Posts Tagged WNCL

Gaia Online and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 28 November, 2010

Gaia Online is a role playing network that has a number of social networking components. It is relatively popular in Australia and tends to cater to a teenaged audience. This type of audience may be a desirable for Australian and Kiwi women’s sport because reaching them may encourage participation in those sport and help improve women’s fitness. Beyond that, getting a younger audience can help insure the continuity of the team’s fandom by having fans who can pass on those allegiances as they get older. At the same time, younger fans likely will need to bring friends or family to attend competitions. This means a potential to maximize ticket sales.

An Australian and Kiwi sport community does exist on the Gaia Online. It is just relatively small and focused on soccer, rugby union, rugby league and Aussie rules.

Given the tiny size of the Australian and Kiwi sport population for men, it is hardly surprising that when profile interests were searched, no one was a fan of women’s sport.

League Team Members Date checked
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens 0 28-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Northern Mystics 0 28-Nov-10
Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice 0 28-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United 0 10-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United 0 12-Nov-10
W-League W-League 0 1-Jul-10
W-League W-League 0 10-Nov-10
W-League W-League 0 12-Nov-10
WNBL Canberra Capitals 0 28-Nov-10
WNBL Townsville Fire 0 28-Nov-10
WNCL Victorian Spirit 0 28-Nov-10
WNCL Victorian Spirit 0 28-Nov-10
Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Western Sydney Rollers 0 28-Nov-10
Women’s Rugby World Cup Wallaroos 0 12-Nov-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Football Ferns 0 28-Nov-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Matildas 0 28-Nov-10

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Flickr and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 28 November, 2010

Flickr is a photo sharing site owned by Yahoo. According to Alexa, it is the 36th most popular site on the Internet and 30th most popular in Australia. Flickr has made it easy for people to upload their pictures on the move by creating mobile applications that allow sharing from phone’s camera.

To get an idea for the popularity of Flickr in Australia and New Zealand, a search was done for Australia in the pictures search section. It had 5,856,165 results. A search for Sydney had 2,678,431 results. A search for New Zealand had 2,136,668 results. The interest in taking pictures of both countries is high.

Interest in sport is also high. A search for all the AFL teams results in around 200 to 500 images each. There are several groups on Flickr specifically dedicated to the league and its teams. The generic term surf Australia has 73,441 results, demonstrating that interest goes beyond traditional professional sports and into niche sport and participation sports. Sport organizations inside Australia have begun to realize its value: Canoeing Australia has set up its own Flickr account to upload pictures.

Why are picture sites like Flickr important? What can they tell us about Australian and Kiwi women’s sport? They are important because they help grow the visibility of the sport. Well composed, beautiful pictures can help really sell sport in a way that text, the primary method of sharing on most of the sites referenced so far, cannot. This visibility could translate into ticket and event sales: These women play so beautifully I should check them out in person. Beyond that aspect, Flickr can also help identify what type of content that people are interested in based on the type of pictures they take. This group can thus be catered to more by creating events or providing similar content on a team or athlete’s internet stream. If there are a lot of event pictures, have a meet up for Flickr and Picassa users during a practice session where they are invited to take pictures of athletes in motion. If there are a lot of pictures that are like head shots and traditional promotional images, then a consideration should be made to include more of that content and make it available where online users can access it. Both of these require a bit of content analysis but a most people will be looking at only only team or a few athletes, this becomes much more feasible.

Pictures can also be useful in terms of identifying potential employees. If there are one or two people who take beautiful pictures, they might be worth contacting to see if they can be brought in in an official capacity. Their work sells the team or athlete already, but by doing that, you help add validation to their work which might get them a bigger audience. This in turn can lead to increased visibility for the team or athlete as each party gets the benefit of the other’s audience.

Beyond the issues above, another way of understanding photographer interest in women’s sport involves the total search results, which when compared to other teams can be useful. It gives another perspective on the comparative interest amongst the more creative classes of Internet users and the kind who get out into the real world to engage in the things that they love. Group results and total members to those groups provides perspective on the total comparative audience for the work of photographers.

The table below includes data from all the total search results found by searching Flickr for total number of images related to a keyword. It is sorted by league and then team. It highlights the popularity of swimming in Australia, though the search results rarely refer to Swimming Australia sanctioned events or Australian swimmers who compete internationally. The W-League results are extremely high and undoubtedly include pictures from the American league with the same name. When looking at individual teams, it appears that the ANZ Championship, W-League and WNBL all have comparative levels of interest. The Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League has zero results and there is obviously much less interest in it.

