Posts Tagged Facebook

More popular Australian (and Kiwi) sport related Facebook fanpages and groups (November 23)

Posted by Laura on Tuesday, 23 November, 2010

This post is an updated version of my November 21 post. It contains more groups and fan pages. It should be a bit more comprehensive. Worth noting: When some of these groups were last checked, there were several members. Some of the things not appearing have been deleted including anti-Monaghan groups and anti-Akermanis groups. Others need to be checked. We’re still working on improving the program that fetches this data. Also, unlike Twitter, I’m a little more keen to get unofficial groups/fan pages (and those are easier for fans to create). This can help give an idea as to how controversies in fandom play out over time.


League Team Type Official Group/Page 23-Nov-10
Rugby World Cup Rugby World Cup Page Yes Rugby World Cup 727,661
Rugby World Cup All Blacks Page Yes All Blacks 629,582
AFL AFL Page Yes AFL 251,605
NRL NRL Page Yes National Rugby League 232,168
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page Yes Support Australia’s 2022 Official FIFA World Cup Bid 229,690
Rugby League/State of Origin Queensland Maroons Page Yes Queensland Maroons 201,527
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page Yes Socceroos – Australian National Football Team 143,339
Australian Tennis Open Series Australian Tennis Open Series Page Yes Australian Open 139,059
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page Yes Cricket Australia 112,272
AFL Collingwood Magpies Page Yes Collingwood Football Club 104,553
AFL Essendon Bombers Page Yes Essendon FC 90,782
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues Page Yes NSW Blues 87,837
AFL Adelaide Crows Page Yes Adelaide Crows 60,272
AFL West Coast Eagles Page Yes West Coast Eagles 60,060
AFL West Coast Eagles Page Yes West Coast Eagles 60,060
AFL St. Kilda Saints Page Yes St Kilda Football Club 57,501
AFL Carlton Blues Page Yes Carlton Football Club 51,200
Cricket Australia Victorian Spirit Page Yes Victorian Bushrangers 43,810
NRL Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs Sports Team Yes Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 43,102
Rugby World Cup Australian Wallabies Page Yes Qantas Wallabies 40,966
AFL Sydney Swans Page No Sydney Swans 39,330
AFL Sydney Swans Page Yes Sydney Swans 39,330
NRL Melbourne Storm Page Yes Melbourne Storm 37,942
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete Yes Ricky Ponting 37,918
General Australian sport General Australian sport Page Yes Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) 36,463
AIS AIS Page Yes Australian Institute of Sport 35,321
AFL Fremantle Dockers Page Yes Fremantle Football Club 33,698
NRL Wests Tigers Page Yes Wests Tigers – Official National Rugby League Club 32,977
Rugby League New Zealand Kiwis Page Yes New Zealand Kiwis 32,174
Rugby League New Zealand Kiwis Page Yes New Zealand Kiwis 32,174
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Page Yes Hawthorn Football Club 32,112
NRL St George-Illawarra Dragons Page Yes St George-Illawarra Dragons 31,914
AFL Richmond Tigers Page Yes Richmond FC 29,270
NRL Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Page Yes Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 26,151
NRL Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Page Yes Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 26,151
AFL Port Adelaide Power Page Yes Port Adelaide Football Club 24,263
NSWRL Central Coast Bears Page Yes Central Coast Bears 21,678
NRL Newcastle Knights Page Yes Newcastle Knights 21,285
NRL Wests Tigers Page No Benji Marshall 20,009
AFL Brisbane Lions Page No Brisbane Lions 19,629
AFL Brisbane Lions Page Yes Brisbane Lions 19,629
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Page Yes North Melbourne Football Club 19,189
Olympics Australian Olympic Team Page Yes Australian Olympic Team 18,263
AFL Western Bulldogs Page Yes Western Bulldogs 16,603
Rugby League Australian Kangaroos Page Yes Australian Kangaroos 15,723
NRL Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks Page Yes Cronulla Sharks 15,437
Rugby World Cup All Blacks Page Yes BackingBlack 15,397
Tennis Australia Sam Stosur Page Yes Sam Stosur 15,318
NRL Penrith Panthers Sports / Athletics Yes Penrith Panthers 14,107
NRL South Sydney Rabbitohs Athlete No Greg Inglis 12,748
Super League NSW Waratahs Page Yes Waratahs 11,845
Super League Queensland Reds Page Yes Quade Cooper 10,474
NRL Canberra Raiders Local Business No i bet u i can find 10,000 people who hate canberra raiders 10,000
AIS Tennis Australia Page Yes Tennis 9,822
AFL Melbourne Demons Page Yes Melbourne Football Club 9,754
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page Yes Gold Coast Football Club 9,543
Super League Queensland Reds Page Yes Queensland Reds 9,470
NRL NRL Page Yes NRL Lone Scout 8,988
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports Team Yes Canberra Raiders 8,723
NRL Canberra Raiders Page Yes Canberra Raiders 8,723
NRL Melbourne Storm Page No Sucked in Melbourne Storm! HAHA 8,671
A-League A-League Page Yes Hyundai A-League 8,544
AFL Collingwood Magpies Page No COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES PREMIERS OF 2010. 8,517
AFL Collingwood Magpies Group No Collingwood Magpies 8,027
AFL Geelong Cats Page Yes Geelong Cats Insider 7,315
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Western Bulldogs 7,037
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau 6,923
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau 6,923
NRL South Sydney Rabbitohs Sports / Athletics Yes South Sydney Rabbitohs – Official Page 6,673
Victorian Roller Derby League Victorian Roller Derby League Page Yes Victorian Roller Derby League 6,652
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Group No hawthorn football club 6,490
ANZ Championship ANZ Championship Page Yes ANZ Netball 5,870
AFL Adelaide Crows Group No Adelaide Crows 5,753
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports / Athletics Yes Hockeyroos 5,676
Cricket Australia Cricket New South Wales Page Yes Cricket NSW 5,615
Sydney Roller Derby League Sydney Roller Derby League Page Yes Sydney Roller Derby League 5,541
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Page No North Melbourne Kangaroos 5,530
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 5,312
NRL New Zealand Warriors Sports Team Yes Vodafone Warriors 5,302
AFL West Coast Eagles Group No West Coast Eagles Appreciation Group 4,999
Rugby League Papua New Guinea Kumuls Page Yes Papua New Guinea Kumuls 4,708
AFL Sydney Swans Group No Sydney Swans 4,646
NRL Melbourne Storm Page No Give Melbourne Storm Their Premierships Back 4,505
NRL North Queensland Cowboys Page Yes North Queensland Toyota Cowboys 4,437
Super League Melbourne Rebels Page Yes Melbourne Rebels – The Official Fan Page 4,402
AFL St. Kilda Saints Group No St Kilda Football Club 4,257
Super League Melbourne Rebels Page Yes Rebel Army 4,140
AFL Melbourne Demons Group No Melbourne Football Club, The Mighty Demons 4,087
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Football Club, The Mighty Demons 4,087
AFL Geelong Cats Group No GEELONG FOOTBALL CLUB 3,958
Super League Western Force Page No Western Force 3,734
Super League Western Force Page Yes Western Force 3,734
AFL Fremantle Dockers Group No Fremantle Dockers Fan Club 3,707
NRL Brisbane Broncos Page Yes Brisbane Broncos Cheerleaders 3,528
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Page Yes Melbourne Vixens 3,371
Rugby League/State of Origin Queensland Maroons Page Yes Maroon Crusade 3,241
AFL Port Adelaide Power Group No Port Adelaide Power 3,139
Women’s World Cup Matildas Page Yes Matildas – Australian National Women’s Football Team 2,884
Australian Tennis Open Series Brisbane International Page Yes Brisbane International – Australian Open Series 2,859
AFL Richmond Tigers Group No Richmond Tigers 2,741
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page Yes Team GWS 2,615
Auckland Rugby League Auckland Rugby League Page Yes Auckland Rugby League 2,598
Super League ACT Brumbies Page Yes Official Brumbies Fan Page 2,563
Super League ACT Brumbies Page Yes Official Brumbies Fan Page 2,563
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Rest in Peace Shawn Mackay 2,470
Country Rugby League Country Rugby League Page Yes Country Rugby League 2,417
AFL Adelaide Crows Page No Adelaide Crows The team for all proud South Aussies 2,395
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Group No North Melbourne Kangaroos 2,366
NBL Perth Wildcats Page Yes Official Perth Wildcats 2,351
AFL Brisbane Lions Group No Brisbane Lions AFC 2,309
Australian Tennis Open Series Medibank International Sydney Page Yes Medibank International Sydney – Australian Open Series 2,288
NRL NRL Page Yes Women In League 2,284
NRL Gold Coast Titans Sports / Athletics Yes The Legion – Gold Coast Titans 2,203
WNBL WNBL Sports / Athletics No WNBL 2,145
NRL NRL Page Yes Indigenous All Stars 2,114
AFL Essendon Bombers Group No Essendon Bombers 2,008
NRL South Sydney Rabbitohs Page No Greg Inglis 1,843
Brisbane City Rollers Brisbane City Rollers Page Yes Brisbane City Rollers 1,827
New Shute Shield New Shute Shield Page Yes Tooheys New Shute Shield 1,821
ABL Barbagallo Perth Heat Page Yes Barbagallo Perth Heat Baseball Club 1,769
Cricket Australia Western Australian Cricket Association Page Yes Western Australian Cricket Association 1,736
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues Page Yes New South Wales Rugby League 1,696
W-League W-League Page Yes Westfield W-League 1,676
W-League W-League Sports / Athletics Yes Westfield W-League 1,675
AFL Carlton Blues Group No Carlton Blues Supporters Club 1,620
Super League Queensland Reds Page No QR Reds – Queensland Reds 1,606
Super League Super League Page Yes Investec Bank Super 14 Rugby 1,556
Rugby World Cup Australian Wallabies Page No Green and Gold Rugby 1,538
Super League Super League Page Yes Super Rugby 1,503
NSW Rugby League North Sydney Bears Page Yes North Sydney District Rugby League Football Club 1,403
NRL Parramatta Eels Sports Team Yes Parramatta Eels 1,366
AIS Equestrian Australia Page Yes Equestrian Australia 1,349
Van Diemen Rollers Van Diemen Rollers Page Yes Van Diemen Rollers 1,346
WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby Page Yes WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby 1,326
Rugby League Australian Kangaroos Page Yes The Roo Crew 1,310
ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds Group No Queensland Firebirds 1,267
AFL AFL Page Yes AFLPA 1,253
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No ACT Brumbies! 1,225
NRL Melbourne Storm Page No Support the Melbourne Storm this Sunday Night 1,207
General Australian sport General Australian sport Page Yes ANZ Stadium 1,202
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports Team No Canberra Raiders 1,196
VFL Frankston Dolphins Group No FRANKSTON DOLPHINS FOOTBALL CLUB 1,193
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Page No Hamish McIntosh 1,147
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Page No Michael Firrito 1,146
A-League Melbourne Heart Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Heart FC 1,145
AFL Western Bulldogs Athlete No Jason Akermanis 1,094
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Group No Melbourne Vixens 1,077
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Vixens 1,077
AFL West Coast Eagles Page No West Coast Eagles SUCK! 1,069
NSW Rugby League Western Suburbs Magpies Page Yes Western Suburbs Magpies 1,008
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Anything To Do With Footy. 977
ANZ Championship Northern Mystics Page Yes Northern Mystics 969
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jason Akermanis 874
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Public Figure No Israel Folau 854
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Western Bulldogs 853
NBL South Melbourne Dragons Group No Save Our South Dragons:www. saveourdragons.com 852
WNBL West Coast Waves Sports / Athletics Yes West Coast Waves WNBL (Official) 846
Cricket Australia Victorian Spirit Page Yes VicSpirit 830
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No WESTERN BULLDOGS 2010 PREMIERSHIP TEAM 828
AFL St. Kilda Saints Page No ST KILDA SAINTS 823
ANZ Championship Southern Steel Page Yes Southern Steel 816
NBL New Zealand Breakers Page No New Zealand Breakers 788
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers 783
SEABL SEABL Page Yes SEABL 758
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers Basketball Club 722
AIS Australian Canoeing Page Yes Australian Canoeing 720
Australian Canoeing Australian Canoeing Page Yes Australian Canoeing 720
NRL Melbourne Storm Page No melbourne storm :) 712
AIS Triathlon Australia Page Yes Triathlon Australia 700
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau 697
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau 697
ABL Victoria Aces Page Yes Victoria Aces ABL Baseball 682
Ballarat Roller Derby Rat Pack Page Yes Ballarat Roller Derby – Rat Pack 641
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Local Business No Ricky Ponting 624
W-League Canberra United Group Yes Canberra United Fans 623
W-League Canberra United Page Yes Canberra United Fans 623
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis is a homophobe. 622
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page Yes GWS Giants 620
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page Yes ACT 4 GWS 605
Tennis Australia Tennis Australia Page Yes Australian Tennis Magazine 590
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Page No The NMFC Hoodie 586
VFL North Ballarat Roosters Group No Selkirk Roosters – North Ballarat Football Club 581
Australian Tennis Open Series Moorilla Hobart International Page Yes Moorilla Hobart International – Australian Open Series 556
WNBL Dandenong Rangers Sports / Athletics No WNBL Dandenong Jayco Rangers 545
AIS Australia International Shooting Limited Page Yes Australia International Shooting Limited 521
ANZ Championship Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic Group No Waikato/BOP Magic Netball 520
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Don’t you hate it when you’re in the shower and Jason Akermanis comes in? 510
VFL Williamstown Football Club Page Yes Williamstown Football Club 492
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Local Business No Ricky Ponting 484
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Just for Fun No We Love the HOCKEYROOS!! 483
NBL Townsville Crocodiles Group No Croc Nation 473
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No The Jason Akermanis Appreciation Society 469
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Football Club 465
NBL Cairns Taipans Sports & Recreation Yes Skytrans Cairns Taipans – Official Site 461
AFL Essendon Bombers Page No Essendon Bombers Premiers 2010!! 446
ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds Group No Adelaide Thunderbirds 440
AIHL Sydney Bears Page Yes Sydney Bears 424
NBL Gold Coast Blaze Group No Gold Coast Blaze 422
AFL Fremantle Dockers Page No Fremantle Dockers : Rebuilding since 1995 418
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No 100,000 Strong Socceroos Supporters To Win 2010 World Cup 401
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Sports & Recreation No Sharelle McMahon is a legend! 397
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No Ricky Ponting 392
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Public Figure No Karmichael Hunt & Israel Folau: Smartest NRL players in history 389
NRL Brisbane Broncos Public figure No Karmichael Hunt & Israel Folau: Smartest NRL players in history 389
WNBL Canberra Capitals Sports & Recreation Yes WNBL – Canberra Capitals 383
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Page No Hockeyroos 382
AFL Carlton Blues Group No Carlton Blues FC 380
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jarrod Harbrow Stay At The Western Bulldogs 352
Australian Commonwealth Games Australian Commonwealth Games Page Yes Australian Commonwealth Games Team 351
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Socceroos to dominate in 2010 345
AIS WAIS Page Yes Western Australian Institute of Sport 338
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever Page No West Coast Fever 332
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No Fans of Hockeyroos Star Kate Hollywood 320
A-League Melbourne Heart Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Heart 304
NRL NRL Page Yes NRL All Stars 302
NBL Cairns Taipans Sports & Recreation No Skytrans Cairns Taipans 298
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No SACK RICKY PONTING 296
NRL Melbourne Storm Page No Storm Justice 296
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Stephen Larkham The God Of Australian Rugby 293
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No I hate it when i am playing cricket and people mistake me for Ricky Ponting :( 286
NRL Brisbane Broncos Page No Broncos Sydney Stable – Below the Border 286
First class cricket Tassie Tigers Group No 10,000 people for the tassie tigers to offer Michael Hogan a contract 282
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Local Business No Ricky Ponting 281
NRL South Sydney Rabbitohs Athlete No Uncle Greg Inglis! 277
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Western Bulldogs 274
Super League ACT Brumbies Organizations No Senator Gary Humphries 274
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page No Greater Western Sydney 270
VFL Northern Bullants Group No Northern Bullants Football Club 270
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No I’m not a traitor to my sport… LOL jks, im Israel Folau 269
Super League Queensland Reds Page Yes Van Humphries 268
Bendigo Football League Eaglehawk Football Netball Club Group No Eaglehawk Football Netball Club 267
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne FC Demons 260
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Thomas Ponting 257
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports / Athletics No Sachin Tendulkar is a far better player than Ricky Ponting…………. 252
Eastern Region Roller Derby Eastern Region Roller Derby Page Yes Eastern Region Roller Derby 252
NRL Canberra Raiders Athlete No Todd Carney 16 – Canberra Raiders 6……..(17/4/2010) Roosters Vs. Raiders 252
NBL Wollongong Hawks Group No Wollongong Hawks 251
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Just for Fun No Show Our support for Hockeyroos legend, Nikki Hudson !!!! 250
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No its not all about the money… LOL jkz im Israel Folau 249
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Adelaide 36ers are the greatest team of ANY kind EVER!! 247
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Supporters of Greater Western Sydney (Team GWS) AFL 243
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Supporters of Greater Western Sydney (Team GWS) AFL 243
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Team GWS 242
Super League Super League Sports & Recreation No 2009 VODACOM SUPER 14 242
NRL North Queensland Cowboys Page Yes Cowboys Supporters Team 241
NBL Cairns Taipans Sports & Recreation No Cairns Taipans 239
Olympics Australian Olympic Team Page Yes Sydney 2000 Volunteers Reunion 238
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports Team No Sachin Tendulkar v/s Ricky ponting…..! 230
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports Team No Ricky ponting, The Greatest captain and Batsman. All the time 229
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Australian University Socceroos 226
World Interuniversity Games Australian University Socceroos Page No Australian University Socceroos 226
ANZ Championship Southern Steel Page No Southern Steel 220
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No SAVE OUR MELBOURNE TIGERS NBL TEAM , THIS SEASON. 218
Western Sydney Rollers Western Sydney Rollers Page Yes Sarah ‘Missy’ Charlesworth – Western Sydney Rollers 218
WNBL Logan Thunder Sports Team No BDS Logan Thunder (WNBL) 218
Archery Australia Guy Phillips Page Yes Guy Phillips 215
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Western Bulldogs 213
NWBL Wollongong Roller Hawks Group No Wollongong Roller Hawks 212
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis is a legend 210
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jarrod Harbrow Stay At The Western Bulldogs 210
VFL Port Melbourne Borough Group No Port Melbourne Football Club 208
AFL Gold Coast Football Club No Israel Folau 206
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No Ricky Ponting Is The Best Batsman Since Bradman 206
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports / Athletics No That awkward moment when you bowl Ricky Ponting out. 202
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Club No ricky ponting 200
Gridiron Australia Perth Blitz Page Yes Perth Blitz 195
NBL NBL Sports & Recreation No NBL fans deserve more! 188
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No Ricky Ponting 187
ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds Group No Thunderbirds Adelaide Netball Club Appreciation Community 185
Victorian Amateur Football Association Fitzroy Reds Group No Fitzroy Reds Football Club 185
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Joel Monaghan 183
Greater Western Sydney and Blue Mountains Senior AFL Penrith Rams Group No IGA PENRITH RAMS 181
AFL Richmond Tigers Group No Trent Cotchin 180
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No RICKY PONTING 180
NBL South Melbourne Dragons Group No South Dragons 2008/09 Nbl Champions 177
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Vote Julia Gillard as full forward for the Bulldogs!!! 176
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Ponting,Sachin Tendulkar And Brian Lara.Greatest Batsmen In The Earth 175
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No I Can Catch like Ricky Ponting LOL jks I’m Robert Green 167
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Public figure No Im Not Really That Awesome, LOL jk, Im Israel Folau ♥ 164
VFL Bendigo Bombers Group No Bendigo Bombers Football Club 159
Super League Queensland Reds Page Yes Digby Ioane 158
AFL Brisbane Lions Page Yes Brendan Fevola 155
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Vote Julia Gillard as full forward for the Bulldogs!!! 155
VFL Port Melbourne Borough Group No Borough Supporters Club 154
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No WESTERN BULLDOGS 153
NRL Wests Tigers Group No Wests Tigers NYC 151
First class cricket Tassie Tigers Group No 1,000 people for Tassie Tigers to offer Rana Naved-Ul-Hasan a full Contract 149
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Local Business No I used to call Ricky Ponting:Ricky Pointing 147
AFL Richmond Tigers Group No Daniel Jackson – TIGER TUFF! 145
Super League ACT Brumbies Page No act brumbies 145
KFC Twenty20 Big Bash Queensland Bulls Group No Queensland Bulls Supporters 143
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No The Nicole Arrold supporters group 142
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Demons 141
NRL Canberra Raiders Group No Joel monaghan = SICK FUCK 133
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Just for Fun No I think the Hockeyroos are HOT!!! 132
VFL Sandringham Zebras Group No Sandringham Football Club (Zebras) 132
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No kickoff.com.au: A-League, Socceroos, Australian and International football 131
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No I’m going to be an AFL superstar. Oh wait, no i’m not. I’m Israel Folau. 130
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau has discraced rugby league and is a DOG 129
VFL Port Melbourne Borough Group No port melbourne the mighty borough fan club 128
Gridiron Australia Gridiron Australia Page Yes Gridiron Australia 127
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No I love NRL, LOL jk i’m Israel Folau. 122
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page No Team GWS 120
NBL Perth Wildcats Group No Perth Wildcats (Catties Fans) 119
A-League Melbourne Heart Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Heart 118
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Bring Allen Iverson to the Adelaide 36ers! 116
NRL Newcastle Knights Group No Matt Johns to coach the Newcastle Knights in 2010! 112
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Adelaide 36ers 110
NSW Rugby League Western Suburbs Magpies Page No WESTS MAGPIES SG BALL 2010 109
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No ricky ponting is greatest player ever and the best captain 108
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Brett Holman shouldn’t play for the Socceroos 106
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Adelaide 36ers Fan Zone 102
A-League Melbourne Heart Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Victory>>>>>>>> Melbourne Heart 100
NBL Townsville Crocodiles Group No Crocs to take the NBL title 100
VFL Northern Bullants Group No The NAB Northern Bullants appreciation society 100
AFL Richmond Tigers Group No Greeks who support Richmond F.C the Tigers 99
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers NBL HUMMER CHAMPIONS 2007/08 98
Super League New South Wales Waratahs Group No Waratahs 2008 98
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Sack Ricky Ponting 96
AFL Western Bulldogs Athlete No Jason Akermanis 95
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis handstand appreciation society 95
ANZ Championship Canterbury Tactix Group No Canterbury Tactix 93
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No Hockeyroos 91
ABL Queensland Rams Group No Queensland Rams Baseball 89
VFL Werribee Tigers Group No Werribee Football Club 89
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Mr Punter Ricky Ponting 88
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Group No Gold Coast Football Club 87
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Akermaniacs!! 87
Big V Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers – Big V Basketball 86
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page No Greater Western Sydney Football Club 83
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Langerak is a God, and will be in the Socceroos one day :) p.s hes HOT 83
WNBL Townsville Fire Group No TOWNSVILLE FIRE 81
NBL Perth Wildcats Group No Early 90′s Perth Wildcats appreciation group 74
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No I hate it when I’m playing cricket and people mistake me for Ricky Ponting. 72
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Local Business No Ricky Ponting might be able to play cricket, but he certainly can’t act. 71
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No The Melbourne Tigers Fan Group 71
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Western bulldogs 70
Queensland Rugby Union Gold Coast Rugby Breakers Page Yes Gold Coast Rugby Breakers 69
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No for people who wanna see Jason Akermanis shove his head up his own Ass 68
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Brumbies 68
A-League Melbourne Heart Sports & Recreation No melbourne heart 67
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders 66
NRL Sydney Roosters Group No Sign Up Jake Friend 66
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page No GO Team GWS 65
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Bring Back Joel Monaghan to the Canberra Raiders 64
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Ponting 63
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 63
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports / Athletics No RICKY PONTING GROW BACK YOUR GOATEE!!!!!!!!!!!! 63
NBL South Melbourne Dragons Group No South Melbourne Dragons 62
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Kick the Brumbiies out of Canberra! 62
ANZ Championship Central Pulse Group No Pulse Netball 61
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No Kooaburras & Hockeyroos 4 GOLD in Bejing 60
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No Hockeyroos Online 59
AFL Richmond Tigers Group No No matter how bad they are, I will still barrack for the Richmond Tigers! 56
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 56
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No SARAH O’CONNOR FAN CLUB 54
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Bring Dusty Rychart back to the Adelaide 36ers ~ beg, plead, grovel ;p 54
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Demons Supporters! 53
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Demons Supporters 52
VFL Port Melbourne Borough Group No Borough Boys 48
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No The Pato Noriega Fan Club 47
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 46
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No I miss my family in brisbane…lol jk im Israel Folau 45
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis is a dick 45
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Club No ricky ponting wooooo 45
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Public Figure No The answer is B, Ricky Ponting…LOL JK, it’s D, Jack Hobbs 44
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders 44
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Hi I’m Julia Gillard, I’m a politic LOL jk, I’m full forward for the bulldogs 43
NBL Cairns Taipans Page No Cairns Taipans 43
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 41
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports Team No Love Ricky Ponting 41
Victorian Amateur Football Association Fitzroy Reds Group No I’m a Fitzroy Reds Premiership hero 41
Victorian Amateur Football Association Werribee Tigers Group No Werribee Amateur Football Club 41
W-League Brisbane Roar Page No Brisbane Roar FC W-League 41
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Julian Huxley (ACT Brumbies) for Canberran of the Year 40
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No The BJ ‘Stockmen’ 40
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Ponting is a pain to play against, but the guy’s a total legend! 39
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting is a wanker 38
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers NBL supporters 37
NRL Brisbane Broncos Sports Team No Queensland will win Origin 2010… LOL JK, Israel Folau plays AFL now. 36
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau ♥ 35
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Sports & Recreation No Coverage of Aussie Hockey in the Beijing is crap!! 35
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders 35
Gridiron Australia Gridiron Victoria Page Yes Gridiron Victoria 34
NRL Canberra Raiders Page Yes Canberra Raiders 33
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Group No The New Hawks Cheer Squad 2009 hawthorn football club 32
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No Israel Folau to switch codes and Play AFL, Stick that where it fits Gallup 31
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Western Bulldogs 2010 :) 31
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No Ive always wanted to play AFL LOL jk I’m Israel Folau 29
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Team Gws 29
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Team Gws 29
AFL AFL Group No I Loved football, then Andrew ‘Dollars’ Demetriou came along 28
AFL Gold Coast Football Club No Israel Folau 28
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Brumby Jack is a shit bloke. 28
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Club No I’m loyal to rugby league….lol JK I’m Israel Folau 27
ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds Group No Thunderbirds are GO in the 2009 grand final! 27
ANZ Championship Northern Mystics Group No Northern Mystics Fans 27
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting with the Australian cricket team in India in 2008–09 27
VFL Frankston Dolphins Group No Frankston Dolphins Football club 27
Victorian Amateur Football Association Northern Bullants Group No Northern Bullants Under 18′s 27
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Petition for Israel to come play the Socceroos 27
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports Team No Canberra Raiders 25
W-League Sydney FC Page No Sydney FC W-League 25
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No List of international cricket centuries by Ricky Ponting 24
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Supporting the Canberra Raiders 24
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No GWS AFL TEAM WE DO NOT WANT YOU !!!! 23
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No GWS AFL TEAM WE DO NOT WANT YOU !!!! 23
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports / Athletics No ricky ponting should get droped as Australian captain 23
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting cricket diaries 22
NBL Perth Wildcats Page No Perth Wildcats Wildkidz! (: 22
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau 21
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No BOYCOTT TEAM GWS 21
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No BOYCOTT TEAM GWS 21
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Non-Profit No The Get rid of Ricky Ponting Page – we want trophies not tragedies !!!! 21
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Rugby League Canberra Raiders 21
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No I’m Israel Folau I’m an NRL superstar, LOL jk im gonna go play footy 20
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Sports & Recreation No Thwaitsey is a champ… 19
Eastern Cricket Association Preshil Cricket Club Group No Preshil Cricket Club 19
NBL NBL Sports & Recreation No The National Basketball League (Australia) Appreciation Society 19
NRL Wests Tigers Group No Melbourne-based Wests Tigers Fanatics 19
Super League ACT Brumbies Common Interest No Dont Cull our Brumbies! 19
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Brumbies SA Official Group 18
W-League W-League Page No W League 18
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis should be locked and gagged in a closet! 17
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No I’ll never play for the Bulldogs, LOL jk, I’m Julia Gillard 17
AHL Tassie Tigers Group No Tassie Tigers Hockey – Top 4 three years in a row 17
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Ponting 17
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No We Want Andrew Walker at Ulster 17
Victorian Amateur Football Association Fitzroy Reds Group No the fitzroy reds convention for headaches and regrets. 17
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Page No Israel folau, please stay with NRL 16
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Team GWS is stupid – Nobody cares! 16
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No Team GWS is stupid – Nobody cares! 16
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Sports & Recreation No I love the mElbourne Vixens 16
NBL Adelaide 36ers Group No Adelaide 36ers National Basketball Team 16
W-League Melbourne Victory Page No Melbourne Victory FC W-League 16
ANZ Championship Canterbury Tactix Group No SUPPORT THE CANTERBURY TACTIX WITH TIC TACS 15
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky ponting 15
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting 15
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Support for the Socceroos in South Africa 15
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Sports / Athletics No I’m not angry Israel Folau, I’m just very disappointed in you. 14
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Early life of Ricky Ponting 14
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No It’s the ACT Brumbies not the CA Brumbies Thanks Very Much!!!! 14
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Peter Ranga Kimlin 14
WNBL WNBL Page No Wnbl 14
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No jason akermanis is amazing! 13
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Sports / Athletics No Ricky Ponting might be able to play cricket, but he certainly can’t act. 13
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No I can catch like Ricky Ponting LOL jks im Robert Green. 13
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Local business No israel folau is injury prone 12
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No History of the Canberra Raiders 12
Super League ACT Brumbies Common Interest No I hate the ACT Brumbies and I’m not alone 12
AFL Gold Coast Football Club No Israel Folau 11
AFL Greater Western Sydney Group No I live here and don’t support Team GWS 11
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No i deserve to play for NSW.. LOL jk im Joel Monaghan 11
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No Pat Howard (rugby player) fan club 11
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jason Akermanis 10
NBL Cairns Taipans Page No Free cheeseburgers when the Cairns Taipans score 85 or more 10
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No melbourne tigers all the way in 2008 10
NBL Melbourne Tigers Group No Melbourne Tigers cheer squeda east and south ends 10
W-League Newcastle United Jets Page No Newcastle United Jets FC W-League 10
WNBL Townsville Fire Group No Fire Roster 10
WNBL WNBL Page No Wnbl 10
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis for Brownlow 2008 9
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Athlete No Ricky Ponting 9
Gridiron Australia Gridiron SA Page Yes Gridiron SA, The Gridiron Association of South Australia 9
Super League ACT Brumbies Sports & Recreation No ACT CA BRUMBIES (NSW SUPPORTERS) 9
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No socceroos fan? get on it!!!!! 9
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis to win the Coleman medal. 8
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No JASON AKERMANIS’S IQ OF A PLANT 8
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Health and Beauty No Tired?, Stressed?, you will feel better with Ricky Ponting 8
NBL Cairns Taipans Page No Cairns Taipans 8
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports Team No CANBERRA RAIDERS (GREEN MACHINE) 8
W-League W-League Page No Westfield W-League 8
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No The Football Supporters’ Pledge: A-League, Socceroos & Grassroots 8
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Athlete No Israel Folau an AFL player? 7
NBL Perth Wildcats Group No perth wildcats fans 7
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports Team No Canberra Raiders 7
AFL Melbourne Demons Sports & Recreation No Melbourne Demons 6
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Thomas Ponting 6
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders 6
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Book:Canberra Raiders 6
W-League Perth Glory FC Page No Perth Glory FC W-League 6
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Page No Young Socceroos 6
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Sports Team No ISRAEL FOLAU 5
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders 5
NRL Canberra Raiders Sports / Athletics No On a scale of 1-Canberra Raiders how premature are you 5
W-League Canberra United Page No Canberra United FC W-League 5
W-League Melbourne Victory Page No Melbourne Victory W-League 5
W-League Newcastle Jets Page No Newcastle Jets FC W-League 5
W-League Newcastle United Jets Page No Newcastle United Jets W-League 5
WNBL AIS Page No Australian Institute of Sport (WNBL) players 5
WNBL WNBL Page No WNBL 5
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Only Homophobes think Jason Akermanis is a homophobe! 4
VFL Frankston Dolphins Group No Aaron Edwards Fan page 4
W-League Central Coast Mariners Page No Central Coast Mariners W-League 4
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jason Akermanis Biography 3
AFL Western Bulldogs Group No Jason Akermanis 3
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No List of Test awards for Ricky Ponting 3
NBL Perth Wildcats Group No Go the Perth wildcats 3
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No 2008 Canberra Raiders season 3
W-League Adelaide United Page No Adelaide United FC W-League 3
W-League Central Coast Mariners Page No Central Coast Mariners FC W-League 3
W-League W-League Page No Westfield W-League 3
AFL Greater Western Sydney Page No Team GWS 2
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jason Akermanis 2
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No Jason Akermanis Autobiography 2
AFL Western Bulldogs Page No The Battle Within by Jason Akermanis 2
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Page No Ricky Ponting with the Australian cricket team in India in 2008-09 2
NBL Cairns Taipans Sports / Athletics No Skytrans Cairns Taipans 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No On a scale of 1-Canberra Raiders how premature are you 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Raiders de canberra 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders players 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders templates 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Canberra Raiders Cup 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No Raiders de Canberra 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No List of Canberra Raiders records 2
NRL Canberra Raiders Page No 2009 Canberra Raiders season 2
NRL Sydney Roosters Page Yes The Official Sydney Roosters Page 2
NRL Sydney Roosters Page Yes Sydney Roosters 2
NRL Sydney Roosters Group Yes Sydney Roosters 2
W-League Brisbane Roar Page No Brisbane Roar W-League 2
W-League Canberra United Page No Canberra United W-League 2
W-League Perth Glory Page No Perth Glory W-League 2
W-League Queensland Roar Page No Queensland Roar W-League 2
W-League Queensland Roar Page No Queensland Roar FC W-League 2
Women Rugby World Cup Wallaroos Page No The Wallaroos 2
ANZ Championship Sydney Swifts Group No Sydney Swifts
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever Group No West Coast Fever

