Sports Technology

Australian sport has more than 51 million social media followers with Facebook accounting for more than two thirds of the total, according to new research by Shunt Creative.

Channel growth shows that with Facebook, which is well ahead of its major rivals, growing at a rate of just under 2% for the period November-December 2016. Twitter grew by 3.45% while Instagram outstripped its more established competition at 4.17% for the same period.

The heavy-hitters of Australian sport all figure highly in the 20 largest social media followings nationally with cricket, AFL, NRL, FFA and rugby at or near the top of the social tables.

Of note are the standout performances from state-level sporting organisations.

Foe example, with NSW having seven entries in the top 20, Cricket NSW sits an impressive fourth on Facebook.

Western Australia has five entries in the top 20, Surf Lifesaving WA ranked seventh on Twitter and Surfing WA recording the same result on Instagram. Queensland has three in the top 20, with Victoria two, South Australia and Tasmania on one apiece.

In total there are 1,340 accounts currently being tracked across all states and territories by Shunt’s ‘50Mil’ project that include sporting organisations, franchised teams, events and venues.

As Shunt Creative Managing Director Stu Williams explains “being WA based we’ve been monitoring the growth in the follower count in the local market for some time. Whenever we shared this information with sports administrators they were as interested and intrigued by the results as we are.

“I think it’s the competitive nature of sport. Everyone wants to know how they match-up against their peers with the next conversation always being about how to improve their ranking. From our perspective we’re always encouraging sport to use intelligence such as this to take a more evidence-based approach to their decision-making, particularly in areas such as digital and social media.”

Williams said that deciding which sport and recreation organisations were included in 50Mil was hotly debated within Shunt, with guidelines established in the interests of consistency across all states and territories.

It is expected that the number of accounts and channels monitored will steadily increase over time.

He added “in selecting the sports to monitor there are a bunch of no-brainers, including those recognised by the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

“Tracking nationally franchised teams from major championships is also a reasonably straight forward proposition. Where it gets more interesting is on the fringes. Then there’s the question of peak bodies and other organisations that play vital supporting roles to the sport and recreation industry. Hopefully our compilation has struck the right balance.

“There is still some tinkering to do with our ‘other’ basket – comprising individual sporting events, major state-based domestic championships, venues and the like. We’re hoping to get some discussion going within each state as to who should be in (or out), which we expect will evolve over time.

“We’re also on the lookout for new accounts. While Facebook and Twitter are reasonably mature platforms there is still plenty of room for growth within Instagram. In time the number of channels monitored will also be expanded with LinkedIN, You Tube and Snapchat scheduled for inclusion in 50Mil reports later this year.” 

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