Date checked League Team Keyword Pictures
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds Adelaide Thunderbirds 24
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship ANZ Championship ANZ Championship 154
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Melbourne Vixens 39
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship New South Wales Swifts New South Wales Swifts 3
28-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Northern Mystics Northern Mystics 10
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds Queensland Firebirds 20
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 17
27-Nov-10 AWIHL AWIHL AWIHL 0
27-Nov-10 Cycling Australia Amy Gillett Amy Gillett 10
27-Nov-10 Cycling Australia Anna Meares Anna Meares 27
27-Nov-10 Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Katie Hollywood 20
27-Nov-10 Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Hockeyroos 117
28-Nov-10 Netball New Zealand Netball New Zealand Netball New Zealand 2
27-Nov-10 Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 73
27-Nov-10 Swimming Australia Swimming Australia Swimming Australia 1299
27-Nov-10 W-League Canberra United Canberra United 31
27-Nov-10 W-League W-League W-League 1143
27-Nov-10 WNBL Perth Lynx Perth Lynx 21
27-Nov-10 WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 84
27-Nov-10 WNBL WNBL WNBL 101
27-Nov-10 WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 28
28-Nov-10 Women’s World Cup Soccer Football Ferns Football Ferns 5

The table below includes the results when searching for groups related to Australian and New Zealand women’s sport. The total search results is small and there are no relevant groups. This suggests a couple of possible things. First, that while people are interested in taking pictures of women’s sport, they do not see their primary interests being focused around organizing people around women’s sport. Second, being photographers of specific women’s sport is not part of their internalized identity in such a way that they need to continually affirm it. Third, that Flickr may not have a large audience for specific Australian and New Zealand women’s sport that the upload totals might suggest is there.

Date checked League Team Keyword Groups Relevant groups
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds Adelaide Thunderbirds 0 0
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship ANZ Championship ANZ Championship 1 0
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Melbourne Vixens 0 0
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship New South Wales Swifts New South Wales Swifts 0 0
28-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Northern Mystics Northern Mystics 0 0
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds Queensland Firebirds 0 0
27-Nov-10 ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 0 0
27-Nov-10 AWIHL AWIHL AWIHL 0 0
27-Nov-10 Cycling Australia Amy Gillett Amy Gillett 1 0
27-Nov-10 Cycling Australia Anna Meares Anna Meares 0 0
27-Nov-10 Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Katie Hollywood 0 0
27-Nov-10 Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Hockeyroos 1 0
28-Nov-10 Netball New Zealand Netball New Zealand Netball New Zealand 0 0
27-Nov-10 Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 0 0
27-Nov-10 Swimming Australia Swimming Australia Swimming Australia 1 0
27-Nov-10 W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 0
27-Nov-10 W-League Canberra United Canberra United 38 0
27-Nov-10 W-League W-League W-League 2 0
27-Nov-10 WNBL Perth Lynx Perth Lynx 0 0
27-Nov-10 WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 0 0
27-Nov-10 WNBL WNBL WNBL 0 0
27-Nov-10 WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 0 0
28-Nov-10 Women’s World Cup Soccer Football Ferns Football Ferns 0 0

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Friendster and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 28 November, 2010

friendster is small social networks.  Alexa ranks it as the 685th most popular site on the Internet and the 1,483th most popular site in Australia.  It is not nearly as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but is more popular than bebo and appears to have a slightly more active community.  In 2009, friendster was acquired by an Asian company and sought a more Asian audience and worked to improve the mobile version of the site.  Given that, the direction of the site, if Australian and Kiwi sport teams are looking at friendster, it should probably be with an eye towards growing their Asian audience.  This focus would not necessarily lend itself to women’s sport outside of soccer.

Despite the potentially limiting audience and best approach to using the site, it is worth looking at as the more sites examined, the greater the understanding of how Australian and Kiwi women sport fandom exist on the Internet.

One of the ways friendster fosters communities is through groups.  There are several Australian sport related groups, including one for the Socceroos with over a hundred members and one for the Melbourne Victory with over sixty.   While this community for men’s sport exist, the same does not appear to be true for women.