Related Posts:

More popular Australian (and Kiwi) sport related Facebook fanpages and groups

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 21 November, 2010

I’m hoping that I can finally begin to get an accurate idea as to the size of the Australian (and Kiwi) sport community on Facebook based on membership in groups and liking of fan pages. I can’t necessarily get good demographic data out of this because of how Facebook works. (Twitter is better in that regards.) Still, if news stories like Akermanis, Monaghan and the Storm break again, I should have total membership that is more recent. woot woot.

That said, the following is data that I’ve manually data mined so far today. Hopefully some people will find it useful in terms of conceptualizing the size of the Australian (and Kiwi) sport community on Facebook. Yeah, a lot of this is random.

League Team Page Total members Official
Rugby World Cup Rugby World Cup Rugby World Cup 724,407 Yes
Rugby World Cup All Blacks All Blacks 625,280 Yes
AFL AFL AFL 251,010 Yes
NRL NRL National Rugby League 230,020 Yes
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Support Australia’s 2022 Official FIFA World Cup Bid 229,322 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin Queensland Maroons Queensland Maroons 201,189 Yes
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos – Australian National Football Team 142,953 Yes
Australian Tennis Open Series Australian Tennis Open Series Australian Open 138,672 Yes
NRL Brisbane Broncos Brisbane Broncos 120,821 Yes
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Cricket Australia 111,004 Yes
AFL Collingwood Magpies Collingwood Football Club 104,275 Yes
AFL Essendon Bombers Essendon FC 90,510 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues NSW Blues 87,451 Yes
AFL Adelaide Crows Adelaide Crows 60,122 Yes
AFL West Coast Eagles West Coast Eagles 59,763 Yes
AFL West Coast Eagles West Coast Eagles 59,762 Yes
AFL St. Kilda Saints St Kilda Football Club 57,278 Yes
AFL Carlton Blues Carlton Football Club 50,875 Yes
Cricket Australia Victorian Spirit Victorian Bushrangers 43,509 Yes
NRL Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 43,016 Yes
NRL Gold Coast Titans Gold Coast Titans 40,977 Yes
Rugby World Cup Australian Wallabies Qantas Wallabies 40,822 Yes
AFL Sydney Swans Sydney Swans 39,126 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Melbourne Storm 37,832 Yes
General Australian sport General Australian sport Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) 36,388 Yes
AIS AIS Australian Institute of Sport 35,212 Yes
AFL Fremantle Dockers Fremantle Football Club 33,530 Yes
NRL Wests Tigers Wests Tigers – Official National Rugby League Club 32,867 Yes
NRL Wests Tigers Wests Tigers 32,864 Yes
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Hawthorn Football Club 32,089 Yes
NRL St George-Illawarra Dragons St George-Illawarra Dragons 31,870 Yes
Rugby League New Zealand Kiwis New Zealand Kiwis 31,042 Yes
AFL Richmond Tigers Richmond FC 29,020 Yes
NRL Sydney Roosters The Official Sydney Roosters Page 28,951 Yes
NRL Sydney Roosters Sydney Roosters 28,947 Yes
NRL Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 26,086 Yes
AFL Port Adelaide Power Port Adelaide Football Club 24,240 Yes
NSWRL Central Coast Bears Central Coast Bears 21,578 Yes
NRL Newcastle Knights Newcastle Knights 21,202 Yes
NRL Wests Tigers Benji Marshall 19,802 No
AFL Brisbane Lions Brisbane Lions 19,516 Yes
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos North Melbourne Football Club 19,152 Yes
Olympics Australian Olympic Team Australian Olympic Team 18,256 Yes
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs 16,492 Yes
Rugby League Australian Kangaroos Australian Kangaroos 15,512 Yes
NRL Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks Cronulla Sharks 15,386 Yes
Tennis Australia Sam Stosur Sam Stosur 15,300 Yes
Rugby World Cup All Blacks BackingBlack 15,254 Yes
NRL Penrith Panthers Penrith Panthers 14,084 Yes
Super League NSW Waratahs Waratahs 11,841 Yes
Super League Queensland Reds Quade Cooper 10,330 Yes
AIS Tennis Australia Tennis 9,765 Yes
AFL Melbourne Demons Melbourne Football Club 9,741 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Gold Coast Football Club 9,474 Yes
Super League Queensland Reds Queensland Reds 9,406 Yes
NRL NRL NRL Lone Scout 8,982 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 8,714 Yes
A-League A-League Hyundai A-League 8,448 Yes
AFL Geelong Cats Geelong Cats Insider 7,310 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 6,905 No
NRL South Sydney Rabbitohs South Sydney Rabbitohs – Official Page 6,637 Yes
Victorian Roller Derby League Victorian Roller Derby League Victorian Roller Derby League 6,636 Yes
ANZ Championship ANZ Championship ANZ Netball 5,852 Yes
Cricket Australia Cricket New South Wales Cricket NSW 5,533 Yes
Sydney Roller Derby League Sydney Roller Derby League Sydney Roller Derby League 5,520 Yes
NRL New Zealand Warriors Vodafone Warriors 5,272 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Storm Man 4785 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Melbourne Storm 4,785 Yes
Rugby League Papua New Guinea Kumuls Papua New Guinea Kumuls 4,712 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 4,547 Yes
NRL North Queensland Cowboys North Queensland Toyota Cowboys 4,427 Yes
NRL North Queensland Cowboys North Queensland Toyota Cowboys 4,425 Yes
NRL North Queensland Cowboys North Queensland Cowboys 4,424 Yes
Super League Melbourne Rebels Melbourne Rebels – The Official Fan Page 4,382 Yes
Super League Melbourne Rebels Rebel Army 4,135 Yes
Super League Western Force Western Force 3,732 Yes
NRL Brisbane Broncos Brisbane Broncos Cheerleaders 3,519 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin Queensland Maroons Maroon Crusade 3,215 Yes
Women’s World Cup Matildas Matildas – Australian National Women’s Football Team 2,874 Yes
Australian Tennis Open Series Brisbane International Brisbane International – Australian Open Series 2,842 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS 2,605 Yes
Auckland Rugby League Auckland Rugby League Auckland Rugby League 2,581 Yes
Super League ACT Brumbies Official Brumbies Fan Page 2,558 Yes
Country Rugby League Country Rugby League Country Rugby League 2,411 Yes
Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Western Sydney Rollers Western Sydney Rollers 2,381 Yes
Australian Tennis Open Series Medibank International Sydney Medibank International Sydney – Australian Open Series 2,280 Yes
NRL NRL Women In League 2,280 Yes
Convict City Roller Derby League Convict City Roller Derby League Convict City Roller Derby League 2,232 Yes
NSW Rugby League Balmain Tigers Balmain Tigers 2,224 No
NRL Gold Coast Titans The Legion – Gold Coast Titans 2,198 Yes
NRL NRL Indigenous All Stars 2,023 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 1,967 Yes
Brisbane City Rollers Brisbane City Rollers Brisbane City Rollers 1,824 Yes
New Shute Shield New Shute Shield Tooheys New Shute Shield 1,817 Yes
Cricket Australia Western Australian Cricket Association Western Australian Cricket Association 1,723 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues New South Wales Rugby League 1,683 Yes
W-League W-League Westfield W-League 1,671 Yes
Super League Queensland Reds QR Reds – Queensland Reds 1,610 No
AIS Rowing Australia Rowing Australia 1,576 Yes
Super League Super League Investec Bank Super 14 Rugby 1,554 Yes
Rugby World Cup Australian Wallabies Green and Gold Rugby 1,534 No
Super League Super League Super Rugby 1,494 Yes
NSW Rugby League North Sydney Bears North Sydney District Rugby League Football Club 1,402 Yes
AIS Equestrian Australia Equestrian Australia 1,348 Yes
Van Diemen Rollers Van Diemen Rollers Van Diemen Rollers 1,343 Yes
NRL Parramatta Eels Parramatta Eels 1,336 Yes
WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby WIRD Wollongong Illawarra Roller Derby 1,314 Yes
Rugby League Australian Kangaroos The Roo Crew 1,306 Yes
AFL AFL AFLPA 1,246 Yes
General Australian sport General Australian sport ANZ Stadium 1,200 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 1,192 No
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Hamish McIntosh 1,145 No
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos Michael Firrito 1,143 No
NSW Rugby League Western Suburbs Magpies Western Suburbs Magpies 1,005 Yes
Australian Roller Derby Australian Roller Derby Australian Roller Derby 867 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 852 No
Cricket Australia Victorian Spirit VicSpirit 825 Yes
SEABL SEABL SEABL 758 Yes
Australian Canoeing Australian Canoeing Australian Canoeing 714 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 703 No
AIS Triathlon Australia Triathlon Australia 695 Yes
Ballarat Roller Derby Rat Pack Ballarat Roller Derby – Rat Pack 639 Yes
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans 632 No
W-League Canberra United Canberra United Fans 622 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney ACT 4 GWS 605 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney ACT 4 GWS 605 Yes
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos The NMFC Hoodie 588 No
Tennis Australia Tennis Australia Australian Tennis Magazine 583 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney GWS Giants 567 Yes
Australian Tennis Open Series Moorilla Hobart International Moorilla Hobart International – Australian Open Series 555 Yes
AIS Australia International Shooting Limited Australia International Shooting Limited 519 Yes
VFL Williamstown Football Club Williamstown Football Club 490 Yes
NBL Cairns Taipans Skytrans Cairns Taipans – Official Site 460 Yes
AIHL Sydney Bears Sydney Bears 424 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Karmichael Hunt & Israel Folau: Smartest NRL players in history 386 No
WNBL Canberra Capitals WNBL – Canberra Capitals 382 Yes
Australian Commonwealth Games Australian Commonwealth Games Australian Commonwealth Games Team 349 Yes
NBL Cairns Taipans Skytrans Cairns Taipans 297 No
NRL NRL NRL All Stars 283 Yes
NRL Brisbane Broncos Broncos Sydney Stable – Below the Border 282 No
NRL Penrith Panthers Penrith Panther Pride Group 274 Yes
Super League Queensland Reds Van Humphries 268 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Todd Carney 16 – Canberra Raiders 6……..(17/4/2010) Roosters Vs. Raiders 253 No
Eastern Region Roller Derby Eastern Region Roller Derby Eastern Region Roller Derby 250 Yes
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans 241 No
NRL North Queensland Cowboys Cowboys Supporters Team 239 Yes
WNBL Bendigo Spirit The Official Bendigo Spirit Basketball 239 Yes
Olympics Australian Olympic Team Sydney 2000 Volunteers Reunion 238 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 221 No
Western Sydney Rollers Western Sydney Rollers Sarah ‘Missy’ Charlesworth – Western Sydney Rollers 216 Yes
Archery Australia Guy Phillips Guy Phillips 214 Yes
NSW Rugby League Balmain Tigers TIGERS 211 Yes
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 201 No
Gridiron Australia Perth Blitz Perth Blitz 195 Yes
NBL NBL NBL fans deserve more! 188 No
WNBL Townsville Fire Townsville McCafe Fire 161 Yes
AFL Brisbane Lions Brendan Fevola 155 Yes
Super League Queensland Reds Digby Ioane 152 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders i bet u i can find 10,000 people who hate canberra raiders 131 No
Gridiron Australia Gridiron Australia Gridiron Australia 124 Yes
NSW Rugby League Western Suburbs Magpies WESTS MAGPIES SG BALL 2010 109 No
NRL Canberra Raiders I’m a 2010 Canberra Raiders member 71 No
Queensland Rugby Union Gold Coast Rugby Breakers Gold Coast Rugby Breakers 67 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 66 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Bring Back Joel Monaghan to the Canberra Raiders 64 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 53 No
NRL North Queensland Cowboys Cowboys Leagues Club 46 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 44 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans 42 No
Cricket Australia Cricket Australia Ricky Thomas Ponting 41 Yes
Gridiron Australia Gridiron Victoria Gridiron Victoria 34 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 34 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 33 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 28 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 25 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Supporting the Canberra Raiders 24 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 21 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Rugby League Canberra Raiders 21 No
NBL NBL The National Basketball League (Australia) Appreciation Society 19 No
NRL Canberra Raiders History of the Canberra Raiders 13 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Israel Folau 11 No
Gridiron Australia Gridiron SA Gridiron SA, The Gridiron Association of South Australia 9 Yes
NBL Cairns Taipans Free cheeseburgers when the Cairns Taipans score 85 or more 9 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans 8 No
NRL Canberra Raiders CANBERRA RAIDERS (GREEN MACHINE) 8 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 7 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 6 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Book:Canberra Raiders 6 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club ISRAEL FOLAU 5 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders 5 No
NRL Canberra Raiders On a scale of 1-Canberra Raiders how premature are you 5 No
NRL Canberra Raiders 2008 Canberra Raiders season 3 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders players 2 No
NRL Canberra Raiders On a scale of 1-Canberra Raiders how premature are you 2 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Skytrans Cairns Taipans 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders templates 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders Cup 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Raiders de Canberra 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders List of Canberra Raiders records 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders 2009 Canberra Raiders season 1 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans players 0 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Basketball Cairns Taipans 0 No
NBL Cairns Taipans Cairns Taipans Fan Page 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders coaches 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders seasons 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Raiders De Canberra 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders List of Canberra Raiders representatives 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders 2007 Canberra Raiders season 0 No
NRL Canberra Raiders 2006 Canberra Raiders season 0 No
Rugby League England Rugby League England Rugby League DELETED Yes
WNBL Bendigo Spirit WNBL – Bendigo Spirit DELETED Yes

Related Posts:

A social media/web snapshot of Collingwood, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 14 November, 2010

Last week, I asked my Twitter followers if there was any team that anyone might data about. I said I’d pretty much be happy to dump as much of the data I have regarding those teams (or athletes) into a document that might provide some interesting insights into the teams. Even if not, it would offer benchmarks for further study. A lot of what I have is random and really depends on what sites I’m looking at, how often I update, how motivated I am get additional data, etc. I tend to go hunting when I have a purpose and those periods see an increase in specific teams. What I need rarely turns out to be what I have but that’s a challenge with creative research.

That all said and done, what my followers requested were Collingwood, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. The links below are to the pdf files containing the data I have about them. (There might be a few small things left out.)

Related Posts:

Joel Monaghan’s Mad Monday and the Online Canberra Raiders Fan Base

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 7 November, 2010

Laura Hale, University of Canberra

November 7, 2010

A copy of this article is available in .pdf.

This article references the Jason Akermanis and Melbourne Storm articles.

Abstract

The Joel Monaghan dog sex picture story broke on November 3, 2010. By November 5, people were demanding that Monaghan be sacked. Sponsors were threatening to pull their support if the team failed to fire him. This was another major Australian sport controversy in the making. Given the sponsor demands and media attention to the story, the questions are: How much do fans of the Canberra Raiders and the NRL really care about it, and what is the impact of Monaghan’s action on the online fan base? This paper answers that question by looking at Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Wikia and a few other selected sites. It concludes that the story was largely a non-event in terms of causing people to stop barracking for the Raiders. It also finds that there may be indicators that this type of story gets more attention in geographic areas where the NRL would hope to grow their fanbase. This latter part could be the biggest problem for the NRL.

Keywords: NRL, Canberra Raiders, Joel Monaghan, Mad Monday, RSPCA, social media

Joel Monaghan’s Mad Monday and the Online Canberra Raiders Fan Base

Figure 1. 5 Nov 2010 front page of The Canberra Times.

Figure 2. 6 Nov 2010 front page of The Canberra Times.

Figure 3. 7 Nov 2010 front page of The Canberra Times.

In Canberra, the story of Joel Monaghan’s Mad Monday actions has been above the fold in the city’s leading newspaper for two days and was the whole cover on the third. The story was sensational and received coverage in other newspapers across the country such as The Daily Telegraph, The Herald-Sun, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Adelaide Advertiser and The Australian. According to The Canberra Times, Monaghan was involved in a prank where he was photographed “sitting on a tiled floor with a dog’s head near his exposed groin.” (Dutton & Moloney, 2010, November 5) The pictures had gone viral on Twitter (Dutton, 2010, November 6) and sponsors threatened to pull their support if the Raiders failed to sack Monghan for his actions. (Dutton, 2010, November 6)

This news was bad news for the Raiders as sponsorship is an important revenue stream for the club. Beyond that, Monaghan’s actions are potentially bad for rugby league and the NRL who have an image problem in Australia, where players are viewed by some people as uneducated thugs. This characterization of NRL players can be witnessed by doing a quick Google search for NRL scandal as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. A screencap of a search for NRL scandal on Google. Screenshot is dated Nov 6, 2010.

Scandals like Monaghan’s have the possibility of hurting the NRL in terms of growing the size of their potential audience and widening their demographic base so that they can better compete with other leagues in the country like the AFL, who draw upon larger segments of the population, including women. Measuring exactly how people respond to these controversies is difficult as there are an array of dependent and independent variables that factor into why people support their clubs, and how much money they will spend to do that. These variables include a club’s performance, loyalty to a club, available disposable income, amount of free time, availability for attending matches, television coverage, and merchandise to name a few.

It is an interesting exercise to critically examine how scandals can impact a club’s supporter base. In the case of the Jason Akermanis scandal in the AFL in June 2010, there was little negative impact in terms of supporters shifting their loyalties away from the club in the immediate aftermath of the scandal. (Hale, 2010, June 14) In the NRL, the Melbourne Storm salary cap controversy in May 2010 saw a huge immediate spike in interest and demonstrations of online loyalty to the club. (Hale, 2010, May 20)

The question for this scandal is thus: What was the immediate impact on the online Canberra Raiders community in response to the media coverage of the Joel Monaghan dog sex prank? This paper will attempt to answer that question by looking at Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Wikia, YouTube and Yahoo!Groups.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging platform that is popular in Australia. According to Alexa, it is the tenth most popular site in the country. (Alexa Internet, Inc., 2010) There is an active community of Australian sport fans on it who frequently discuss what is going on with their favorite teams and athletes. Sport organizations, leagues, clubs and athletes also use Twitter to engage with fans. The Canberra Raiders are on Twitter at @RaidersCanberra.

There are several methods that can be employed to begin to understand how the Canberra Raiders fanbase responded to the Monaghan controversy that broke on November 4, 2010. This includes looking at any shift in the geographic location of Canberra Raiders fans on Twitter, comparing the total number of new followers for the Raiders to other teams over the same period, looking at the geographic location of Tweets that mention Monaghan versus the team, and looking to see how many Tweets mention Monaghan and the Raiders together. Each of these different methods gives a different perspective on how fans responded and when looked at together, give a more informed big picture perspective.

One way of measuring the impact of the Monaghan scandal on Twitter is to compare the geographic location of the Canberra Raiders followers and to see if there were any noticeable shifts before and after the scandal broke. The way this was done in this paper was to get a list of all the followers for @RaidersCanberra, get the location that the user included on their profile, and get the timezone that the person listed themselves as from. Using those two pieces of information, translate that into a real location. For example, “canberra :) ” would be the location Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Once as many locations have been identified as possible, they are totaled by date.

The October 15 @RaidersCanberra list had 996 followers on it. Of these, 772 had a country location attached to them. The November 6 @RaidersCanberra list had 1,071 followers on it. Of these, a country location could be identified for 790. When locations are removed because they are not Australian or New Zealand locations that include a city, there remains 454 locations for October 15 and 483 for November 6. Table 1 shows difference for followers by city and date. Only the cities where the difference did not equal zero were included.

Table 1

@RaidersCanberra followers by City

Location
15-Oct

6-Nov

Difference
Auckland,Auckland,New Zealand
9

10


1
Belconnen,Australian Capital Territory,Australia
1

2

1
Bowen,Queensland,Australia
1

0

-1
Brisbane,Queensland,Australia
49

50

1
Canberra,Australian Capital Territory,Australia
145

154


9
Casino,New South Wales,Australia
1

0

-1
Cremorne,New South Wales,Australia
1

0

-1
Gold Coast,Queensland,Australia
7

16

9
Gosford,New South Wales,Australia
2

1


-1
Greystanes,New South Wales,Australia
1

0

-1
Hamilton,Waikato,New Zealand
1

0

-1
Jerrabomberra,New South Wales,Australia
1

0

-1
Mandurah,Western Australia,Australia
1

0


-1
Newcastle,New South Wales,Australia
10

16

6
Orange,New South Wales,Australia
0

2

2
Parramatta,New South Wales,Australia
1

2

1
Penrith,New South Wales,Australia
2

3


1
Queanbeyan,New South Wales,Australia
3

5

2
Rockhampton,Queensland,Australia
2

3

1
South Auckland,Auckland,New Zealand
1

0

-1
Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
97

106


9
Taigum,Queensland,Australia
1

0

-1
Turramurra,New South Wales,Australia
2

1

-1
Tweed Heads,New South Wales,Australia
2

1

-1
Wallacia,New South Wales,Australia
1

0


-1
Wellington,New South Wales,Australia
1

0

-1
Wellington,Wellington,New Zealand
2

1

-1

There were 93 total Australian and New Zealand cities on this list. Of them, only 27 saw any difference in the total volume of followers from that location. Some of these differences could be explained as an issue with processing or user profile changes. A person may have used geographic coordinates for their location and updated them as they traveled around, resulting in a change in city location for the user. Some may have removed location information from their profiles. The populations are so small that these small shifts in normal user activity may have nothing to do with being a Raiders fan.

The independent user profile variables aside, the data appears to support a conclusion geography did not play a role in choosing to follow or not follow the team in response to the controversy. There might be small micropatterns at play. Of the four New Zealand cities where there was a difference, three saw a loss in followers for the team. This might be a bit misleading as four New Zealand cities saw no change in the total number of followers from them. Of the four cities that saw gains of five or more, all are large cities that are traditional league strong holds. Their increase is probably reflective of that reality, rather than as an increase in interest in the team because of the controversy. Geography does not appear to have played a role in Twitter users decision to follow or not follow the team in response to the Monaghan situation.

On Twitter, people follow accounts that are of interest to them. This can be seen as a positive expression of interest in the club as people are unlikely to follow groups or organizations they despise. By measuring comparative growth patterns, we can begin to see if the scandal had an impact on the Raider’s Twitter follower fanbase. As the official team account has not mentioned the controversy and the Raiders have not changed their Twitter practices in response to this controversy, the official account content can be excluded as a variable for growth; the Raiders have not used the situation to try to leverage their fanbase. Given that, Table 2 shows the total follower counts by date for the Raiders compared to the official accounts for the Manly Sea Eagles, Gold Coast Titans, New Zealand Warriors and Melbourne Storm.

Table 2

Total Twitter Followers: Raiders, Eagles, Titans, Warriors, Storm

Date collected
Raiders

Canberra


Manly

seaeagles


GCTitans

Thenz

warriors


Melb

StormRLC

9-Mar-10
202

888

1,616

434

458
30-May-10
375

1,129

2,052

521


1,124
5-Jun-10
389
19-Jun-10
417

1,215
21-Jun-10

424


1,203

2,176

565

1,226
29-Jul-10
608

1,338

2,447

614

1,473

13-Sep-10


841

1,705

3,011

884

1,942
14-Sep-10
870
15-Sep-10
873

1,726

3,036

756

1,983
4-Oct-10

949


1,842

3,274

763

2,222
6-Nov-10
1,071

1,963

3,513

884

2,504

Difference: October 4

- November 6


122

121

239

121

282

The controversy did not appear to create a spike in new followers for the Canberra Raiders. The total number of new followers for the most recent period available with the data suggests that the total number of new followers for the Raiders is in line with other teams with similar follow totals.

Beyond user follow patterns, it is sometimes useful to look at content. The geographic location of Tweets is one method of looking at tweets. There is a tool called Tribalytics that allows this to be done. Tribalytics maintains a list of over 200,000 Australian based Twitter users, sorted by state. Tribalytics allows users to search for a word or phrase on Twitter and adds up the total number of people who tweeted using it by state. This data can then be visualized over time. Table 3 uses data provided by Tribalytics to show the total number of tweets that mention Monaghan.

Table 3

Tribalytics: Tweets that mention Monaghan by state

State Monaghan
3-Nov

4-Nov

5-Nov
Australian Capital Territory

Tweets


1

41

44
Users

1


31

29
New South Wales Tweets
7

286

191
Users
7

203

152
Northern Territory Tweets
0

2

3

Users
0

2

3
Queensland Tweets
3

154

69
Users
2

80

57
South Australia

Tweets


0

25

9
Users

0


18

7
Tasmania Tweets
0

5

1
Users
0

3

1
Victoria Tweets
0

164

87

Users
0

122

79
Western Australia Tweets
0

16

21
Users
0

10

19
Total

Tweets


11

694

428
Users

10


470

350

The geographic location of the Tweets that mention Monaghan suggests that the controversy had the biggest audience in New South Wales, one of rugby league’s traditional strongholds. The situation in regards to Queensland and Victoria is interesting. Victoria has a much larger population than Queensland. Thus, it is not surprising that the total number of Twitterers and Tweets from Victoria is larger than Queensland. On the other hand, Victoria is not a rugby league stronghold; Queensland is. Logically, it would seem that this story should be bigger in Queensland but it isn’t. Interpreting what this means in a practical sense is difficult. The best conclusion is that this story will not help the NRL’s attempt to expand into Victoria, as fans are more aware of negative news regarding players and the league. On the other hand, for the traditional stronghold of Queensland, the controversy is not as interesting to the local population so there should be less risk in terms of attempting to grow the fan community for the NRL in the state.

The last major method for analyzing Twitter given a controversy like this is to examine the other words used in Tweets that include the word Monaghan. This can be done using Tribalytics, which provides a table that includes a list of the most popular words used in tweets mentioning a term and the percentage of time that the word is included in a Tweet involving a specific keyword. Table 4 was generated using Tribalytics and the keyword Monaghan.

Table 4

Popular words used in Tweets mentioning Monaghan

Word Inclusion Word Inclusion Word Inclusion
monaghan 87.31% sex 2.79%

#doggate


2.03%
joel 73.10% worse 2.54% wrong
1.78%
dog 21.32% monday

2.54%

today
1.78%
#nrl 9.64% trending 2.28% clear
1.78%
photo 8.88%

talking

2.28% bad
1.78%
raiders 6.85% sticking 2.28% takes
1.52%
#bonegate

6.60%

dangers 2.28% sexual
1.52%
canberra 6.09% club 2.28% room
1.52%

dogs

5.33% ve 2.03% qantas
1.52%
statement 5.08% social 2.03% mad

1.52%

nrl 5.08% sack 2.03% jokes
1.52%
news 4.57% releases 2.03%

guess


1.52%
twitter 3.30% player 2.03% bulldogs
1.52%
sacked 3.30% mr

2.03%

blew
1.52%
wow 3.05% danger 2.03% barking
1.52%
sick 3.05%

agent

2.03% admits
1.52%
breaking 3.05% #rugbyleague 2.03% #thatpicture
1.52%

This table suggests good things for the NRL and the Canberra Raiders. While people are discussing Monaghan and a lot of them are mentioning the dog, only 9.64% mention the NRL and even fewer Tweets reference that Monaghan plays for the Canberra Raiders. Based on Tweets, people are not necessarily associating the controversy with the NRL and the Raiders. Things may not be as bad as they could be for both organizations in terms of what Australians are choosing to focus on.

