community with 333 people interested in them and the Sundevils the smallest with 1 person interested in them.

What does the Brisbane sports team fandom look like? Half (54%) the Australian community is based out of Queensland and about a quarter (28%) is based in New South Wales.  The rest is distributed amongst the other states, with the exception of Tasmania which has no Brisbane fans for any sports.

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• Based on data to date: Biggest Australian sports fandom
• Most popular Australian clubs and teams on Twitter
• Version 3: Most popular Australian athlete and team related Twitter accounts by total followers.
• Most popular Australian athlete and team related Twitter accounts by total followers

This post is a series of posts looking at the size of Australian sports leagues on LiveJournal, its clones and other social networks. Earlier posts include Australian Football League on JournalFen , Australian Football League community on DeadJournal , National Rugby League on DeadJournal and JournalFen, Australian Football League on LiveJournal clones like Blurty, Dreamwidth Studios and InsaneJournal, Adelaide Crows community on LiveJournal, its clones and Blogger,and Official Australian Football League Twitter accounts and follower population by country.

This post is looking at the size and characteristics of the Brisbane Lions community on LiveJournal and Blogger. The sundry of disclaimers and methodologies can be found on earlier posts. LiveJournal data was collected on December 30, 2009 and Blogger information was gathered on December 29, 2009.

The Brisbane Lions community on Blogger is a bit smaller than the community for the Adelaide Crows, with 16 people listing the team or city and a footy related interest as an interest. This group has six women, nine men and one person who does not list a gender. This percentage of 38% puts their female audience at larger than the Crows (33%), Blues (25%), Magpies (25%) and Bombers (29%) communities located on Blogger. Twelve people list their ages of which two are obvious errors or intentional mistakes: One is 252 years old and the other is 253. The average age for a Lions fan on Blogger is 33, the median age is 30 and the mode age is 27. In terms of birthdays, two are Aries, one is a Cancer, two are Leos, four are Libras, two are Pisces, two are Scropios and one is a Virgo. All sixteen list their country of residence. Three are not from Australia: Two are from London, England and one is an American from Colorado. Ten of the Australians lists their state of residence. Of these, seven are from Queensland, two are from the ACT and one is from Victoria.

Like Blogger, the Brisbane Lions LiveJournal community is smaller than the community for the Adelaide Crows, with only 61 people listing the Brisbane Lions as an interest. 14 of these 16 updated in the past week and 33 total have updated in the past year. 4 have never updated. While smaller, this group appears to be a bit more active on LiveJournal than the community for the Adelaide Crows. 16 of the 61 people list their year of birth. Of these 16, the mean year of birth is 1984, and median and mode year of birth is 1986. The oldest were born in 1972 and the youngest was born in 1991. 56 of the 61 list their country of residence. 4 are from the United Kingdom and 7 are from the United States. The percentages of the total population is inverse of what it is for Blogger. With 45 from Australia, the percentage of the population from the country is similar to that of Blogger, 80% on LiveJournal compared to 81% on Blogger. These numbers are also some what comparable to the Twitter population which has 77% from Australia, 2% from the United Kingdom and 21% from United States out of 325 people counted. 33 of the 45 Australians list a state of residence. Of this, 19 are from Queensland, 10 are from Victoria, 2 are from South Australia with 1 from the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

What does the breakdown by state look like? The following chart shows LiveJournal, Blogger and its clones:

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