Searching friendster groups is done by country.  For this, search was conducted for Australian groups.  If quotation marks are not used, every group that mentions any of those terms is used.  That means that pages and pages of search results need to be sorted through or quotation marks need to be used in order to improve search results.  This is not ideal as many women’s sport teams use common words or have multiple names, if sponsor names are considered.  The results below give an idea as to how this plays out.

League Team Keyword Groups Checked
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 1006 16-Aug-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 1006 27-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 0 27-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Melbourne Vixens 0 27-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 1010 27-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 27-Nov-10
W-League W-League W-League 1002 27-Nov-10
W-League W-League W-League 0 27-Nov-10
WNBL Perth Lynx Perth Lynx 326 16-Aug-10
WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 1006 16-Aug-10
WNBL Townsville Fire Townsville Fire 1007 27-Nov-10
WNBL Townsville Fire Townsville Fire 0 27-Nov-10
WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 1010 16-Aug-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Matildas Matildas 0 27-Nov-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Football Ferns Football Ferns 1005 27-Nov-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Football Ferns Football Ferns 0 27-Nov-10

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Ecademy and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Saturday, 27 November, 2010

ecademy is a small social network for business professionals that is an alternative to LinkedIn. It has a small number of people connected to Australian sport. In using and evaluating ecademy, it should be looked at from the perspective of using it liked in: Developing a network of employees, volunteers and athletes who can help network with other professionals to bring in an audience of potential sponsors and higher income bracket fans.

Given the nature of ecademy, the total number of people who have clubs listed in their profiles should not be gauged as a representation of fandom on the network. Rather, it should be looked at as industry professionals who want to be affiliated with the club or league.

One of the challenges involved with measuring membership on ecademy is that team sport names may not be the name of organization that runs the club or league. This could possibly exclude some people actually connected to them. For example, in the W-League, most teams are run by the state football associations, not by a specific organization with the club’s name in the title.

The table below gives an idea as to the historical size of the Australian and Kiwi women’s sport community on the network.

League Team Interest Total Checked
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens Melbourne Vixens 0 27-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Northern Mystics Northern Mystics 0 27-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever ‘West Coast Fever 0 16-Aug-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever ‘West Coast Fever 0 27-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 3-Jun-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 15-Jun-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 1-Jul-10
W-League Canberra United Canberra United 0 27-Nov-10
W-League W-League W-League 0 3-Jun-10
W-League W-League W-League 0 1-Jul-10
W-League W-League W-League 0 27-Nov-10
WNBL Perth Lynx ‘Perth Lynx 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL Perth Lynx ‘Perth Lynx 0 27-Nov-10
WNBL West Coast Waves ‘West Coast Waves 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL West Coast Waves ‘West Coast Waves 0 27-Nov-10
WNCL Western Fury ‘Western Fury 0 16-Aug-10
WNCL Western Fury ‘Western Fury 0 27-Nov-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Matildas Matildas 16 1-Jul-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Matildas Matildas 16 27-Nov-10

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Care2 and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Friday, 26 November, 2010

care2 is a small social network dedicated to people who are interested in making a difference. There is a small population of Australians and Australian sport fans on the network. The network is interesting because it allows its users to blog, create petitions, join groups and upload photos. Despite being a niche network for activist, it has all the features that most social networks have an its users take advantage of them to post about their own interests. The type of user here is different than some of the other types of fans online and given their activist interest, they might be worth courting as they may provide positive brand associations if their activist work matches with the philosophy of the team.

While the Socceroos may have four mentions in blogs and the Fremantle Dockers have twenty-four, Australian women’s sport do not fair nearly as well.

League Keyword Petitions Discussions Members Groups Photos Blogs Healthy Living Ecards Date checked
ANZ Championship ‘West Coast Fever 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16-Aug-10
W-League W-League 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1-Jul-10
WNBL ‘Perth Lynx 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL ‘West Coast Waves 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16-Aug-10
WNCL ‘Western Fury 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16-Aug-10

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Blogger and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Friday, 26 November, 2010

blogger is a popular blog hosting site. Many popular Australian and sports blogs use it. In the United States, the site also has high press visibility because of its inclusion in Google’s blog search and the number or journalists using Google Alerts, which pulls its notifications from Google’s blog search. The reliance on blogspot has been decreasing as people have eased away from blogging or switched to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The Australian sport population is smaller than that of Bebo but larger than that of 43 Things. For example, Collingwood had 68 fans on bebo and 7 people with Collingwood related goals on 43 Things. Blogger has 22.