Overall on Twitter, the controversy involving Joel Monaghan has been rather neutral for the Raiders and the NRL. The Canberra Raiders did not see a mass defecting of followers. Those that did leave were geographically distributed so there was not a geographic area that responded particularly badly. Outside of New South Wales, most of the tweets came from an area where the NRL is not strong: The NRL should not lose strength in their traditional strongholds. The controversy may hurt their ability to push into Victoria as it may reaffirm negative opinions about rugby league. When people are tweeting about Monaghan, they are rarely connecting it to the Raiders and the NRL. While Twitter suggests not all-good news, things could be much, much worse in terms of the respective fanbases.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social networks in Australia. According to Alexa, the site ranks as the second most popular web site in the country. (Alexa Internet, Inc., 2010) According to Facebook’s “What do you want to advertise?” page on November 6, 2010, the site has 9,530,800 users from Australia. The site probably has more Australian sport fans on it than any other site in Australia. This is because a lot of the users are fans of the fan pages run by Australian sport leagues, clubs and athletes. Several of these official fan pages have well over 100,000 fans.

Given the large number of Australians using the network, the official presence of so many clubs and the amount of media attention paid to the service, a response to the Monaghan controversy was inevitable. Given the timing of the writing of this paper, there are two methods that can be used to measure the impact of the Joel Monaghan controversy on the Canberra Raiders’ fanbase on Facebook. The first way is to see if there has been a demographic shift in fans of the Canberra Raiders using Facebook’s advertising page data. The second is to measure the relative growth in the number of followers for the Raiders compared to other NRL teams. The third is to look at total and nature of the groups and fan pages created about Monaghan. As group and fan page size had not been recorded earlier, it is impossible to compare their growth like was done in the Akermanis paper.

Facebook’s advertising buy page provides demographic information about Facebook users in order to help advertisers target specific audiences. This information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ and is the easiest method of accessing publicly available demographic data on Facebook. On November 5 and November 6, 2010, the number of Canberra Raiders fans were recorded that lived in Australia, in New South Wales and in the ACT. During this 24-hour period, there was no change in the size of these groups. Data regarding various demographic groups for the Canberra Raiders was also collected on June 16 and November 6, 2010. It can be found in Table 5. The gap between data collection periods is large and covers a period where a player was suspended for drink driving and the Canberra Raiders finals run.

Table 5

Facebook data regarding Canberra Raiders fan demographics

Age

Sex Education Relation Interested in
16-Jun-10

6-Nov-10

Difference: Jun 16 to Nov 6
All All All

All

All
7,980

8,940

960
All Men All All All
5,400

6,000

600
All Women All All

All


2,460

2,800

340
All Women All All Women
140

160

20
All Women All All Men

1,000


1,000

0
All Women All Married Men
200

160

-40

All

Women All Single Men
260

420

160
All Women All

In a relationship

Men
320

220

-100
All Women All Engaged Men
400

< 20

#VALUE!
All Men All All

Men


60

< 20

#VALUE!
All

Men

All All Women
3,060

3,420

360
All Men All Married

Women


440

560

120
All Men All Single Women
1,340

1,520

180
All Men All In a relationship Women

700


620

-80
All Men All Engaged Women
180

140

-40

All

All College grads All All
1,060

1,120

60
All All University of Canberra

All

All
180

160

-20
All All ANU All All
120

40

-80
All All University of Melbourne All

All


< 20

< 20

0
All All In College All All
160

160

0
All All In High School All

All


220

220

0

During this period, the number of engaged female fans engaged to men dropped to almost zero. The number of women interested in men who were married or in a relationship also dropped. The number of engaged male fans engaged to males also dropped. While it is unlikely that the controversy caused these population shifts, it is possible contributor as the Canberra Raiders may have had a net gain of zero but lost old followers and gained new followers.

The response to a controversy can also be looked at by examining the comparative growth of a team to other teams in a league. If fans connect the problem to the team, they may punish a team by removing their like or not liking the fan page at the same rate that fans of other teams like their fan page. Table 6 shows the comparative growth of the Canberra Raiders official Facebook page to other teams for the period between July 30 and November 6, 2010.

Table 6

NRL official team fan page growth

Team Name Type

30-Jul-10


6-Nov-10
Difference % Difference
Melbourne Storm Storm Man User
4,986

4,799

-187

-3.90%

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Page
20,241

25,401

5,160

20.31%
Newcastle Knights Newcastle Knights Page
16,470

20,775


4,305

20.72%
Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders User
3,413

4,495

1,082

24.07%
Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

Cronulla Sharks

Page
11,230

14,792

3,562

24.08%
Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders Sports Team
6,269

8,292

2,023


24.40%
North Queensland Cowboys North Queensland Toyota Cowboys Page
3,208

4,279

1,071

25.03%
Brisbane Broncos Brisbane Broncos

Page


83,157

117,246

34,089

29.07%
Gold Coast Titans Gold Coast Titans Page
25,714

39,237

13,523

34.46%
Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders Sports Team
1,255

1,945

690


35.48%
Wests Tigers Wests Tigers – Official National Rugby League Club Page
19,355

31,691

12,336

38.93%
Sydney Roosters The Official Sydney Roosters Page

Page


15,362

27,890

12,528

44.92%

The Canberra Raiders are listed three times because they have three official accounts: A user page and two fan pages. Thus, it is a little hard to make good comparisons as each experienced different growth levels. The time period is also a long one, which includes a drink-driving incident involving a player and the club’s finals run. That said, if the controversy did have an impact on short term growth, it is not readily apparent or a big one as the three Canberra accounts are not on either extreme for percentage growth. It is unlikely that the controversy had an impact on the club’s Facebook fan growth. It may still yet but that will require waiting to see if the controversy continues for another few weeks.

Facebook makes it easy to create groups and fan pages and many people do in response to controversies. One example of this is the Jason Akermanis controversy, where fifteen anti-groups were created within three days of the story breaking. Many of these groups had names that questioned his intelligence and had names that implied criticism of his views on homosexuality. By day four of the controversy, the largest group had over 540 fans. The Joel Monaghan Facebook group and fan page creation situation is similar to that of Akermanis in that fifteen groups and pages had been included. The difference is that the membership was much smaller. The top likes for an anti-Joel page is 127. The titles of the Monaghan groups also contrast to that of Akermanis in that there is not implied condemnation of zoophilia and animal abuse. The group names also do not appear to criticize his intelligence. Rather, the names involve jokes about dogs. Table 7 gives an idea as to the nature of these groups and their size as of November 6, 2010.

Table 7

Size of Joel Monaghan related Facebook group and fan pages

Name Total members

Type

Joel Monaghan
119
Page
i deserve to play for NSW.. LOL jk im Joel Monaghan

6

Page
Joel monaghan = SICK FUCK
30
Group

Joel Monaghan Appreciation Group


135
Group
give joel monaghan a brake
8
Group
Joel Monaghan… one sick puppy!
2
Group
JOEL MONAGHAN IS A FILTHY BASTARD
2
Group
Joel Monaghan, “Go the dogs!!” 2010.
127
Group
I dont screw dogs jks im joel monaghan :L
22
Group
I hate playing the Bulldogs LOL JKS I’m Joel Monaghan
7
Group
That awkward moment when Joel Monaghan offers to walk your dog
33
Group
Joel Monaghan… Stay the F**K away from my dog!!!
37

Group

I think joel monaghan misstated his wife with his dog
1
Group
The Awkward moment when Joel Monaghan plays the Bulldogs

7

Group
joel monaghan… hate to get sucked off by a dog :/
7
Group

The Awkwardness when Joel Monaghan is Caught in a room with a dog…


5
Group
awkward moment when you walk in on joel monaghan copping head off a dog..
101
Group
lets take the dog for a walk, LOL JK im Joel Monaghan lets fuck it instead
8
Group
Joel Monaghan Loves Dogs…….. No I Mean He Really Loves Them……
2
Group

Against the backdrop of the Jason Akermanis situation, this appears pretty favorable for the Raiders and the NRL. It could be concluded that the nature of these groups is a positive for the Canberra Raiders and the NRL in that the groups do not mention the Canberra Raiders. They do not imply an activation of a moralistic fan base that could be highly motivated to cause trouble for the team. These groups also have very little reach and show that many people are uninterested in joining even for a laugh.

While the available Facebook data for this section was sparse, what is available suggests that the Canberra Raiders did not lose a fan base because of Monaghan’s actions. The community that appeared left the Raiders was one that they weren’t specifically targeting such as gay men and women in relationships. Those who were expressing anger over the situation were not doing so from a troublesome moralistic position; rather, they were doing so from a less serious perspective involving cracking jokes about having sex with dogs. Like Twitter, the Facebook situation does not look particularly good but it could be much worse.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the first sources that many Australians turn to when a news story breaks. The articles on the site often provide useful background, contain brief useful summations of ongoing events and include links to find additional information. At the same time, Wikipedia is important because of its high search engine placement. While people may not be looking for Wikipedia articles, they may just stumble upon it because the result is the first or second one for the term they are searching for.

In terms of the Joel Monaghan controversy and Wikipedia, the easiest way to measure the controversy as it impacts the Canberra Raiders would be to compare the total page views and edits between the article about Monaghan and the one about the Raiders. If the controversy reflected more upon Monaghan than his team, the expectation is the page view spike would be higher for the player. This information was found at http://stats.grok.se/en/201011/Joel_Monaghan and http://stats.grok.se/en/201011/Canberra_Raiders and is visualized in Figure 5.

Figure 5. A visualize of the total number of article views using data from http://stats.grok.se/ .

In the two days prior to the story breaking, the Canberra Raider article had more views: 202 to 23 on November 1, 160 to 19 on November 2. The day that the story broke, the total article views were 984 for Monaghan’s and 162 for the Canberra Raiders’ article. At the onset, while people may have been aware that Monaghan’s actions took place during the Raiders’ Mad Monday event, they did not seek out additional information on the Raiders, like seeing if the Raiders article had a section on Mad Monday.

The Wikipedia article views data strongly suggest that people were less interested in the Canberra Raiders and more interested in Joel Monaghan. While the content on the Monaghan page includes many references to his playing for the Canberra Raiders, the page view data supports a conclusion that people were less interested in the team and their response to the controversy than they were interested in knowing what exactly Monaghan had done.

Another way of measuring interest in a topic on Wikipedia is to look at the article’s edit history. The history possibly provides two methods for analysis: Total edits per article that can be viewed as an active edit participation counter to the passive reading consumption. The other possible method would involve trying to determine the location of the edits made to both articles. The latter is possible if anonymous edits were geotagged using IP address information to establish the location. This would be useful because the Raiders are probably striving for a fan base in and around Canberra. If most negative edits are coming from inside Canberra, that would be more problematic in terms of maintaining a local fan base than if the edits were coming from outside of Australia or in Australian locations that are not traditional NRL bases. This type of analysis, while possible, is extremely unreliable; many programs that produce this information have conflicts with others in attempting to accurately identify the city that the IP address originated from. Because of these issues, that methodology will not be done in this article. The first is another matter and can easily done.

The article about Joel Monaghan was created on March 17, 2006. As of the November 5, there have been 213 total edits to the English language article about Joel Monaghan. Of these, 47 edits or 22% of all edits to the article were made on and between November 3 and November 5, dates when the story broke. There likely would have been more edits to the article except the article was locked from editing by anyone except sysops at 4:49 UTC/15:49 Canberra time on November 4. In contrast, the Canberra Raiders article saw an increase in edits but was never locked to prevent anyone from editing. Still, given the difficulties in editing, there are noticeable difference between editing volume that can be seen in Table 8.

Table 8

Total edits to Joel Monaghan and Canberra Raiders Wikipedia articles

Joel Monaghan Canberra Raiders

1-Nov

0

0

2-Nov

0

0

3-Nov

6

4

4-Nov

36

9

5-Nov

5

5

The volume of edits suggests that people were not as interested in putting information about Joel Monaghan in the Canberra Raiders article as they were in editing the article about Monaghan. The edit volume suggestions are supported by a critical reading of both articles, where the controversy is only mentioned on the article about Monaghan and not the article about the Canberra Raiders. This is good news for the Canberra Raiders because the Wikipedia article about the team appears high in Google rankings. The controversy is about Monaghan and not as much about the Raiders and their Mad Monday.

When all three things are looked at together, comparative article views, edits and content, the picture looks better for the Canberra Raiders. People visiting and contributing to Wikipedia who are interested in the situation are not as interested in the Canberra Raiders. The association between the two does not appear to be high.

Wikia

Wikia is a wiki company that hosts over a million wikis. These wikis can be created for free and about any topic that a person wants. There are several wikis on Wikia that have been created about Australian sport, including a wiki about the NRL that can be found at http://nrl.wikia.com/ . This wiki is very small and only has 23 articles. Since the controversy involving Monaghan started, there have been no edits to the wiki. The situation did not inspire any members of the large Wikia family to visit the wiki and create an article about the Canberra Raiders or Joel Monaghan. This could be read as another positive for the Canberra Raiders and the NRL as the situation did not active a dormant fan base to document the situation.

YouTube

YouTube is the largest video site online. It is also the second biggest search engine online. (Hill, 2008) It is a popular site for sport fans; several teams around the world for different sports capitalize on this by having their own official accounts including the Chicago Red Stars, Real Madrid, and Perth Glory. Beyond the presence of official team accounts, fans upload many videos. Fan videos can be music videos, news clips, and video blogs. The frequency of uploads is one way to determine interest in a club compared to other teams while a controversy is taking place. A comparison between the Canberra Raiders and other NRL teams and clubs can be found in Table 9.

Table 9

Total search results on YouTube for NRL related keywords

Team

Keyword


21-Jun-10

24-Oct-10

7-Nov-10

Difference 21-Jun to 7-Nov

Difference 24-Oct to 7-Nov
Brisbane Broncos “Brisbane Broncos”
520

525

534

14


9
Brisbane Broncos “Darren Lockyer”
198

187

194

-4

7
Canberra Raiders “Canberra Raiders”

274


403

422

148

19
Canberra Raiders “Joel Monaghan”
24
Gold Coast Titans “Gold Coast Titans”
260

302

303

43

1

Melbourne Storm

“Melbourne Storm”
925

889

891

-34

2
Parramatta Eels “Parramatta Eels”
485

527

538


53

11
Parramatta Eels “Timana Tahu”
36

31

31

-5

0
Wests Tigers

“Wests Tigers”


404

464

468

64

4

The total number of new videos uploaded between June 21 and November 7 that mentioned the Canberra Raiders is 148, about 80 more than any other team. There does not appear to be a clear reason for this as when the results are looked into to see what has been uploaded during this period, there is no major topic of interest, nor are all the videos being uploaded by one or two individuals. For the period between October 24 and November 7, the Canberra Raiders topped the table with 19 new videos. The next closest club is Parramatta with 11. It is highly likely that the increase in videos relates to the controversy, though not certain as the team had elevated video totals in the prior period when compared to other clubs.

Given the mixed conclusion from video totals over time, other YouTube variables need to be looked at. On November 5, a search result total of 20 was found for “Joel Monaghan”. By November 7, this had increased to 24. This suggests that as the controversy took off, there was a significant increase in interest about Joel Monaghan. A search on November 7 for “Canberra Raiders” “Joel Monaghan” had 10 results. This means that 41.7% of all videos that mentioned Monaghan also mentioned the team he was playing for on Mad Monday. It also means that only 2.3% of all videos that mention the Raiders also include a reference to Monaghan. If the 10 results are sorted by date, six were uploaded since the controversy broke. If only the Monaghan/Raiders videos that were uploaded between November 4 and November 7 are included, than 1.4% of all videos relate to it the controversy. Of the six videos that mention the Raiders and Monaghan, the least viewed video as of November 7 had 1,589 views. The most viewed video had 17,683 views. The average total views for these six videos was 6,352. This can be compared to the 4 videos uploaded prior to the controversy, where the least viewed had 788 views, the most viewed had 4,431 views and the average views was 2,406. The audience for the controversy-related videos was 2.6 times larger than the non-controversy videos.

The additional data does not really clarify the situation. The best conclusion that can be reached is that the Canberra Raiders had an already elevated audience of people uploading videos prior to the controversy. In the period around the controversy, if the six videos that mentioned the Raiders and Monaghan were removed, the Raiders would still be the top team for video uploads. The fan base continued to upload videos and these videos continued to be viewed but at a smaller rate than the videos referencing the controversy. On the whole though, YouTube data suggests that based on pure volume and established audience, the controversy will not have an adverse effect on the team’s fanbase because the controversy uploads represent a tiny segment of the content about them. There is not the quantity of videos about it that should be a long-term concern for the club in term of its image with their fanbase.

Yahoo!Groups

Mailing lists once were one of the most popular tools for Australian sport fans to use in order to communicate with each other. They were easy to create with hosts like egroups, coollists, topica, Yahoo!Groups and Google groups. Two such lists still exist for Canberra Raiders fans: raiders and raiders82, both found on Yahoo!Groups. In the case of raiders, the list has 9 members, open membership and open posting. There has not been a new post since 2003. The controversy did not activate Raiders fans in terms of encouraging them to post. raiders82 has closed membership, requiring that the moderator approve new members. It currently has 128 members. The list had no posts on it between March 2008 and October 2010. There was one new post in November 2010. As the archives are not publicly available, what the contents are is not entirely clear but it could be assumed that the controversy inspired a fan to be less dormant in their support of the club. All things said, the controversy did not inspire much activity on this particular service. It suggests that things are not so heinous as to encourage people to condemn the team they support.

Conclusion

The Joel Monaghan controversy is different than a number of the other sporting controversies that took place during the 2010 NRL and AFL seasons. There were not the moralistic and human rights related issues underpinning it like there were for the Akermanis controversy and the racism controversy during the State of Origin. There was not the harm or potential to cause harm and death that there were for the alleged sexual assault by a St Kilda player or the drink-driving situation by another Canberra rugby player. There were not the illegal actions like the St Kilda player and the Canberra Raiders player allegedly did. There was not the break of unstated football rules regarding the poaching of players from rugby to Aussie rules like there was for the Israel Folau code change controversy. There was not the issue of cheating and bringing unfairness to the game that the Melbourne Storm salary cap violations had. The lack of these issues probably underscores the reasons why fans behaved online such as they did. This was a drunken act in a culture that can understand and relate to someone engaging in drunken stupidity. If other structural issues to the controversy had been at play with a similar amount of media coverage, if the Raiders had been in a bigger market and if the player had been more famous, this might have played differently, as the author’s Akermanis and Melbourne Storm controversy articles demonstrate.

Beyond the underlying variables regarding the nature of the controversy, the results suggest that the Monagahn controversy did not adversely effect the Canberra Raiders fan base in that there were few numbers that suggest the player and the Raiders were inextricably linked. On the other hand, the club did not receive a benefit from the controversy in that it did not inspire Raider fans and Canberrans to show support of the club by following them on Twitter, fanning them on Facebook, or editing articles about the team on Wikipedia and Wikia. The amount of interest about the controversy expressed in YouTube views, Tweets and views to the Monaghan page on Wikipedia suggests that there might be underlying structural image issues in places like Victoria where the NRL wants to grow its fanbase. In the end, the controversy did not hurt the team, but it did not help them.


References

Alexa Internet, Inc. (2010, November 6). Facebook.com – site info from alexa. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com

Alexa Internet, Inc. (2010, November 6). Twitter.com – site info from alexa. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.com

Dutton, C. (2010, November 6). Ultimatum to Raiders: sack Monaghan or risk sponsors. The Canberra Times, 1. Canberra.

Dutton, C., & Moloney, J. (2010, November 5). Disgraced Monaghan’s career on line as prank goes viral. The Canberra Times, 1. Canberra.

