The Sydney based Balmain Tigers were part of the National Rugby League and their predecessor, the New South Wales Rugby League. The team folded in 1999, when they merged with the Western Suburbs Magpies to form the Wests Tigers. According to Roy Morgan Research, the Wests Tigers are the sixth most popular NRL team in Australia. This could go a long way towards explaining the comparably large size of the Balmain Tigers fandom on bebo, when compared to other defunct teams such as Gold Coast Chargers, Gold Coast Giants, Gold Coast Seagulls, Illawarra Steelers, Newcastle Rebels, Newtown Jets, North Sydney Bears, Perth Reds, St. George Dragons, Western Reds, and Western Suburbs Magpies.
The number of people listing the Balmain Tigers as an interest on bebo is 11. The only defunct team with more is St. George Dragons, which has the problem of picking up the current merged name for the St. George Dragons and Illawarra Steelers. The Newtown Jets as close with 10 people.
The community listing the team as an interest on bebo is mostly male at 64%, with 7 people identifying as male, 3 as female and 1 not identifying. For Sydney based teams where there are more than 10 fans, Sydney FC and the West Tigers both have a large male audience with 78 and 70% respectively. (No other Sydney based team so far has more than 10 fans where gender data is available.) For NRL teams with 10 or more people listing a team as an interest where I have data (see older posts), with the exception of the West Tigers, the other teams all have smaller male audiences: Brisbane Broncos on bebo with 40% male (and 30% unidentified), and Brisbane Broncos on blogger with 58% male.
Only seven of the eleven list their location so that their state and country can be identified. Of these seven, all are from New South Wales and Australia.
Balmain Tigers fans are older than other NRL and Sydney based teams for which I have data. Their average age, amongst the five who list their age, is 40.4 with a median age of 43. For the both categories, the next closest community in age is the Parramatta Eels one on blogger, with an average age of 35.8 and five people listing their age.
The defunct Balmain Tigers have their fans who refuse to give up on their loyalty. Based on bebo, we can guess that they are older, male and local to where the team played. If there were international fans of a team 10 years gone, those international fans aren’t as interested in expressing their interest in the team. These patterns make some sense, especially if you factor in the potential for their to be rugby and NRL historians in there. New South Wales is a base for the sport and the NRL with its major population center. If there were other fans outside the original core, they would probably be based there.