Beyond the press reliance on using blogger as a source, another thing that makes a blogger audience desirable is that the format encourages people to write more. That additional content should encourage people to be more thoughtful and create dialogs around the team that they are blogging about. Theoretically, the longer and more prolonged the engagement that fans have regarding their team, the more likely they are to reaffirm their relationship with the team.

Sadly, the size of the Australian and Kiwi women’s sport community on blogger is non-existent when compared to their male counterparts. The lone fan of the Matildas is a male from South Australia.

League Team Number Date gathered
ANZ Championship ANZ Championship 0 11-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens 0 4-Jun-10
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens 0 23-Nov-10
ANZ Championship NSW Swifts 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship NSW Swifts 0 23-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds 0 23-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever 0 16-Aug-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever 0 23-Nov-10
AWIHL AWIHL 0 19-Nov-10
AWIHL AWIHL 0 23-Nov-10
Cycling Australia Amy Gillett 0 11-Nov-10
Cycling Australia Anna Meares 0 11-Nov-10
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos 0 24-Nov-10
Tennis Australia Alicia Molik 0 11-Nov-10
Triathlon Australia Emma Moffatt 0 11-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United 0 3-Jun-10
W-League Canberra United 0 19-Nov-10
W-League Canberra United 0 23-Nov-10
W-League W-League 0 3-Jun-10
W-League W-League 0 1-Jul-10
W-League W-League 0 11-Nov-10
W-League W-League 0 19-Nov-10
W-League W-League 0 23-Nov-10
WNBL Perth Lynx 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL West Coast Waves 0 16-Aug-10
WNCL Western Fury 0 16-Aug-10
WNCL Victorian Spirit 0 15-Jun-10
Women’s World Cup Soccer Matildas 1 4-Jun-10

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Site rank and Australian/Kiwi women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Friday, 26 November, 2010

Alexa ranks websites based on worldwide traffic.  If a site is popular in certain countries, it may also be ranked in those countries.  This data is gathered using toolbars that people on the web download and install. Some Australian tech people doubt the accuracy of the numbers for Australia as the toolbar is not widely installed.  Working on this assumption, most of the people in Australia and New Zealand who use the toolbar are people who are involved with online market, search engine optimization or some other group where website rankings matter. (This could be employees of a particular company installing the toolbar so that when they visit a site, it gets more views and thus the rank goes up.)
Still given the toolbar install limitations, Alexa is included to provide another perspective.   In terms of Australian and New Zealand’s women sport, this perspective is tech friendly people’s interest in women’s sport.  This group could be important to attract to as they are more likely to be involved with social media, social bookmarking and other forms of engagement online.
Assuming that Alexa’s toolbar is installed evenly amongst various groups of sport fans, Alexa’s perspective is best in terms of defining interest relative to other teams.  How popular is say netball compared to women’s swimming or basketball or cricket?  Alexa is also useful for determining when interest in a team peaks, and to find out of if this interest over time mirrors when competitions happen and big news is released.
There is a major limitation for using Alexa to gauge the comparative interest in women’s sport and that involves how women’s sport is organized.  In the case of the W-League, the W-League’s official page forwards to the A-League site.  For all teams but the Canberra United, the team pages are embedded inside the site for the men’s team and it is impossible to differentiate traffic between the two.  While this could be seen as good for women’s sport fandom by trying to get audience share from the men, it also is a bit unfair as those pages often aren’t updated as often and do not share equal space and visibility on a site.  Beyond that, it is just impossible to track interest in women’s sport separately and it makes it harder to justify say sponsorship for a women’s club alone.
The Alexa data is broken down by league in order to give a better perspective regarding the comparative performance of each team in the league.

ANZ Championship

Looking at this table, it clearly shows that when the season is going on, there is increased traffic to the site.  Teams do not maintain their traffic levels during the off season.  This data would have been better had it contained information regarding website rank during the Commonwealth Games to see if there was a bump in interest during that period.