Hale, L. (2010, June 14). The impact of Jason Akermanis’s comments on the Western Bulldogs’s online fanbase. Ozzie Sport. Retrieved November 5, 2010, from http://ozziesport.com/2010/07/the-impact-of-jason-akermaniss-comments-on-the-western-bulldogss-online-fanbase/

Hale, L. (2010, May 20). Online activity in the wake of the Melbourne Storm controversy. Ozzie Sport. Retrieved November 5, 2010, from http://ozziesport.com/2010/05/online-activity-in-the-wake-of-the-melbourne-storm-controversy/

Henrik. (2010, November 6). Canberra Raiders. Wikipedia article traffic statistics. Retrieved November 6, 2010, from http://stats.grok.se/en/201011/Canberra_Raiders

Henrik. (2010, November 6). Joel Monaghan. Wikipedia article traffic statistics. Retrieved November 6, 2010, from http://stats.grok.se/en/201011/Joel_Monaghan

Hill, J. (2008, October 16). YouTube surpasses Yahoo as world’s #2 search engine. TG Daily. Retrieved October 24, 2010, from http://www.tgdaily.com/trendwatch-features/39777-youtube-surpasses-yahoo-as-world%E2%80%99s-2-search-engine

nrl scandal. (2010, November 6). Google Search. Retrieved November 5, 2010, from http://www.google.com.au/search?q=NRL+scandal

Proszenko, A. (2010, November 7). Monaghan quits NRL, Shamed Raider looks to UK. The Canberra Times, 1,3. Canberra.

Search Result | Tribalytic: Social Market Research Made Simple. (2010, November 6). Tribalytic. Retrieved November 6, 2010, from http://tribalytic.com/search/?q=Monaghan

What do you want to advertise? (2010, November 6). Facebook. Retrieved November 6, 2010, from https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

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Which AFL team do Canberrans support in the Grand Final?

Posted by Laura on Wednesday, 15 September, 2010

Canberra has traditionally been a place that people aren’t from.  Rather, it is a place that people have traditionally moved to.  When they move, they take their sporting loyalties with them.  For that reason, there is a conflicting mess of sport loyalties in the city.  If you went to see the Sydney Swans play the Western Bulldogs at Manuka Oval this year, you could clearly see these different loyalties on display as it pertains to the AFL.  On the whole, I’ve generally found Canberrans to be pretty good with these loyalties: You can safely wear your team’s kit with out fear that some stranger is going to take the piss out of you.

The Grand Final is soon approaching.  Given the different sporting loyalties, it is interesting to see which team people in Canberra are barracking for.  Is one team more popular than another?  Do Canberran loyalties mirror national loyalties?

One way of measuring loyalty and team identification is to count how many people follow a team on Twitter.  All followers combined, Collingwood 7,381 followers, St. Kilda has 4,492 followers, Geelong has 2,153 and the Western Bulldogs have 1,554.  When Twitter followers for each team are filtered by location using time zones and user listed location, you can get an idea as to how many Canberrans are followers of the various teams playing in the Grand Finals:

Suburb Collingwood Magpies Geelong Cats St Kilda Saints Western Bulldogs
Barton 0 0 1 0
Canberra 62 10 28 17
Canberra International Airport 0 1 0 0
Capital Hill 1 0 0 0
City 0 0 0 1
Dickson 0 0 1 0
Gordon 0 1 0 0
Theodore 1 0 0 0
Total 64 12 30 18

It isn’t that big of a surprise that Collingwood is number one. Roy Morgan Research had them as the most popular Melbourne based team in 2009.  Beyond that, Canberrans on Twitter buck the popularity trend.  Roy Morgan has Geelong at number 2.  On Twitter, Canberrans are the least likely to follow Geelong.  Roy Morgan had the Western Bulldogs last.   Canberrans had them at third.  Overall, when compared to total number of followers for a team, Canberrans don’t  always follow the national patterns.  Again, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs are the ones that don’t match: More people follow Geelong on Twitter but more Canberrans on Twitter follow the Western Bulldogs.  It looks like Canberrans, who don’t have their own AFL team, follow a different drummer than the one that beats on a national level.

Another way to measure team loyalty and team identification in Canberra is to use Facebook.  Facebook says that there are 198,500 users who live in the ACT and 175,900 people who live within 50 miles of Canberra.  What Grand Finals teams do Canberrans like?

Area Collingwood Magpies Geelong Cats St Kilda Saints Western Bulldogs
Canberra – Within 50 miles 4,540 760 1,100 280
Australian Capital Territory 5,080 1,040 1,240 300

Well, not the Western Bulldogs, that’s for sure.  Canberran fans on Facebook much more clearly follow the national patterns as established by Roy Morgan.

Other social networks exist and Canberran sport fans are present on them.  One such network is LiveJournal (and its clones).  There are a number of fans on it who list their teams as an interest on their profile:   4 for Collingwood,  22 for Geelong,  16 for St. Kilda and 23  for the Western Bulldogs.  When broken down by city and state, there are two fans from the ACT who list Geelong as an interest and one fan who lists the Saints as an interest.  This pattern for the ACT does not mirror the pattern for the whole of LiveJournal.  It also doesn’t follow the pattern for team fandom size as identified by Roy Morgan Research.

Over on 43 things, there is one Canberran who has a goal related to an AFL team.  It just isn’t a team in the finals.  (The Canberran has a goal of buying a Sydney Swans jumper.)  On bebo, there are 18 people identified as being from the ACT who list an AFL team as an interest, four of which list a Grand Finals team as an interest.  Two support Collingwood, one supports Geelong and one supports St. Kilda.  This pattern mirrors the national one as established by Roy Morgan Research.  On Blogger, there are four people from the ACT who list an AFL team as an interest.  Of these four, only one lists a finals bound team: Geelong.

What does tell us?  Canberran AFL fans are most likely to be found on Facebook.  Their support of their clubs is similar to the national club support though there are differences.    Different social networks attract Canberrans fans of different teams.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find a like minded fan who will support your team if you’re here for the game.  The easiest time of doing that will probably be for Collingwood Supporters but Bulldog fans shouldn’t be that worried either.  Just go on Twitter Doggies fans and reach out to your fellow Canberrans.

Most of the raw data referenced in this post can be found at csv.ozziesport.com/.

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Post #ausvotes analysis and commentary

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 22 August, 2010

The last post? It leads me to believe that you cannot use tweet volume by electorate to predict the outcome of that electorate’s voting. In most cases, the sample sizes were just too small: 1 to 10 tweets. There might have been more tweets coming out from that electorate but they weren’t using party names, acronyms or the names of the major party leaders. An already small sample of say 50 tweets from an electorate could be whittled down to 5. (I could go back and redo that, try to get more tweets, include post election tweets and see if the results changed… but I’m not certain the point. If some one gives me an incentive to do that though, it will be done.) Twitter doesn’t appear to have any meaningful predictive value on that level… or even on a broader level (where Labor was mentioned almost twice as often as the Liberals. The best suggestion could be that the overall trend is that Labor and Green supporters engage in the usage of social media more than their Liberal, National and Family First counterparts.)

That said, I still want to analyze these patterns. I generally avoid content analysis but this is interesting and some what relevant to an important topic. (Will Tony Abbott win and adversely effect my desire to stay in the country post graduation? How will the elections impact the country’s spending and the value of the USD, which I rely on to pay my bills in Australia?) I asked an acquaintance what analysis she would like and she suggested sentiment analysis post election results. (Are people on Twitter happy with the results?) I’m not a fan of sentiment analysis for a variety of reasons… It isn’t easy to do and is rarely accurate. The easiest way to do that would probably involve letting people judge the attitude of Twitter folks towards the election based on the most popular #ausvotes related hashtags.

To do this, I went to searchtastic and searched and searched like I did before (using the following searches: #ausvotes, #asuvotes, gillard, abbott, greens house, greens senate, #sexparty, #familyfirst, #nbn, #campaignbender, ranga julia, #vote9, #hungparliament, hung oz, #auslabor, Australian sex party, #9votes, #laborfail, #myliberal, Joe Hockey, tony julia, Maxine McKew, Wyatt Roy, wilson tuckey, Stephen Fielding, Steven Conroy, bob brown) . I found over 10,000 total tweets using these searches. I then removed all tweets that were posted before Aug 21 2010, 0:00 UTC. This time would be 21 August 2010, 10:00 AM Canberra time. People had started voting by then and most of the election vote getting had been done. That done, I had 7,985 total tweets. The next step was to remove all duplicate tweets. The tweet total is 3,372, which looks like a pretty decent sample size.

After that, I extracted all the #hashtags from these tweets. These 3,372 tweets had 4,354 #hashtags used in them. There were 420 unique #hashtags. The table below is a count of the most popular #hashtags used after Aug 21 2010, 0:00 UTC where the tag was used at least twice:

#tcot 5
#84 4
#Adelaide 4
#alp 4
#ausvote 4
#conroy 4
#hunglikeaparliament 4
#ope 4
#politics 4
#Quote 4
#ReTweetThisIf 4
#sausagesizzle 4
#votelabor 4
#VoteLiberal 4
#win 4
#wisdom 4
#zing 4
#60 3
#aflhawksfreo 3
#australia 3
#Australian 3
#australianlabor 3
#ausvoted 3
#climate 3
#disability 3
#dontfriskabbott 3
#dontriskRabbit 3
#electiondrinkinggames 3
#electionWire 3
#F1 3
#grayndler 3
#greensaresocialists 3
#hungover 3
#music 3
#nocleanfeed 3
#nowbuggeroff 3
#topend 3
#unintentionallyironic 3
#6RAR 2
#Abbottalypse 2
#abc1 2
#Amnesty 2
#antonygreenfacts 2
#auseats 2
#auselectoralfraud 2
#ausvotes 2
#awunion 2
#Breaking 2
#ChangeTheGovernment 2
#dawson 2
#dontbothertrying 2
#electionnightcocktail 2
#EPICFAIL 2
#fraser 2
#hescute 2
#ifabbotwins 2
#juliagillard 2
#keysinthefishbowl 2
#LA 2
#labour 2
#lol 2
#losers 2
#masterchef 2
#Melbourne 2
#NBNfail 2
#Note2Females 2
#ozelection 2
#ozlog 2
#p2 2
#Perth 2
#qanda 2
#Qld 2
#rejectedpartynames 2
#retweet 2
#rippedoff 2
#sadbuttrue 2
#SausageSizzles 2
#sbspoll 2
#senate 2
#tallyroom 2
#TeamAmerica 2
#Tehran 2
#travel 2
#truly 2
#TT 2
#twexitpoll 2
#uc 2
#UN 2
#votingpetpeeves 2
#VXToronto 2
#WAfirst 2
#waystoresolvehungparliament 2
#wellhung 2
#wellhungparliament 2
#westwing 2
#wewannaknow 2
#whitsundays 2
#whoneedsdrugs 2
#winwithgodwin 2
#workforitabbott 2
#WorldChampsPosse 2
#WTF 2
#Wyatt2035 2
#xxx 2
#youhaveapotatoforachin 2
#YouKnowYoureInAustralia 2
#zow 2

Is there any sentiment being expressed by people interested in the Australian elections that you could take away from this? Probably not. The extent to which I’d say any attitude is being expressed is that people do not want Abbott to come out on top and that they blame Labor for this failure of having a clear victor and functional government. It could also possibly be read that people are concerned about the impact of the elections on Internet censorship and infrastructure in Australia. (Though #nocleanfeed could refer to the Wikileaks story. People often use that #hashtag to discuss the site.) Marriage equality and civil rights are viewed as being a post election concern. And I suppose you could also conclude that Australians are keeping their sense of humor about themselves with their use of various puns and sexual references.

Rather than do another post, I’ve decided to tack on a list of URLs that were mentioned. From that same list of 3,372 tweets, there were 516 total urls included in the tweet. 297 of them were “unique.” (I haven’t lengthened all of the URLs so there may be a few repeats using url shorteners that I can’t easily lengthen.) The following URLs were the ones that were all mentioned five or more times:

Tweets Count
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ_s6V1Kv6A&amp;feature=player_embedded 48
http://youtu.be/RQ_s6V1Kv6A 29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ_s6V1Kv6A 26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ_s6V1Kv6A&amp; 11
hotfile.com/dl/63200434/385dec4/Inception.DIVX.DVD.QUALITY.wmv.html 8
LATENIGHTLOCALS.TK 8
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6908926&amp;fbid=462135946202&amp;op=1&amp;o=global&amp;view=global&amp;subj=106582159380758&amp;id=540506202 8
http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/ 7
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/7799523/candidate-may-become-youngest-pollie/ 6
http://alp.org.au/special-pages/compare-julia-gillard-tony-abbott-policies/ 5
http://twitpic.com/2gsip7 5
http://yfrog.com/f1p53hj 5

It is an interesting selection of links: YouTube, Facebook, ABC news, Yahoo News, Labor’s website, TwitPic, and YFrog (a picture). The only really official content is that from Labor. Despite the #hashtag popularity of the Sex Party, people weren’t linking to them. People also weren’t linking to Get!Up content on their site. They weren’t linking to other official party content. The message in this case is clearly in control of voters and the media, not the parties.

Anyone have any more suggestions for what to write about in terms of the Australian elections before I go back to sport?

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Most popular AFL and NRL teams on Facebook

Posted by Laura on Friday, 30 July, 2010

This list extends a bit beyond the AFL and NRL but not much.  The following list contains the total number of fans or members of a Facebook group or fanpage today.  All the official AFL and NRL club pages and accounts are included.  Beyond that, there are a number of other groups and clubs that I had looked at before.  Some of these are official accounts.  Some of them are not.  A number have been deleted after they were originally looked at.  This gives a bit of an idea of what I’m interested in.  It also gives an idea as to how successful official club pages are at capturing the majority of their audience or if fans are going elsewhere.  In some cases, it also gives an idea as to how successful anti-campaigns are at garnering attention.

League Team Name Url Total members Official
AFL AFL AFL https://www.facebook.com/AFL 175,275 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin Queensland Maroons Queensland Maroons https://www.facebook.com/queenslandmaroons 164,028 Yes
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos – Australian National Football Team https://www.facebook.com/Socceroos 122,725 Yes
NRL Brisbane Broncos Brisbane Broncos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Hill-Australia/Brisbane-Broncos/99453774630 83,157 Yes
AFL Richmond Tigers I hate it when I’m kicking the footy around and Richmond try to recruit me. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Richmond-VA/I-hate-it-when-Im-kicking-the-footy-around-and-Richmond-try-to-recruit-me/116177261751551?v=wall 70,250 No
AFL Essendon Bombers Essendon FC https://www.facebook.com/Essendon 68,724 Yes
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues NSW Blues https://www.facebook.com/nswblues 62,852 Yes
AFL Adelaide Crows Adelaide Crows https://www.facebook.com/adelaidecrows 51,467 Yes
AFL Collingwood Magpies Collingwood Football Club https://www.facebook.com/collingwoodfc 49,007 Yes
AFL West Coast Eagles West Coast Eagles https://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Coast-Eagles/38862387223 47,295 Yes
AFL St. Kilda Saints St Kilda Football Club https://www.facebook.com/stkfc 33,109 Yes
AFL Carlton Blues Carlton Football Club https://www.facebook.com/OfficialCarltonFC 30,322 Yes
AFL Sydney Swans Sydney Swans https://www.facebook.com/sydneyswans 27,261 Yes
NRL Gold Coast Titans Gold Coast Titans https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gold-Coast-Australia/Gold-Coast-Titans/22602574592 25,714 Yes
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Hawthorn Football Club https://www.facebook.com/hawthornfc 25,267 Yes
AFL Fremantle Dockers Fremantle Football Club https://www.facebook.com/fremantlefootballclub 23,293 Yes
NRL Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles https://www.facebook.com/pages/Manly-Warringah-Sea-Eagles/222674735992 20,241 Yes
NRL Wests Tigers Wests Tigers – Official National Rugby League Club https://www.facebook.com/WestsTigers.com.au 19,355 Yes
AFL Richmond Tigers Richmond Tigers https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Australia/Richmond-Tigers/7769834477 18,045 No
NRL Newcastle Knights Newcastle Knights https://www.facebook.com/NewcastleKnights 16,470 Yes
NRL Sydney Roosters The Official Sydney Roosters Page https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Official-Sydney-Roosters-Page/222342250384?ref=sgm 15,362 Yes
AFL Brisbane Lions Brisbane Lions https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Lions/21301860172 15,014 No
AFL Brisbane Lions Brisbane Lions https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Lions/21301860172 15,014 Yes
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos North Melbourne Football Club https://www.facebook.com/northkangaroos 14,496 Yes
AFL Richmond Tigers Richmond FC https://www.facebook.com/Richmond.FC 13,504 Yes
AFL Port Adelaide Power Port Adelaide Football Club https://www.facebook.com/portadelaidefootballclub 13,229 Yes
NRL Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks Cronulla Sharks https://www.facebook.com/cronullasutherlandsharks 11,230 Yes
Rugby League New Zealand Kiwis New Zealand Kiwis https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Zealand-Kiwis/29087221880 10,745 Yes
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/Western.Bulldogs 9,304 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Sucked in Melbourne Storm! HAHA https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sucked-in-Melbourne-Storm-HAHA/119988934680797 8,566 No
AFL Collingwood Magpies Collingwood Magpies https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208766149 8,066 No
Rugby League Australian Kangaroos Australian Kangaroos https://www.facebook.com/australiankangaroos 8,042 Yes
AFL Melbourne Demons Melbourne Football Club https://www.facebook.com/MELBOURNEfc 8,015 Yes
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5483691593 7,086 No
AFL Hawthorn Hawks hawthorn football club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210288061 6,557 No
AFL Geelong Cats Geelong Cats https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geelong-Australia/Geelong-Cats/64398281288 6,278 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/canberraraiders 6,269 Yes
AFL Geelong Cats Geelong Cats Insider https://www.facebook.com/GeelongCatsInsider 5,906 Yes
AFL Adelaide Crows Adelaide Crows https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208515594 5,810 No
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos North Melbourne Kangaroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/North-Melbourne-Kangaroos/33221186760 5,173 No
ANZ Championship ANZ Championship ANZ Netball https://www.facebook.com/pages/ANZ-Netball/92385331744 5,158 Yes
AFL West Coast Eagles West Coast Eagles Appreciation Group https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2212678352 5,031 No
NRL Melbourne Storm Storm Man https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=725961793&amp;ref=search&amp;sid=7259 4,986 Yes
AFL Sydney Swans Sydney Swans https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210531221 4,670 No
Rugby League England Rugby League England Rugby League https://www.facebook.com/pages/England-Rugby-League/22459291791 4,645 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Give Melbourne Storm Their Premierships Back https://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-Melbourne-Storm-Their-Premierships-Back/119876964691459 4,479 No
AFL St. Kilda Saints St Kilda Football Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2215006752 4,265 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Gold Coast Football Club https://www.facebook.com/GoldCoastFC 4,111 Yes
AFL Melbourne Demons Melbourne Football Club, The Mighty Demons https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207848796 4,052 No
AFL Geelong Cats GEELONG FOOTBALL CLUB https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2528050096 3,939 No
AFL Fremantle Dockers Fremantle Dockers Fan Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207069891 3,725 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau/10150092717680478 3,577 No
Super 14 ACT Brumbies ACT Brumbies https://www.facebook.com/actbrumbies 3,542 No
Super 14 Western Force Western Force https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Force/24790235284 3,472
Super 14 Western Force Western Force https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Force/24790235284 3,472 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=wall&amp;ref=profile&amp;id=1589355881 3,413 Yes
Rugby League Papua New Guinea Kumuls Papua New Guinea Kumuls https://www.facebook.com/pages/Papua-New-Guinea-Kumuls/48575750514 3,310 Yes
NRL North Queensland Cowboys North Queensland Toyota Cowboys https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kirwan-Australia/North-Queensland-Toyota-Cowboys/9098495661 3,208 Yes
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Hawthorn Hawks https://www.facebook.com/hawthornhawks 3,182 No
AFL Port Adelaide Power Port Adelaide Power https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2373641808 3,152 No
AFL Richmond Tigers Richmond Tigers https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2249604493 2,748 No
AFL North Melbourne Kangaroos North Melbourne Kangaroos https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2600790272 2,413 No
AFL Brisbane Lions Brisbane Lions AFC https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210819520 2,321 No
Women’s World Cup Matildas Matildas – Australian National Women’s Football Team https://www.facebook.com/matildas 2,204 Yes
Super 14 ACT Brumbies Official Brumbies Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/BrumbiesFanPage 2,196 Yes
AFL Adelaide Crows Adelaide Crows The team for all proud South Aussies https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adelaide-Crows-The-team-for-all-proud-South-Aussies/153984865902 2,116 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs 2010 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs-2010/217871884770 2,019 No
AFL Essendon Bombers Essendon Bombers https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14594414804 2,016 No
Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Western Sydney Rollers Western Sydney Rollers https://www.facebook.com/pages/Penrith-Australia/Western-Sydney-Rollers/42792267115 2,001 Yes
AFL Carlton Blues Carlton Blues Supporters Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205002774 1,614 No
Rugby League/State of Origin New South Wales Blues New South Wales Rugby League https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-South-Wales-Rugby-League/62360768317 1,436 Yes
W-League W-League Westfield W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westfield-W-League/284833825576 1,424 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/teamgws 1,359 Yes
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Australia/Canberra-Raiders/44722778922 1,255 Yes
NRL Melbourne Storm Support the Melbourne Storm this Sunday Night https://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-the-Melbourne-Storm-this-Sunday-Night/112926535407833 1,244 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Anything To Do With Footy. https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46374304132 984 No
AFL West Coast Eagles West Coast Eagles SUCK! https://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Coast-Eagles-SUCK/283601832162 953 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/301148780410 943 No
AFL Western Bulldogs WESTERN BULLDOGS 2010 PREMIERSHIP TEAM https://www.facebook.com/pages/WESTERN-BULLDOGS-2010-PREMIERSHIP-TEAM/304790027975 673 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is a homophobe. https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118380594866779 631 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/107712129252191 630 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos/106353142733985 617 No
AFL St. Kilda Saints ST KILDA SAINTS https://www.facebook.com/pages/ST-KILDA-SAINTS/76945789299 599 No
SEABL SEABL SEABL https://www.facebook.com/pages/SEABL/156802199436 599 Yes
AFL Collingwood Magpies COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES PREMIERS OF 2010. https://www.facebook.com/pages/COLLINGWOOD-MAGPIES-PREMIERS-OF-2010/206003434840 591 No
AFL Carlton Blues Carlton Blues https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Australia/Carlton-Blues/159855878819 590 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Don’t you hate it when you’re in the shower and Jason Akermanis comes in? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-you-hate-it-when-youre-in-the-shower-and-Jason-Akermanis-comes-in/124465230905493 548 No
AFL Western Bulldogs The Jason Akermanis Appreciation Society https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20900401086 482 No
W-League Canberra United Canberra United Fans https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=31893404397 459 Yes
AFL Essendon Bombers Essendon Bombers Premiers 2010!! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Essendon-Bombers-Premiers-2010/292548086075 444 No
NRL Melbourne Storm melbourne storm :) https://www.facebook.com/pages/melbourne-storm-/234035998634 426 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos 100,000 Strong Socceroos Supporters To Win 2010 World Cup https://www.facebook.com/pages/100000-Strong-Socceroos-Supporters-To-Win-2010-World-Cup/362147231671 403 No
AIHL Sydney Bears Sydney Bears https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Bears/231164562115 372 Yes
WNBL Canberra Capitals WNBL – Canberra Capitals https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5865846788 368
AFL Fremantle Dockers Fremantle Dockers : Rebuilding since 1995 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fremantle-Dockers-Rebuilding-since-1995/320031751833 365 No
AFL Carlton Blues Carlton Blues FC https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=85618681803 361 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos to dominate in 2010 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos-to-dominate-in-2010/125877250762609 356 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs/109838169034373 352 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jarrod Harbrow Stay At The Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarrod-Harbrow-Stay-At-The-Western-Bulldogs/111810932186509 348 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Karmichael Hunt &amp; Israel Folau: Smartest NRL players in history https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karmichael-Hunt-Israel-Folau-Smartest-NRL-players-in-history/125580140798379 333 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau/116955588324978 308 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Raiders/107811962573583 281 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’m not a traitor to my sport… LOL jks, im Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-not-a-traitor-to-my-sport-LOL-jks-im-Israel-Folau/126807534010649 261 No
NBL Wollongong Hawks Wollongong Hawks https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2511926702 246
NRL Brisbane Broncos its not all about the money… LOL jkz im Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/its-not-all-about-the-money-LOL-jkz-im-Israel-Folau/128394483853228 246 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney ACT 4 GWS https://www.facebook.com/pages/ACT-4-GWS/131873296847254 226 Yes
AFL Greater Western Sydney Supporters of Greater Western Sydney (Team GWS) AFL https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=197444073672 224 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=211851956941 222 No
AFL Port Adelaide Power Port Adelaide Power https://www.facebook.com/pages/Port-Adelaide-Power/9426342069 221 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Todd Carney 16 – Canberra Raiders 6……..(17/4/2010) Roosters Vs. Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Todd-Carney-16-Canberra-Raiders-61742010-Roosters-Vs-Raiders/117965208220477 218 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Australian University Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Australian-University-Socceroos/279400107713 217 No
World Interuniversity Games Australian University Socceroos Australian University Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Australian-University-Socceroos/279400107713 217 No
NWBL Wollongong Roller Hawks Wollongong Roller Hawks https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34282398124 215
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is a legend https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10308061363 211 No
WNBL Bendigo Spirit The Official Bendigo Spirit Basketball https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bendigo-Australia/The-Official-Bendigo-Spirit-Basketball/227515051849 183 Yes
AFL Western Bulldogs Vote Julia Gillard as full forward for the Bulldogs!!! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vote-Julia-Gillard-as-full-forward-for-the-Bulldogs/135068153186079 177 No
Archery Australia Guy Phillips Guy Phillips https://www.facebook.com/pages/Guy-Phillips/136216599725314 177 Yes
AFL Richmond Tigers Trent Cotchin https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288344968328 174 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Australia/Canberra-Raiders/142939450791 174 No
Greater Western Sydney and Blue Mountains Senior AFL Penrith Rams IGA PENRITH RAMS https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34780778851 170 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Greater Western Sydney https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Western-Sydney/110850405598090 163 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs/275365171824 156 No
NRL Wests Tigers Wests Tigers NYC https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14767245041 153 No
VFL Bendigo Bombers Bendigo Bombers Football Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166091156567 151
AFL Western Bulldogs Julia Gillard, full-foward for Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Gillard-full-foward-for-Western-Bulldogs/138828299460524 142 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Im Not Really That Awesome, LOL jk, Im Israel Folau ♥ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-Not-Really-That-Awesome-LOL-jk-Im-Israel-Folau-3/120925127943654 141 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos SOCCEROOS :) https://www.facebook.com/pages/SOCCEROOS-/126051170744978 136 No
AFL Richmond Tigers Daniel Jackson – TIGER TUFF! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123091481992 134 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau has discraced rugby league and is a DOG https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau-has-discraced-rugby-league-and-is-a-DOG/131445246866465 126 No
WNBL Townsville Fire Townsville McCafe Fire https://www.facebook.com/pages/Townsville-Australia/Townsville-McCafe-Fire/239691963244 123 Yes
World Cup Soccer Socceroos kickoff.com.au: A-League, Socceroos, Australian and International football https://www.facebook.com/pages/kickoffcomau-A-League-Socceroos-Australian-and-International-football/238919388600 119 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’m going to be an AFL superstar. Oh wait, no i’m not. I’m Israel Folau. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-going-to-be-an-AFL-superstar-Oh-wait-no-im-not-Im-Israel-Folau/130787570267787 114 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Brett Holman shouldn’t play for the Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brett-Holman-shouldnt-play-for-the-Socceroos/155289433083 114 No
NRL Newcastle Knights Matt Johns to coach the Newcastle Knights in 2010! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105298639854 110 No
Super 14 ACT Brumbies act brumbies https://www.facebook.com/pages/act-brumbies/188338778385 107 No
AFL Western Bulldogs WESTERN BULLDOGS https://www.facebook.com/pages/WESTERN-BULLDOGS/271303674325 105 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs/110292775655582 104 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I love NRL, LOL jk i’m Israel Folau. https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-love-NRL-LOL-jk-im-Israel-Folau/132015913479883 98 No
Super 14 New South Wales Waratahs Waratahs 2008 https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6889666197 98
Super 14 New South Wales Waratahs Waratahs 2008 https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6889666197 98 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Cheering for the Socceroos at the local club in the World Cup https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheering-for-the-Socceroos-at-the-local-club-in-the-World-Cup/406886935323 98 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis handstand appreciation society https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19647855868 97 No
AFL Richmond Tigers Greeks who support Richmond F.C the Tigers https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56793324172 94 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Akermaniacs!! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13979751018 88 No
AFL Gold Coast Football Club Gold Coast Football Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116206475832 87 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Langerak is a God, and will be in the Socceroos one day :) p.s hes HOT https://www.facebook.com/pages/Langerak-is-a-God-and-will-be-in-the-Socceroos-one-day-ps-hes-HOT/103909322982210 86 No
WNBL Townsville Fire TOWNSVILLE FIRE https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7634104737 80 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/376142636801 78 No
NRL Canberra Raiders i bet u i can find 10,000 people who hate canberra raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/i-bet-u-i-can-find-10000-people-who-hate-canberra-raiders/115693885138853 69 No
AFL Western Bulldogs for people who wanna see Jason Akermanis shove his head up his own Ass https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38642639632 68 No
NRL Sydney Roosters Sign Up Jake Friend https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=311599952794 66 No
NRL Canberra Raiders I’m a 2010 Canberra Raiders member https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Australia/Im-a-2010-Canberra-Raiders-member/217845443478 65 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Raiders/370953541588 62 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos/108710262493191 57 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos/112443855448354 57 No
AFL Richmond Tigers No matter how bad they are, I will still barrack for the Richmond Tigers! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=80991032015 56 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney GO Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/pages/GO-Team-GWS/201507074991 55 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-bulldogs/208698572908 51 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Greater Western Sydney Football Club https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Western-Sydney-Football-Club/100573089984951 49 No
VFL Frankston Dolphins Aaron Edwards Fan page https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=139834293787 46
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is a dick https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118537708183794 45 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I miss my family in brisbane…lol jk im Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-miss-my-family-in-brisbanelol-jk-im-Israel-Folau/121631641206963 45 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Hi I’m Julia Gillard, I’m a politic LOL jk, I’m full forward for the bulldogs https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hi-Im-Julia-Gillard-Im-a-politic-LOL-jk-Im-full-forward-for-the-bulldogs/133430483342149 41 No
Victorian Amateur Football Association Werribee Tigers Werribee Amateur Football Club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7111400046 41
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos/106019049438817 33 No
AFL Hawthorn Hawks The New Hawks Cheer Squad 2009 hawthorn football club https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14866934870 32 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Raiders/148093829783 32 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau to switch codes and Play AFL, Stick that where it fits Gallup https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau-to-switch-codes-and-Play-AFL-Stick-that-where-it-fits-Gallup/121244824577993 31 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Ive always wanted to play AFL LOL jk I’m Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ive-always-wanted-to-play-AFL-LOL-jk-Im-Israel-Folau/121790094527530 31 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team Gws https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=432992410322 30 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Queensland will win Origin 2010… LOL JK, Israel Folau plays AFL now. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Queensland-will-win-Origin-2010-LOL-JK-Israel-Folau-plays-AFL-now/121736904533450 30 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney GWS AFL TEAM WE DO NOT WANT YOU !!!! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115243691825820 24 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis slept with me https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-slept-with-me/115552025153010 24 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Petition for Israel to come play the Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Petition-for-Israel-to-come-play-the-Socceroos/124315894249250 24 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs 2010 :) https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs-2010-/121258311217816 21 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’m loyal to rugby league….lol JK I’m Israel Folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-loyal-to-rugby-leaguelol-JK-Im-Israel-Folau/101306539918069 21 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’m Israel Folau I’m an NRL superstar, LOL jk im gonna go play footy https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-Israel-Folau-Im-an-NRL-superstar-LOL-jk-im-gonna-go-play-footy/118386028202456 19 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau ♥ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau-3/118502131501099 19 No
AFL AFL I Loved football, then Andrew ‘Dollars’ Demetriou came along https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=376087484378&amp;ref=search 18 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney BOYCOTT TEAM GWS https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=127403363954150 18 No
AFL Hawthorn Hawks Law Hawks https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5033799337 18
AFL Western Bulldogs I’ll never play for the Bulldogs, LOL jk, I’m Julia Gillard https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ill-never-play-for-the-Bulldogs-LOL-jk-Im-Julia-Gillard/104083189641887 18 No
NRL Wests Tigers Melbourne-based Wests Tigers Fanatics https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4979514491 18 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis should be locked and gagged in a closet! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109095775801131 16 No
AHL Tassie Tigers Tassie Tigers Hockey – Top 4 three years in a row https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10850081395 16
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel folau, please stay with NRL https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-folau-please-stay-with-NRL/129283270431508 16 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Supporting the Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Supporting-the-Canberra-Raiders/378099581051 15 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-Raiders/105808109459157 14 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Support for the Socceroos in South Africa https://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-for-the-Socceroos-in-South-Africa/118426448190124 14 No
AFL Western Bulldogs jason akermanis is amazing! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=344061166761 13 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos israel folau is injury prone https://www.facebook.com/pages/israel-folau-is-injury-prone/114024501946027 13 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Change the name of the Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Australia/Change-the-name-of-the-Socceroos/206601790281 12 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney I live here and don’t support Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=140288354383 11 No
WNBL Townsville Fire Fire Roster https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10595065717 10 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis for Brownlow 2008 https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16522463154 9 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis to win the Coleman medal. https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21877556009 9 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos socceroos fan? get on it!!!!! https://www.facebook.com/pages/socceroos-fan-get-on-it/118141831550071 9 No
AFL Western Bulldogs JASON AKERMANIS’S IQ OF A PLANT https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107444465957654 8 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS is stupid – Nobody cares! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=201349721647 7 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos Israel Folau an AFL player? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israel-Folau-an-AFL-player/125596160796485 7 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/105738419448658 6 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socceroos/119664741377244 6 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos The Football Supporters’ Pledge: A-League, Socceroos &amp; Grassroots https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Football-Supporters-Pledge-A-League-Socceroos-Grassroots/114421618592491 5 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Only Homophobes think Jason Akermanis is a homophobe! https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128825660465576 4 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’m not angry Israel Folau, I’m just very disappointed in you. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-not-angry-Israel-Folau-Im-just-very-disappointed-in-you/122542961115419 4 No
NRL Canberra Raiders CANBERRA RAIDERS (GREEN MACHINE) https://www.facebook.com/pages/CANBERRA-RAIDERS-GREEN-MACHINE/131955160151271 4 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-GWS/110182962355046 3 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-GWS/110460898989193 3 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124872100865630 3 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis Biography https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Biography/106142142741832 3 No
W-League Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Roar-FC-W-League/113243915352961 3 No
World Cup Soccer Socceroos Young Socceroos https://www.facebook.com/pages/Young-Socceroos/115695218444154 3 No
AFL Western Bulldogs The Battle Within by Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Battle-Within-by-Jason-Akermanis/110570445624262 2 No
NRL Canberra Raiders On a scale of 1-Canberra Raiders how premature are you https://www.facebook.com/pages/On-a-scale-of-1-Canberra-Raiders-how-premature-are-you/125897990754134 2 No
W-League Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Victory-W-League/114789105203249 2 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis Can’t Drive A Race Car https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123972501889 1 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/373300971735 1 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis Autobiography https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Autobiography/106446502709782 1 No
NRL Canberra Raiders Raiders de canberra https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raiders-de-canberra/106471522724049 1 No
W-League Adelaide United Adelaide United FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adelaide-United-FC-W-League/108294542532589 1 No
W-League Adelaide United Adelaide United F.C. W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adelaide-United-FC-W-League/111672428851109 1 No
W-League Adelaide United Adelaide United W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adelaide-United-W-League/110542468965980 1 No
W-League Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Roar-W-League/106111719427974 1 No
W-League Canberra United Canberra United FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-United-FC-W-League/109991445697639 1 No
W-League Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Victory-FC-W-League/107986482554786 1 No
W-League Queensland Roar Queensland Roar W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Queensland-Roar-W-League/106361719403254 1 No
W-League W-League Westfield W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westfield-W-League/106287136076565 1 No
AFL Greater Western Sydney Team GWS https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-GWS/116207325073108 0 No
AFL Melbourne Demons Melbourne Demons https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Australia/Melbourne-Demons/8283147091 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis Is Totally Gay https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118573961511057 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is a F*ckwit https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18564050741 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis: Homophobe and complete fuckwit! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Homophobe-and-complete-fuckwit/105067262872425 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is a coward https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-is-a-coward/105337389512086 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis is an idiot. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-is-an-idiot/125326927493237 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Jason Akermanis, you are a MORON! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-you-are-a-MORON/109009685810123 0 No
AFL Western Bulldogs Western Bulldogs FC https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Bulldogs-FC/22912285819 0 No
NBL Wollongong Hawks Wollongong Hawks https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wollongong-Australia/Wollongong-Hawks/250640730611 0
NRL Brisbane Broncos I’d rather see the world end in 2012 then see Israel Folau play AFL https://www.facebook.com/pages/Id-rather-see-the-world-end-in-2012-then-see-Israel-Folau-play-AFL/125789914109136 0 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos I hate AFL…lol jk i’m karmichael hunt and israel folau https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-hate-AFLlol-jk-im-karmichael-hunt-and-israel-folau/121488781224409 0 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos israel folau turned gay for 3 million https://www.facebook.com/pages/israel-folau-turned-gay-for-3-million/128843927141424 0 No
NRL Brisbane Broncos sucks Israel Folau joined AFL, LOL jk AFL needs better players anyways https://www.facebook.com/pages/sucks-Israel-Folau-joined-AFL-LOL-jk-AFL-needs-better-players-anyways/132172480131292 0 No
NRL Melbourne Storm Best team in NRL.. Melbourne Storm ! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Best-team-in-NRL-Melbourne-Storm-/43558529287 0 No
NRL Melbourne Storm Melbourne Storm https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Australia/Melbourne-Storm/21222300614 0 Yes
W-League Canberra United Canberra United W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canberra-United-W-League/106044356102375 0 No
W-League Central Coast Mariners Central Coast Mariners FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Central-Coast-Mariners-FC-W-League/108518769173365 0 No
W-League Central Coast Mariners Central Coast Mariners W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Central-Coast-Mariners-W-League/111835622169478 0 No
W-League Newcastle Jets Newcastle Jets FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Newcastle-Jets-FC-W-League/105841596122300 0 No
W-League Newcastle Jets Newcastle Jets W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Newcastle-Jets-W-League/110694742284280 0 No
W-League Newcastle United Jets Newcastle United Jets FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Newcastle-United-Jets-FC-W-League/107745802588731 0 No
W-League Newcastle United Jets Newcastle United Jets W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Newcastle-United-Jets-W-League/106256169412363 0 No
W-League Perth Glory Perth Glory W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Perth-Glory-W-League/106426936059962 0 No
W-League Perth Glory FC Perth Glory FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Perth-Glory-FC-W-League/105709786128298 0 No
W-League Queensland Roar Queensland Roar FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Queensland-Roar-FC-W-League/106577539379058 0 No
W-League Sydney FC Sydney FC W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-FC-W-League/107350229294344 0 No
W-League W-League Westfield W-League https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westfield-W-League/112250692140005 0 No
W-League W-League W League https://www.facebook.com/pages/W-League/105657402802575 0 Yes
W-League W-League W League https://www.facebook.com/pages/W-League/105657402802575 0 No
W-League W-League W League https://www.facebook.com/pages/W-League/109267555759761 0 No
W-League W-League W League https://www.facebook.com/pages/W-League/119918504685192 0 No
WNBL Bendigo Spirit WNBL – Bendigo Spirit https://www.facebook.com/BendigoSpirit 0 Yes

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The Impact of Jason Akermanis’s Comments on the Western Bulldogs’s Online Fanbase

Posted by Laura on Wednesday, 21 July, 2010

This was originally written on June 14, 2010. It has not been edited since then. There may be some grammatical errors and citation related issues.


The Impact of Jason Akermanis’s Comments on the Western Bulldogs Online Fanbase

On May 20, the Jason Akermanis says gay AFL players should stay in the closet backlash started in response to his column in the Herald Sun. (Akermanis, 2010) The media covered the story on television, in print and online.  AFL fans discussed it on Twitter, created protest pages on Facebook, wiki articles were updated and a lot of people posted about it on the blogosphere.  Management within the AFL and the Western Bulldogs felt compelled to speak out against Jason’s comments.  People talked of reporting Jason to the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity commission.

From a marketing perspective, Akermanis’s opinions were perceived as damaging to the sport and league.  The Western Bulldogs have an association with VicHealth and the Gay and Lesbian Health Association and Akermanis’s comments seemed to contradict and undermine that support. (Walsh, 2010)  The possibility of negative backlash may not have been apparent to the team prior to the article being published as, according to the Sydney Star Observer, team management signed off on the column. (Noonan, 2010)   The size of the backlash and efforts to try to address it can probably be best evidenced by the suspension of Akermanis from the playing field and talking to the media.