Team Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
ANZ Championship anz-championship.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anz-championship.com 518,713 12,743 14-Jun-10
ANZ Championship anz-championship.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anz-championship.com 498,156 10,584 18-Jun-10
ANZ Championship anz-championship.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anz-championship.com 614,050 18,351 29-Jul-10
ANZ Championship anz-championship.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anz-championship.com 3,074,990 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship anz-championship.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anz-championship.com 3,284,937 25-Nov-10
ANZ Championship netballonline.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netballonline.com 2,396,065 14-Jun-10
ANZ Championship netballonline.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netballonline.com 2,456,270 18-Jun-10
ANZ Championship netballonline.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netballonline.com 2,659,884 101,686 29-Jul-10
Canterbury Tactix tactix.org.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tactix.org.nz 5,664,747 14-Jun-10
Canterbury Tactix tactix.org.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tactix.org.nz 5,668,397 18-Jun-10
Canterbury Tactix tactix.org.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tactix.org.nz 9,048,673 29-Jul-10
Canterbury Tactix tactix.org.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tactix.org.nz 23,295,805 19-Nov-10
Canterbury Tactix tactix.org.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tactix.org.nz 23,297,050 25-Nov-10
Melbourne Vixens melbournevixens.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournevixens.com.au 2,172,158 79,655 14-Jun-10
Melbourne Vixens melbournevixens.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournevixens.com.au 2,110,379 100,549 18-Jun-10
Melbourne Vixens melbournevixens.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournevixens.com.au 5,215,675 19-Nov-10
Melbourne Vixens melbournevixens.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournevixens.com.au 7,370,417 25-Nov-10
Melbourne Vixens melbournevixens.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/melbournevixens.com.au 4,495,622 29-Jul-10
NSW Swifts nswswifts.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nswswifts.com.au 3,238,160 66,804 14-Jun-10
NSW Swifts nswswifts.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nswswifts.com.au 3,240,090 18-Jun-10
NSW Swifts nswswifts.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nswswifts.com.au 4,105,444 29-Jul-10
NSW Swifts nswswifts.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nswswifts.com.au 23,246,335 19-Nov-10
NSW Swifts nswswifts.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nswswifts.com.au 23,259,916 25-Nov-10
Queensland Firebirds firebirds.net.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/firebirds.net.au 2,839,841 68,688 14-Jun-10
Queensland Firebirds firebirds.net.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/firebirds.net.au 2,601,994 51,608 18-Jun-10
Queensland Firebirds firebirds.net.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/firebirds.net.au 2,979,485 29-Jul-10
Queensland Firebirds firebirds.net.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/firebirds.net.au 15,584,381 19-Nov-10
Queensland Firebirds firebirds.net.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/firebirds.net.au 15,588,854 25-Nov-10
Southern Steel southernsteel.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/southernsteel.co.nz 11,092,039 14-Jun-10
Southern Steel southernsteel.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/southernsteel.co.nz 11,096,173 18-Jun-10
Southern Steel southernsteel.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/southernsteel.co.nz 11,632,258 29-Jul-10
Southern Steel southernsteel.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/southernsteel.co.nz 12,111,704 19-Nov-10
Southern Steel southernsteel.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/southernsteel.co.nz 12,128,215 25-Nov-10
West Coast Fever westcoastfever.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoastfever.com.au 9,865,396 14-Jun-10
West Coast Fever westcoastfever.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoastfever.com.au 9,864,676 18-Jun-10
West Coast Fever westcoastfever.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoastfever.com.au 13,051,518 29-Jul-10
West Coast Fever westcoastfever.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoastfever.com.au 15,456,338 19-Nov-10
West Coast Fever westcoastfever.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/westcoastfever.com.au No Data 25-Nov-10

Australian Cycling Federation

This table includes both the Australian Cycling Federation and Rachel Neylan, a female Australian cyclist. Interest in Neylan is nowhere near the level of the federation that she’s part of. Her ranking is very low and suggests that she like gets less than a thousand visits a month. In November, interest in her dropped completely off. This is probably because there are not any major competitions which she has taken part in that have occurred in the past three months.

Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
cycling.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cycling.org.au 549,145 22,569 17-Jun-10
cycling.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cycling.org.au 543,357 19,747 18-Jun-10
cycling.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cycling.org.au 647,545 12,636 29-Jul-10
cycling.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cycling.org.au 607,424 9,467 19-Nov-10
cycling.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cycling.org.au 587,215 8,322 25-Nov-10
rachelneylan.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rachelneylan.com 8,052,043 17-Jun-10
rachelneylan.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rachelneylan.com 8,051,092 18-Jun-10
rachelneylan.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rachelneylan.com 5,360,003 29-Jul-10
rachelneylan.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rachelneylan.com No Data 19-Nov-10
rachelneylan.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rachelneylan.com No Data 25-Nov-10

AWIHL

The AWIHL season is currently going on. Most of the teams have their own websites hosted on their own domains. The possible exception is the Melbourne Ice, who are not included. Ice hockey in Australia is a small sport, with a niche audience for both participants and fans, and few facilities when compared to sports like netball and cricket. Opportunities for women are even small. Given these issues, it is not surprising that the team sites do rank at all in Australia and do not rank internationally.