Unlike the Melbourne Storm controversy, Akermanis’s comments do not give the appearance of having activated his personal fan base and the fan base for the Western Bulldogs.  There were no media reports of pastors speaking out on Akermanis’s behalf.  His teammates did not support him.  The media did not dismiss his comments, excusing them because of his otherwise excellent on field performance.  Perhaps had Akermanis made these comments in a different country, his comments would have had the potential to be less damaging to the club he played for.  There is also a general view, at least in the United States, that sport teams are run by conservatives who maintain traditional family values.  The assumption is often that sport fans reflect those same values; those that do not chose to follow other popular culture products like movies, television and video games.   If the fanbase for the AFL had actually reflected those underlying assumptions, the situation could have been much more easily ignored and have had the potential to be much less damaging.

The question is how damaging was the situation for the Western Bulldogs online?  How can this be measured? Did the team lose the potential to grow their audience when compared to other AFL teams as a result of Akermanis’s comments?  Who supported Jason and who did not?

The measurement question is probably the most difficult one to address.  Unlike the Melbourne Storm situation, this does not involve a team: The situation involves a specific player.  Liking or adding the team as an interest cannot necessarily be seen as supporting or condemning Jason Akermanis.  People could like the team because they suspended Akermanis for his comments. It is much harder to attribute page views to Akermanis and/or Western Bulldogs supporters who want to find out the situation in order to justify or reaffirm their allegiances.  Almost none of the media coverage and very few people on Twitter indicated that the fanbase was activated in defense of the team and Akermanis.  Thus, a default assumption for any data is that publicity of the situation will activate a larger audience to be against both the club and Akermanis unless contextual evidence suggests otherwise.

Given the measurement difficulties, this paper will nonetheless try to determine how the online community responded to the Jason Akermanis situation and how this reflects back on the Western Bulldogs.  This will be done by looking at Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, bebo, Alexa and a few selected sites.

Facebook
Facebook is the most popular social network in Australia.  Facebook’s advertising data says that there are over nine million users from Australia using the site.  (1)  The following of some Australian based sport teams and leagues are quite large.  The official fan pages for the Queensland Maroons, Brisbane Broncos, Socceroos, AFL and Essendon Bombers all have more than 50,000 fans.

Given the large number of Australians using the network, the official presence of so many clubs and the amount of media attention paid to the service, a response on network was inevitable.   There are several Facebook metrics that can be looked at to ascertain how the controversy effected the Western Bulldogs and Jason Akermanis.  The first way is to compare the relative growth of the Western Bulldogs’ total fans on their fan page compared to other teams during the same page.  A second way is to examine comparative growth of groups that supported Akermanis versus those that condemned his views.  The third way is to compare demographic and geographic distinctions between fans that support Akermanis, people that condemned Akermanis’s views and Western Bulldogs fans.

If the Jason Akermanis controversy hurt the Western Bulldogs on Facebook, it should have resulted in a loss or slower growth in terms of total and percentage of new fans on Facebook when compared to other teams. Data was collected between March 25 and June 10, 2010 regarding the size of the official Facebook fan pages for several AFL teams. (2)

Table 1

In the period between May 3 to May 30, the Western Bulldogs were in the middle of the teams for number of new fans with 1,453. This was almost three times as many as the bottom ranked Geelong Cats who had 519 new fans in that period and a third of new fans of the top ranked Collingwood Magpies who saw an increase of 4,150 fans. An argument could be made that period had too much time preceding it that could have lessened any potential loss with earlier gains. Thus comparing the period between May 30 and June 5 migh be more helpful as Akermanis was suspended on June 1. That new brought additional attention to the column that led to his suspension. During this period, the Western Bulldogs ranked seven out of nine for total new fans with 213 people liking them. This number may not be that accurate as not all teams that had performed worse than them in the previous period were included in this sample. The better comparison could be between May 3 and June 10, 2010 as it is larger and includes the initial controversy and the suspension use. That data set is also more complete. During this longer period, the Western Bulldogs finish in the middle with a gain of 1,812 fans. This compares to the Carlton Blues who on top with 5,185 new fans and the Geelong Cats who are on the bottom with 657 new fans. All of this supports the idea that, when compared to other team’s growth, the Western Bulldogs were not hurt by the controversy.

Another way of looking at this data is to compare percentage growth of new followers. This number compares a club’s ability to get new followers relative to their own performance as opposed to all AFL fans. Using this number, the Western Bulldogs saw the most growth in the period between May 3 and May 30 with a 22.8% increase. The next highest performing club was the Carlton Blues with 19.5%. The Western Bulldogs growth is impressive when compared to the Essendon Bombers who had 4.5% growth, the St. Kilda Saints who had 3.7% and the Adelaide Crows who had 2.1% growth. In the period between May 30 and June 5, the Western Bulldogs were second only to the Gold Coast Football Club: The Bulldogs had a 3.2% increase in new fans compared to the Gold Coast’s 44.9%. The Western Bulldogs saw .8% more growth to the next highest team, the Richmond Tigers who had 2.4%. The Bulldogs percentage growth was roughly 6.4 times as much as the bottom teams, Essendon, St. Kilda and Adelaide who saw between .5 and .7% growth. For the period between June 5 and June 10, the Western Bulldogs finished second for highest percentage growth. The only team that outperformed them was Greater Western Sydney, another expansion team who had just made a lot of news with their signing of Israel Folau. With the exception of the Gold Coast, all teams had one or more percent less growth than the Western Bulldogs. For the overall period between May 3 and June 10, the Western Bulldogs finished on top with 26.9%, 1.1% more growth than the number two team of Carlton and well above that of the last place performer Adelaide who had 3.3% growth in fans on Facebook. Given these numbers where the Bulldogs led in percentage growth on Facebook, it is hard to argue that the Jason Akermanis controversy hurt their Facebook strategy. It might be argued that the team was able to effectively capitalize on Akermanis related traffic on Facebook and their website to convert some fringe fans into Facebook fans.

Beyond the total fans of official pages, there are other interesting metrics that can explain the fan response to the Jason Akermanis controversy. One involves the creation and growth of Facebook groups and fan pages: Facebook easily allows users to create them and they do. Some of the fastest member growing Facebook groups and fan pages are created to get media attention for an issue, to help people spread the word about breaking news and share knowledge, to express disgust with actions taken by institutions or to express allegiance with a person or organization in response to negative publicity. Once the catalyst for the event is out of the news, many of these groups face stagnant growth and become irrelevant having been abandoned by their creators.

While it is not possible to date the creation of a group, the Akermanis controversy likely resulted in the creation of a number of fan pages and groups. These groups have names such as Jason Akermanis, you are a MORON!, Jason Akermanis: Homophobe and complete fuckwit!, Jason Akermanis is a homophobe., Jason Akermanis is a dick, Jason Akermanis Is Totally Gay, Only Homophobes think Jason Akermanis is a homophobe!, Jason Akermanis should be locked and gagged in a closet!, Don’t you hate it when you’re in the shower and Jason Akermanis comes in?, Jason Akermanis is a homophobe., Jason Akermanis is a F*ckwit, Jason Akermanis Can’t Drive A Race Car, JASON AKERMANIS’S “IQ OF A PLANT”, Jason Akermanis slept with me, Jason Akermanis is a coward, and for people who wanna see Jason Akermanis shove his head up his own Ass. There are a number of pro or neutral Akermanis groups on Facebook. They likely predate the controversy. They include groups named Jason Akermanis, Jason Akermanis Biography, Jason Akermanis Autobiography, The Battle Within by Jason Akermanis, jason akermanis is amazing!, The Jason Akermanis Appreciation Society, Jason Akermanis is a legend, Jason Akermanis handstand appreciation society, and Jason Akermanis for Brownlow 2008. (3)

Some of the anti-Akermanis groups saw relatively impressive levels of growth. Jason Akermanis is a homophobe. is one of the most popular anti groups. It had 126 members on May 20 and had 547 members by May 24. Membership levels stabilized and it had only 627 members by June 12. Don’t you hate it when you’re in the shower and Jason Akermanis comes in? had 171 fans as of May 22. By May 30, it had 482. Most of the other anti-Jason groups sampled had smaller total populations and smaller membership increases. Some of the anti groups were deleted during this period. One such group was Jason Akermanis Is Totally Gay, which had one member when checked on May 20 and was deleted some time between then and June 10. Jason Akermanis: Homophobe and complete fuckwit! had 118 members on May 20 before being removed from Facebook by May 22.

The pro and neutral Akermanis groups in the sample were all smaller than the two largest anti-Akermanis groups as of June 12, 2010. A pro-Akermanis group ranked third for the total number of fans. In comparison to the anti-Akermanis groups, the growth rate was much smaller. The Jason Akermanis Appreciation Society went from 454 members on May 20 to 469 on June 12. Jason Akermanis is a legend saw no growth during that period, continuing to have 201 total members. Jason Akermanis handstand appreciation society saw a growth of one, going from 88 to 89 during that period. Jason Akermanis at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/107712129252191 is the group that probably saw the biggest percentage increase of clearly established fan pages. It went from 56 fans on May 20 to 165 on June 12. Jason Akermanis at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/301148780410 went from 307 fans on May 20 to 382 on June 12. Growth levels for the pro and neutral groups are level compared to the anti groups. The data suggests that people did not respond to the Akermanis controversy by rushing out to assert their support of him and his views by joining communities about him on Facebook. The data also suggests that the anti-sentiment regarding Akermanis was not sustained for a long period of time and that people were not scared to affiliate with Akermanis, despite people’s negative attitudes towards him.

Another way of evaluating the effect of the Akermanis controversy on the Western Bulldogs is to compare the characteristics of Western Bulldog fans, Akermanis supporters and Akermanis detractors. Facebook shows the network membership for people who belong to many groups and fan pages, which allows such a comparison to take place. On June 13, 2010, a list of all the members of the Western Bulldogs official fan page was pulled. While Facebook shows the page as having 6,819 fans, it only provided names and network membership for 3,343 people. Of these fans, 188 or 5.6% belonged to a network. A membership list for Jason Akermanis is a homophobe. (4) was also pulled. As of June 13, 2010, the group had 627 members, of which Facebook lists 428. Of the 428, 28 or 6.5% belong to a network. A membership list for The Jason Akermanis Appreciation Society was pulled. As of June 13, the group had 469 members of which 337 were on the member list. Of these, 27 or 8.0% belonged to a network.

Networks are Facebook created groupings that early in the site’s history allowed people to easily filter content to people who shared an affiliation with other users. These networks cover three broad general categories: Places of employment, secondary schools and high schools. The pro-Akermanis people belong to thirteen networks not shared by detractors or Western Bulldogs fans. That means 48% of Akermanis fans do not belong to a network that is shared by Western Bulldogs fans and highly suggests that Akermanis’s fanbase largely is independent of the Bulldogs. Eight anti-Akermanis fans or 27% of that population belong to networks not represented by the Western Bulldogs or Akermanis supporters. This suggests that Akermanis detractors likely come from with in the Western Bulldogs fanbase.

The differences between Akermanis detractors and Western Bulldogs fans are really clear when network membership is sorted by type (secondary school, university, company) and then tabulated. (5) 78.6% of all Akermanis detractors that list a network belong to a university related one. This compares to 50.0% for Akermanis supporters and 48.6% for Bulldogs supporters. Bulldog supporter network membership suggests that the club’s goal of building a barracker base from the working class has been successful. The pattern of network membership may also suggest that Akermanis detractors are older than the club’s current supporter base. Given these two conditions, the Bulldogs are likely to be unaffected by the detractors as they represent a demographically distinct group that the club is not marketing to.

Twitter
Twitter is a popular microblogging platform. Many teams, players and fansites have established a presence on the site. Australian sport fans are also actively using Twitter to discuss their club’s performance, celebrity athlete related gossip and to find other sport news.

There are several possible ways to monitor the impact of the Akermanis controversy as it pertains to Western Bulldogs. Sadly, the most important Twitter metrics are not accessible as the author did not get the data in the moment. (6) These include total number of followers before and after the controversy for the official account and total number of tweets featuring certain keywords. The counting the total number of Tweets by the official account was also not done, as it was believed that this data would not have meaningful results. Unlike the Melbourne Storm controversy, the focus was on a player where the media and fan attention appeared to be on him to the exclusion of his club. Given that, the Bulldogs did not have to respond or change their practices in their official fan communication channels and monitoring their Tweet volume would be unlikely to provide any insight into the fan response to the controversy.

As the three of the most popular Twitter metrics are not available or not relevant, the question is what other metrics can be used? One Twitter analysis tool that can be useful in this case is Twitter Venn. (7) The service creates Venn diagrams based on keywords that a user selects. The service uses Twitter’s search API to find Tweets that mention the two or three teams the user selected, determines if the terms were used together or independently, counts the total Tweets and then creates the Venn. (Clark, n.d.) Using this service on June 11, a Venn diagram (Figure 1) was created. The keywords chosen were based on the goal of trying to exclude irrelevant tweets, such as people talking about their pet Bulldogs or other teams named the Bulldogs. Phrases such as gay, homosexual and homophobic were also not included as their usage extends beyond this controversy and would pick up a lot of irrelevant data.

Figure 1. Twitter Venn. This Venn diagram generated by Twitter Venn demonstrates the lack of overlap between use of Akermanis and Western Bulldogs.

On Twitter, people who mentioned Jason Akermanis did not mention his club affiliation, instead referencing the AFL, gay and other words that indicate the controversy involving the column he published. Based on this, it can be concluded that on Twitter, Akermanis’s comments did not result in rage directed at his club.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia is one of the first sources of information that many people turn to when a news story breaks. Articles on the site often provide background information and context to an event, and include a summary and links of breaking news. Wikipedia also has an excellent search engine optimization. When people go to Google or other search engines to find out what is happening, Wikipedia often appears as the first, second or third result. Thus, an increase in an article’s views should be expected when controversy happens.

In terms of the Jason Akermanis and Wikipedia, the way to measure the controversy as it impacts the Western Bulldogs would be to compare the total page views between those two articles. If the controversy reflected more upon Akermanis than his team, the expectation is the page view spike would be higher. The chart below contains traffic information to those two articles for the period between May 1 and June 8, 2010. (8) To give perspective to Akermanis’s situation as it pertains to athlete interest connecting to club interest, data for the Israel Folau, Brisbane Broncos and Western Sydney Football Club articles have been included on the chart. (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Article Views on Wikipedia by Date. Graph shows total views of selected Wikipedia articles between May 1 and June 10, 2010.

The Jason Akermanis controversy did not result in increase in attention for the Western Bulldogs: Total page views by date have a correlation of .280, which suggests that interest in the two is not related. This is much different than the situation that exists for Israel Folau and Greater Western Sydney: The two articles move in tandem in terms of total article views by date with a correlation of .943. (9)

There are two other aspects of Wikipedia worth analyzing as they pertain to understanding the fan community’s actions in response to the controversy. One is the total edits. The second is the location of those edits. For total edits, controversial and high visibility stories tend to lead to an increase in editing. For less controversial news stories, where there isn’t much new information and the topic is not one people are passionate about, there tend to be fewer peaks in editing. Below is a chart (Figure 3) that compares the total number of edits to the Jason Akermanis, Western Bulldogs, Israel Folau and Greater Western Sydney articles.

Figure 3. Total Edits Between May 1 and June 8, 2010 for Selected Wikipedia Articles.

The Jason Akermanis controversy resulted in people editing the article about him. The total number of daily edits does not mirror total number of daily edits to the Western Bulldogs. This continues to suggest that people viewed Akermanis’s actions independently of his club. This contrasts with the Israel Folau situation, where the total number of edits appears to be a bit more connected.

The Western Bulldogs are based in a Melbourne suburb. An argument could be made that the Western Bulldogs should be concerned about maintaining or developing a fanbase in their local area; they do not need to worry about the fan community outside their geographic home. The only way to measure the local fan community response on Wikipedia expressed by editing an article is to use geolocation for IP addresses that have edited an article. As the total edits by date chart shows, there have been very few edits to the Western Bulldogs article since the Jason Akermanis controversy broke. Of the five edits made to the Western Bulldogs article, two edits have been made by users who have not logged in and have a visible IP address. Neither of these edits references the controversy. Both edits are from Melbourne. (10) This suggests that the controversy did not impact their local fanbase.

The edit history for the Jason Akermanis article stands in stark contrast to the Western Bulldogs article. It has a lot more edits and almost all of the non-logged in edits involved editing the article to reference the stay in the closet controversy. There were 29 total edits made by 14 non-logged in users. Of these edits, four are from Melbourne, one each from Camberwell and Sandringham in Victoria, two are from Adelaide, three are from Sydney and three are international. Only 42 percent of the edits to the Jason Akermanis article originate from the Western Bulldog’s geographic home. Determining what this means is more problematic. The most obvious conclusion is that the offended population were geographically dispersed and were more interested in the topic because of the homophobic aspects than because of their interest in Akermanis and the Western Bulldogs. These edits should not be seen as being committed by a base who will punish the Western Bulldogs by not watching games on television or in person.

Bebo
Bebo was a popular social networking site in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Its popularity has slipped in the past year but there is still a large population of AFL fans on the site. It probably ranks amongst the top ten most popular social networks inside Australia
Bebo allows people to search for keywords and interest that appear in people’s profiles, in videos, descriptions of bands, groups, applications and skins. For profiles, the general assumption is that people do not update interests listed on them regularly after they register. Doing so generally requires a strong desire to associate or disassociate with a person or organization. This desire has to overcome general antipathy towards updating. Thus, interest levels remain relatively stable unless something happens that causes a huge emotional response.

What does this mean for the Western Bulldogs? Did the Jason Akermanis situation reach that point, causing people to want to associate or disassociate with the team? As of March 17, there were 93 people who listed the Western Bulldogs as an interest. (11) By June 8, 2010, this number had increased to 95. There does not appear to have been an attitude shift that causes many people to want to change their public allegiances. The small increase may mean something when compared to Melbourne Storm who saw zero interest listing growth during a similar period prior to and after a major controversy. (Hale, 2010)

While no bebo video data is available for the Western Bulldogs prior to June 9, video data is available for the Brisbane Lions. On May 1, 2010, a search was done of videos on bebo for the “Brisbane Lions.” This is a team that Jason Akermanis played for. On that date, there were 74 videos which mentioned the Brisbane Lions. Three of these videos referenced an Australian soccer league team. The rest were about the AFL team. Of these 71 videos, only one contained Akermanis in the title or description. As of May 1, it had only eleven views. When the video viewing statistics were check on June 9, 2010, there were still only 11 views: The Jason Akermanis controversy has not translated into people seeking out video content on bebo featuring him to watch.

There are no groups about Jason Akermanis. This contrasts to Facebook, where there are several that cover several different views of the player. The Jason Akermanis did not inspire anyone on bebo to create any anti-Jason group, which suggests either antipathy towards the situation or fans not being particularly active on bebo any more.

The only other large player/club controversy that occurred during this time period involved Israel Falou, who switched from the NRL and Brisbane Broncos to the AFL and Greater Western Sydney. To put Jason Akermanis’s fan community as it related to the Western Bulldogs on bebo into context, it is worth comparing the two players. The following data was gathered on June 8, 2010.

Table 2

Bebo interests suggest that Israel Folau is much more important to the Brisbane Broncos fan community than Jason Akermanis is. Jason Akermanis’s comments look like, based on these numbers, that they would have less potential to harm the club than Israel Folau’s desertion to the AFL.

Website Traffic and Demographics
There are primarily three services which track website traffic. They are Alexa, Quantcast and Compete. (12) Each one has something different to offer in terms of how they measure and information they provide about a site. None of these sites are perfect in that they cannot convey a completely accurate picture of a website’s traffic or the demographic composition of visitors to the site. Despite these deficiencies, using their data can begin to give an idea to the fan response by looking for traffic movement out of sync with other teams and if there was a major difference in audiences visiting the Bulldogs site.

Alexa ranks websites based on the amount of traffic they get. It measures traffic using a user-installed toolbar coupled with other data. (13) (alberto, 2009) They can differentiate traffic based on nation and will provide ranking information by country for sites that get a majority of their traffic from specific countries. Their data is also updated daily. This makes them more useful than Compete and Quantcast in that Alexa provides information about Australian sites and updates daily so that daily traffic patterns can be examined.

On June 5, June 8 and June 9, 2010, the international and Australian ranking on Alexa was recorded for all official AFL club websites. (14) This is not ideal, as it does not include traffic prior to and immediately after the Jason Akermanis situation. Still, it can provide a picture of what was happening 16 days after the incident broke, a few days after news of Akermanis’s suspension was announced.

Table 3.

The only team with less traffic to their site is Greater Western Sydney, a team that has not started playing in the AFL yet. While only three of the seventeen teams saw an increase in Australian traffic ranking from June 5 to June 9, (15) the decrease in rank between those dates for the Western Bulldogs was the most extreme: It dropped almost 2,000 places. This suggests that something is going on to depress traffic to the Bulldogs when compared to other teams.

Quantcast and Alexa both provide demographic information about visitors to a site. Quantcast can directly measure a site’s traffic and build a better demographic picture if a site inserts Quantcast’s code into their site. (Quantcast Corporation, 2008) Quancast’s data tends to be American centric and does not always provide a picture of international visitors unless a site is Quantified. Alexa’s demographic data comes from a survey users complete when they install the toolbar. (alberto, 2009)

Bearing in mind that the Quantcast’s description is based on American visitors, the site characterizes visitors to the Western Bulldogs’s site (16) as female, middle aged, Hispanic, have children, make between $30,000 and $60,000 a year and are college graduates. This information was based on all of May 2010, including the nineteen days before the controversy broke out. Alexa, which has much more data from Australian users, characterizes visitors to the Western Bulldogs site as generally between the ages of 18 to 24, male, college graduates, childless and visiting the site from work.

The Geelong Cats and North Melbourne Kangaroos are closest to the Western Bulldogs in terms of amount of traffic. They are also based in the same metro area. Thus, it makes sense to compare their audience with the of the Bulldogs to determine if the there are demographic differences between the clubs that could be attributed to a shift in viewing habits as a result of the Akermanis controversy.

Quantcast characterizes visitors to the Geelong Cats site (17) as female, extremely young, Asian, having no children, making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year and being college graduates. Quantcast characterizes North Melbourne Kangaroos website visitors (18) as being split evenly amongst both genders, teenaged, Asian, having kids in their household, affluent and possessing a graduate degree.

Alexa characterizes Geelong Cats website visitors as being between 18 and 24, male, having a graduate degree, having children, and visiting the site from bother home and work. Alexa characterizes North Melbourne Kangaroos visitors as between 18-24, male, having a college degree, childless and visiting the site from home.

There does not appear to be a demographically homogenous group visiting the websites of all three clubs. The major difference appears to be the racial make up of visitors, with the Western Bulldogs over representing in Hispanics. It would be difficult to make a claim, based on available website demographic data, that the Akermanis situation changed the composition of the fanbase.

43 Things, Blogger and Other Small Networks
While smaller and less influential sites like 43 Things, Blogger and BlackPlanet have tiny populations, they are worth monitoring as they can often be one of the first signs of a major public relations problem online that can no longer be controlled. Twitter and Facebook can often be very temporal: Things happen in the moment and are quickly forgotten. Those sites are not set up to record fan responses. Other sites, either because they are inactive, allow for longer posting, have greater visibility to people outside the network the content exists on or because influential fans from those networks may have greater crossover to a wider selection of sites, can hurt a club or league’s reputation. The content does not go away. There are influential people on some of those sites that can spread the message to a totally different audience with a different demographic profile. Also, when you’re talking to some one in a much smaller group, there tends to be more trust and greater potential for people to believe what their friends are saying. While a person reading one hundred tweets by nominal acquaintances may be able to forget and move on as things move so fast, in a one on one environment, the chances are the smaller group may have bigger problems letting go and moving on.
43things is a goal setting site that is relatively popular in Australia. Prior to the Jason Akermanis controversy, there was one goal related to the Western Bulldogs: See the Western Bulldogs win the grand final. One person was trying to accomplish this goal. Since the controversy, there has been no change in people creating new goals related to the club, nor in the number of people trying to accomplish the existing goal. There have been no goals, either positive or negative, created related to Jason Akermanis. This mirrors the non-action taken by Brisbane Broncos, Israel Folau and Greater Western Sydney fans who added no goals in response to the change in code news for Israel Folau.

BlackPlanet is a small social network marketed at African Americans in the United States. It has a small community of Australians on it. The major sport league that Australians are interested on the site is the NRL. Prior to and after the controversy, no one listed the Western Bulldogs as an interest. After the controversy, no one updated their profiles to include Jason Akermanis as an interest.

Blogger is a blogging site powered by Google. It is one of the more popular free blogging services in Australia. Users can create a profile on the site, which is used to link their different blogs and comments on one page. The profile page includes an interest field that users can fill out. As of January 16, twelve people listed the Western Bulldogs as an interest. This number only changed by one as of June 4 and June 8, 2010, with 13 people listing the team as interest. No one listed Jason Akermanis as an interest on blogger as of June 4, 2010. It is unlikely that the Jason Akermanis situation resulted in any behavioral change in terms of public allegiances shown on profiles for the Western Bulldogs.

Care2 is a small social network marketed at people who want to make the world a better place. It hosts blogs, groups, discussions, personal profiles, petitions and photos. Care2 has a small population of Australian sport fans using it. As the site is geared towards making a difference and addressing social problems, it is a bit surprising that Akermanis does not show up when searching (19) site profiles, discussions, groups or petitions. As of June 11, the Western Bulldogs are only mentioned four times in blogs and only included on one person’s profile. While this data was gathered three weeks after the controversy, it seems unlikely that with no mentions of Akermanis, the small community on Care2 turned against the team. ecademy is a niche social networking site that is an alternative to LinkedIn for professionals. With no earlier benchmarks, a June 11, 2010 profile search (20) turned up similar results to Care2: No one listed the team or Jason Akermanis as an interest on their profile. It is unlikely that the controversy had an impact on the small AFL community on the site.

Wikia is an extremely popular wiki hosting company (21) that allows anyone to freely create a wiki. They are home to three small wikis dedicated to the AFL and Australian rules football. (22) These wikis are small and not very comprehensive. Two were created prior to the controversy and one was created after it. None have had any edits to the Western Bulldogs or Jason Akermanis article. Coincidentally, there have been no edits related to Israel Folau and Greater Western Sydney. The Wikia community for the AFL was clearly not activated in response to the Akermanis or Folau situations. This suggests that the community is either inactive or more interested in historical on field play rather than off field player antics.

Conclusion
Based on fan behavior online, Jason Akermanis’s comments did not help the player build his personal brand. He upset some fans in the short term, and motivated people to create long time reminders of views that they consider problematic. Very few fans rushed to his defense by affiliating with him or creating groups to defend his position. While the controversy may be problematic for Akermanis, the controversy was less problematic for his club, the Western Bulldogs. Fans did not link the club and player on Wikipedia or Twitter. People did not remove their Western Bulldogs interest on sites such as Blogger or change their behavior goals on sites like 43 Things. Inactive Bulldogs fans were not motivated to become active in order to express disgust for the team. The people that had problems with Akermanis were demographically distinct from Bulldogs fans on Facebook. The controversy harmed Akermanis but it did not harm his team’s image.

References
Akermanis, J. (2010, May 20). “Stay in the closet, Jason Akermanis tells homosexuals.” Herald Sun. Newspaper. Retrieved June 7, 2010, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/stay-in-the-closet-jason-akermanis-tells-homosexuals/story-e6frf9ix-1225868871934

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

Clark, J. (n.d.). “Twitter Venn.” Twitter Venn. Retrieved June 11, 2010, from http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterVenn/view.php

Hale, L. (2010, May 20). “Online Activity in the Wake of the Melbourne Storm Controversy.” Ozzie Sport. Retrieved June 9, 2010, from http://ozziesport.com/2010/05/online-activity-in-the-wake-of-the-melbourne-storm-controversy/

Noonan, A. (2010, May 27). “AFL closet furore continues.” Sydney Star Observer. Newspaper. Retrieved June 7, 2010, from http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2010/05/27/afl-closet-furore-continues/25965

Quantcast Corporation. (2008, June 28). “Cookie Corrected Audience Data, Leveraging Multiple Data Sources to
Calibrate Unique Cookie, Machine, and People Counts in a Direct-Measurement Media Economy.” Quantcast. Retrieved June 9, 2010, from http://www.quantcast.com/docs/display/info/Cookie+to+People+Translation+Overview

Walsh, C. (2010, May 21). “Aker’s viewpoint bizarre: Roos.” The Australian. Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/akers-viewpoint-bizarre-roos/story-e6frg7mf-1225869370860

Footnotes

  1. Facebook’s advertising page is located at https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ .  As of June 11, 2010, it said that there were 9,300,240 people from Australia.
  2. The urls for the fan pages in this sample are https://www.facebook.com/adelaidecrows, https://www.facebook.com/AFL, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brisbane-Lions/21301860172, https://www.facebook.com/OfficialCarltonFC, https://www.facebook.com/collingwoodfc, https://www.facebook.com/Essendon, https://www.facebook.com/fremantlefootballclub, https://www.facebook.com/GeelongCatsInsider, https://www.facebook.com/GoldCoastFC, https://www.facebook.com/teamgws, https://www.facebook.com/hawthornfc, https://www.facebook.com/MELBOURNEfc, https://www.facebook.com/northkangaroos, https://www.facebook.com/portadelaidefootballclub, https://www.facebook.com/Richmond.FC, https://www.facebook.com/stkfc, https://www.facebook.com/sydneyswans, and https://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Coast-Eagles/38862387223, https://www.facebook.com/Western.Bulldogs
    .
  3. The following is a complete list of URLs for Jason Akermanis related Facebook fan pages and groups that the author looked at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/107712129252191, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/105738419448658, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/373300971735, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/376142636801, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis/301148780410, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Biography/106142142741832, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Autobiography/106446502709782, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-you-are-a-MORON/109009685810123, https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Battle-Within-by-Jason-Akermanis/110570445624262, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-Homophobe-and-complete-fuckwit/105067262872425, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124872100865630, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118380594866779, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118537708183794, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118573961511057, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=344061166761, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20900401086, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10308061363, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19647855868, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128825660465576, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16522463154, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109095775801131, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18564050741, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21877556009, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123972501889, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107444465957654, https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38642639632, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-slept-with-me/115552025153010, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-is-an-idiot/125326927493237, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Akermanis-is-a-coward/105337389512086,  and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-you-hate-it-when-youre-in-the-shower-and-Jason-Akermanis-comes-in/124465230905493 .
  4. The group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118380594866779 .
  5. The following table lists the network, the type of network and the total members from the three different groups looked at.

    Network Type Supporters Detractors Bulldogs Total
    Victoria AU University 2 1 15 18
    Monash University 2 8 7 17
    University of Melbourne University 2 1 13 16
    RMIT University 0 0 15 15
    State Government of Victoria Company 0 0 11 11
    Deakin University 0 2 8 10
    La Trobe University University 2 0 7 9
    Westbourne Grammar School Secondary school 0 0 4 4
    Bendigo Senior Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 3 3
    Curtin University 0 2 1 3
    Haileybury College Secondary school 1 0 2 3
    MacKillop College Secondary school 1 0 2 3
    St. Paul’s College Secondary school 0 0 3 3
    University of Sydney University 0 2 1 3
    Catholic College Bendigo Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    Essendon Keilor College Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    Hoppers Crossing Secondary College Secondary school 1 0 1 2
    Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School Secondary school 1 0 1 2
    James Cook University 0 1 1 2
    Methodist Ladies’ College Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    National Australia Bank Company 0 0 2 2
    St. Bernard’s College Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    Sunbury College Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    Swinburne University 0 0 2 2
    Telstra Company 0 1 1 2
    UNSW University 1 1 0 2
    Whitefriars College Secondary school 0 0 2 2
    Academy of Mary Immaculate Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    ANZ Company 0 0 1 1
    Australian National University 0 0 1 1
    Bacchus Marsh College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Ballarat &amp;amp; Clarendon College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Ballarat High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Benedictine IL University 0 0 1 1
    Binghamton University 1 0 0 1
    Bowness High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Box Hill High School Secondary school 0 1 0 1
    Braemar College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Burnside State High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Cairns State High School Secondary school 0 1 0 1
    Catholic Regional College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Central Queensland University 0 0 1 1
    Chairo Christian School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Charles Campbell Secondary School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Charles Darwin University 0 0 1 1
    Charles Sturt University University 1 0 0 1
    Chelmer Valley High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Clonard College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Computer Sciences Corporation Company 0 0 1 1
    Copperfield College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    De La Salle College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Elsevier Company 0 0 1 1
    Emmaus College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Esperance Senior High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    FedEx Company 0 0 1 1
    Firbank Grammar School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Ford Motor Company Company 0 0 1 1
    FRANCE 24 Company 0 0 1 1
    Geelong Grammar School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Gisborne Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Governor Stirling High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Griffith University 0 1 0 1
    Guilford Young College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Gymnase de Beaulieu Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Heathfield High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Hellyer College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    IESEG School of Management University 0 0 1 1
    Illawarra Sports High School Secondary school 0 1 0 1
    John Willcock Senior High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Jones Lang LaSalle Company 0 0 1 1
    Kantonsschule Büelrain Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Karingal Park Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Keilor Downs College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    KPMG Company 0 0 1 1
    Launceston College Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Lowther Hall Anglican School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Macquarie University 0 0 1 1
    Melbourne High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Merrimac State High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Metso Company 1 0 0 1
    Mildura Senior College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Mincom Company 0 0 1 1
    Mirrabooka Senior High School Secondary school 1 0 0 1
    Mount Carmel College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Mowbray College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Nazareth College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Newcastle University 0 1 0 1
    Newcomb High Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Northern Beaches Christian School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Norwood Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Nowra Christian School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Nowra High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Optus Company 0 0 1 1
    Padua College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Patterson River Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Presentation College Windsor Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Sacred Heart AU Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Sacred Heart College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Salesian College Rupertswood Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    San Diego State University 0 0 1 1
    Smithfield State High School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    St Albans Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    St. Aloysius College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    St. Thomas University 0 0 1 1
    Star Of The Sea Secondary school 0 1 0 1
    Star of the Sea College Secondary school 0 1 0 1
    Strathmore Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    T. D. Williamson Company 0 0 1 1
    Tasmania University 0 0 1 1
    The British School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    The Friends’ School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    The Peninsula School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Trinity Catholic School Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    University of New England University 0 1 0 1
    University of Peradeniya University 0 0 1 1
    University of Zimbabwe University 1 0 0 1
    UT Arlington University 0 0 1 1
    UWA University 1 0 0 1
    Webber Academy Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Wellesley University 0 1 0 1
    Westpac Banking Company 0 0 1 1
    William Angliss Institute of TAFE University 0 0 1 1
    Wodonga Senior Secondary College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Wycheproof College Secondary school 0 0 1 1
    Total Secondary school 12 5 80 97
    Total University 13 22 82 117
    Total Company 1 1 26 28
    Total 26 28 188 242
    Percentage Secondary school 46.2% 17.9% 42.6% 40.1%
    Percentage University 50.0% 78.6% 43.6% 48.3%
    Percentage Company 3.8% 3.6% 13.8% 11.6%
  6. Data regarding the comparative size of total Twitter followers for the Western Bulldogs was initially gathered on June 1, almost a week after the controversy first started.  Twitter follower counts for other official club accounts were not recorded on that.  This further hampers the ability to make comparisons between teams.
  7. Twitter Venn is located at http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterVenn/view.php .
  8. Article view information is provided by http://stats.grok.se/ .
  9. The correlation between the Brisbane Broncos article and the Israel Folau article is .155.  The relationship between page views for each article is close to random.
  10. whatismyipaddress.com/ was used to determine the geolocation of IP addresses.
  11. This number came from visiting http://www.bebo.com/c/search? , clicking on the people tab and searching for “Western Bulldogs.”
  12. Compete is not being looked at here because they have not updated their data to include May.  They also do not provide free demographic details about visitors to sites that they track.
  13. It is important to note that this tool does not measure direct traffic to a site.  Rather, it involves sampling traffic to the site to get an approximate for this his compares to other sites.
  14. The list of Alexa pages checked include: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/afc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/afl.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lions.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/carltonfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/collingwoodfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/essendonfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/fremantlefc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/teamgws.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hawthornfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournefc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/kangaroos.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/portadelaidefc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/richmondfc.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/saints.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sydneyswans.com.au , http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoasteagles.com.au , and http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westernbulldogs.com.au .
  15. There are almost certainly cyclical patterns to the checking of AFL club websites: People check them on game and around game day to keep up with the team.  They are unlikely to check club websites when there is no club news and teams are not playing.
  16. The Quantcast information is from http://www.quantcast.com/westernbulldogs.com.au#demographics
  17. The Quantcast information is from http://www.quantcast.com/gfc.com.au#demographics
  18. The Quantcast information is from http://www.quantcast.com/kangaroos.com.au#demographics
  19. The url for the search that was confused is http://www.care2.com/find/site#q=%22Jason+Akermanis%22 .
  20. The ecademy search can be found at http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=member&q=%22Western+Bulldogs%22&op=Search+People
  21. As of June 11, 2010, Alexa ranks Wikia as the 312th most popular site on the Internet.  Compete estimates that the site gets around 3.2 million visitors a month.
  22. The wikis are http://afl.wikia.com/wiki/Australian_Football_League_Wiki , http://aussierules.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page , and  http://aflpedia.wikia.com/wiki/AFL_Wiki .

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A map of Team GWS on Facebook

Posted by Laura on Tuesday, 13 July, 2010

I love visualizing data.  It can make things so much easier to understand.  If you haven’t heard, there is going to be a new AFL team called Greater Western Sydney or Team GWS.  There are a number of Facebook fanpages and groups dedicated to the team.  I went to www.facebook.com/teamgws, www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Western-Sydney/110850405598090, www.facebook.com/pages/GO-Team-GWS/201507074991 and www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=211851956941.  I created a list of everyone who belonged to those fan pages and groups and the networks that those members were part of.  I then counted the total members of each networks, identified the geographic location of each network, added the total number of people from a city together… and yay! I got the pretty map below.



View full map

People who know Australian geography better than me: Are the fans in New South Wales from western Sydney?

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Digital Sport Summit: Harry O’Brien

Posted by Laura on Monday, 12 July, 2010

Harry O’Brien; Footballer, Collingwood Magpies
This was a presentation I enjoyed even as I boggled.  Part of me is an extremely cynical American who on the face of it took parts of his talk to be: I’m all about promoting myself above anything.  The other part of me found him very genuine and thinking he probably did a lot of good work, promoted a lot of worthy causes and didn’t flaunt his efforts to make those charities about himself.  There was a RMIT journalism student sitting at my table who was a huge fan of O’Brien.  He asked O’Brien for his autograph and O’Brien was really nice about it.  If you get the chance to hear O’Brien speak on this topic, it is worth it.  He was asked to speak about social media from the athlete perspective.

  • Denying social media is denying the multitude. Social media is a vehicle for sharing the message that you want to share.
  • Why should athletes use social media? To share the message that you have. Harry was asked by Web Guru to contribute to the Collingwood site. This developed into his website, Harry’s World.
  • Social media can effect positive change.
  • If social media is good enough for Barack Obama and Julia Gillard, then it is good enough for him.
  • Harry did his first interview in December 2004 after he was drafted. He used the interview with The Age to share is ideas and beliefs. He stands for sharing hope through positivity.
  • Players complained to him about their privacy being violated. He thinks fans just want insight, glimpses into his life in a controlled manner.
  • People started uploading pictures of him all over Facebook. He ran out of friends. He was overwhelemed. Then he moved to Twitter. He now loves Twitter. Then he started his own website, which was his dream: Having people here what he has to say.
  • Social media is unfiltered. It gives you the essence of a person. He’ll always have insight into the Collingwood Football Club. He can share pictures, videos and eventually merchandise.
  • People want Harry to speak! Social media allows him to share his message.
  • Harry O’Brien doesn’t really follow sport stars on Twitter, but is aware of what they are doing. He has his own style and doew what he feels is right based on guidelines and a path.
  • People are made u of energy. Science has proven it.
  • Some one dated $50,000 to one of his charities after hearing about his work. He uses social media but he is not always aware of the real world impact of it.
  • Harry O’Brien doesn’t care about other players ranting about service they get. O’Brien studied sociology. Just because you’re a sport person and society values that, it doesn’t mean you should be treated special. You should be proactive, not negatively complaining about bad service.
  • O’Brien says football is his profession. Football is like the bait, so he can share his message. His football comments are so general that the club doesn’t have a problem with his activities. If the club wanted to use him more for inspiration, good luck to them as motivation should come from with in.

And that’s it. Those are all the presentations.

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