Team Site Alexa World Rank Date collected
Melbourne Dragons dragonsicehockey.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/dragonsicehockey.com No Data 25-Nov-10
Adelaide Adrenaline adelaideadrenaline.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/adelaideadrenaline.com No Data 25-Nov-10
AWIHL awihl.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/awihl.com.au No Data 25-Nov-10
Brisbane Goannas goannasicehockey.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/goannasicehockey.com 18,088,755 25-Nov-10

Netball Australia

The domain here is for the netball federation in Australia. It suffers the same issue as the ANZ Championship data: It doesn’t really measure the impact of the Commonwealth Games in terms of traffic. It does demonstrate overall more interest in the national team than in the premiere women’s competition. This likely suggests that support for the national team does not translate into interest in the league. If that is true, it is a fundamental problem for the game that the federation and league should work on.

Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 263,724 2,690 14-Jun-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 257,042 2,725 18-Jun-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 246,351 2,586 24-Jun-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 250,151 5,912 29-Jul-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 460,551 16,385 8-Nov-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 531,403 27,357 19-Nov-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 573,716 24,636 24-Nov-10
netball.asn.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/netball.asn.au 586,836 18,441 25-Nov-10

Netball New Zealand
The table below represents a the Netball New Zealand federation and a local club side that plays in New Zealand. Neither has a rank in New Zealand. Given that, it could be surmised that comparatively speaking, netball is less popular population wise in New Zealand than in Australia. How accurate this is could be debatable as the NRL team for New Zealand often fails to rank inside New Zealand. Alexa may just not be as good in New Zealand as it is in Australia. That said, it looks like Netball New Zealand is more popular now than when the ANZ Championship was going on. This could possibly be a residual effect from the Commonwealth Games, where the Kiwis took gold.

Team Site Alexa World Rank Date collected
Netball New Zealand mynetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mynetball.co.nz 1,882,209 14-Jun-10
Netball New Zealand mynetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mynetball.co.nz 1,883,665 18-Jun-10
Netball New Zealand mynetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mynetball.co.nz 1,801,761 29-Jul-10
Netball New Zealand mynetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mynetball.co.nz 1,453,339 19-Nov-10
Netball New Zealand mynetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mynetball.co.nz 1,481,882 25-Nov-10
Gilbert Netball gilbertnetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gilbertnetball.co.nz No Data 14-Jun-10
Gilbert Netball gilbertnetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gilbertnetball.co.nz No Data 18-Jun-10
Gilbert Netball gilbertnetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gilbertnetball.co.nz No Data 29-Jul-10
Gilbert Netball gilbertnetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gilbertnetball.co.nz No Data 19-Nov-10
Gilbert Netball gilbertnetball.co.nz http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gilbertnetball.co.nz No Data 25-Nov-10

Swimming Australia
Stephanie Rice’s site represents female interest in swimming. Stephanie is active on social networks like Twitter. In September 2010, she was involved in a major controversy for her use of the word faggot on Twitter. In October 2010, she attended a major Australian Rugby Union event. For better or worse, these two events really raised her profile. Data for Swimming Australia is provided in order to give context to Stephanie’s numbers.

Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
stephanierice.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stephanierice.com.au 24,139,837 17-Jun-10
stephanierice.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stephanierice.com.au 10,678,587 29-Jul-10
stephanierice.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stephanierice.com.au 710,042 18,262 19-Nov-10
stephanierice.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stephanierice.com.au 698,126 25,808 25-Nov-10
swimming.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/swimming.org.au 601,213 21,692 17-Jun-10
swimming.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/swimming.org.au 758,972 14,489 29-Jul-10
swimming.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/swimming.org.au 557,814 26,749 19-Nov-10
swimming.org.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/swimming.org.au 557,076 18,185 25-Nov-10

Tennis Australia
Tennis Australia is represented here by Sam Stosur. The number of dates information was collected is extremely limited but it suggests that interest peaked during the northern summer, when interest in tennis is at its highest.

Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
samstosur.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/samstosur.com 595,730 20,487 18-Jun-10
samstosur.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/samstosur.com 462,503 29-Jul-10
samstosur.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/samstosur.com 1,796,631 25-Nov-10
tennis.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tennis.com.au 184,407 3,541 25-Nov-10

W-League
Measuring interest in the W-League using Alexa is difficult. The W-League domain redirects to the A-League page and only the Canberra United have an official site located on their own domain. Contrary to expectations, the start of the W-League season did not result in increased traffic to the United site.

Site Alexa World Rank Rank in AU Date collected
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 5,042,832 50,531 2-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 5,084,916 52,076 3-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 5,088,164 52,476 5-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,879,105 37,479 14-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,882,551 37,190 17-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,676,340 37,067 25-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,684,859 69,639 29-Jun-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,677,068 69,071 1-Jul-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au 3,683,958 No Data 29-Jul-10
w-league.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/w-league.com.au No Data No Data 25-Jun-10
w-league.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/w-league.com.au No Data No Data 29-Jul-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au No Data No Data 19-Nov-10
w-league.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/w-league.com.au No Data No Data 19-Nov-10
canberraunited.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canberraunited.com.au No Data No Data 25-Nov-10
w-league.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/w-league.com.au No Data No Data 25-Nov-10

WNCL

The WNCL is the premiere cricket competition for state teams in Australia. Data has only been found for the Victorian Spirit. As the cricket season has gotten underway, the team has seen their traffic increase. Inside Australia, it does not appear to have become a top 100,000 site. Given that cricket is one of the more popular women sports, that they don’t rank higher, is a bit surprising.

Site Alexa World Rank Date collected
vicspirit.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vicspirit.com.au No Data 15-Jun-10
vicspirit.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vicspirit.com.au 15,218,497 29-Jul-10
vicspirit.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vicspirit.com.au 24,846,581 19-Nov-10
vicspirit.com.au http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vicspirit.com.au 16,003,719 25-Nov-10

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43 Things and Australian women’s sport

Posted by Laura on Friday, 26 November, 2010

43 things is a goal setting community found at www.43things.com/.  Compared to professional sports for men, the women related goals are less likely to exist and less likely to involve a component that expresses fandom such as a desire to buy a shirt or attend a championship match.  This presents two issues.  First, the number of goals related to women’s sport is less than men’s: There is clearly a gap in interest levels between men and men’s sport that needs to be addressed.  Beyond that, it highlights the idea that women’s sport does not have the built in spectatorship that men’s sport has and people do not identify as clearly as fans of these teams.

The table below begins to give an idea as to the amount of interest in randomly selected women’s clubs, leagues and athletes on 43things over time.  As you can see, there isn’t. For comparisons sake, the Fremantle Dockers have 5 goals, the Collingwood Magpies have 6, Hawthorn Hawks have 4 and the Melbourne Storm have 2.

It appears, based on the audience using the site, that growing the women’s sport related goals in an organic manner, done with out deliberation on the part of various stakeholders, appears unlikely.  There is barely an audience for men and the Australian population using the site is much smaller than on other networks.

League Team Keyword Results Relevant goals Relevant goals + people Date checked
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 3019 0 0 16-Aug-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 0 0 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 3122 0 0 19-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
ANZ Championship West Coast Fever West Coast Fever 3135 0 0 26-Nov-10
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Hockeyroos 0 0 0 24-Nov-10
Hockey Australia Hockeyroos Hockeyroos 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 0 0 0 19-Nov-10
Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 591 0 0 19-Nov-10
Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
Swimming Australia Stephanie Rice Stephanie Rice 592 0 0 26-Nov-10
W-League Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory 0 0 0 1-Jul-10
W-League Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
W-League W-League W-League 0 0 0 1-Jul-10
W-League W-League W-League 1 0 0 26-Nov-10
WNBL Perth Lynx Perth Lynx 6 0 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL Perth Lynx Perth Lynx 113 0 0 26-Nov-10
WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 3104 0 0 16-Aug-10
WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
WNBL West Coast Waves West Coast Waves 3227 0 0 26-Nov-10
WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 448 0 0 16-Aug-10
WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 0 0 0 26-Nov-10
WNCL Western Fury Western Fury 471 0 0 26-Nov-10

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