Sydney Swans top AFL supporter ladder

[bombersfan4000]

Sydney Swans top AFL supporter ladder well ahead of Hawks in tenth

• September 26 2014
  
• Finding No. 5838
  
• Topic: Public Opinion Special Poll

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2013 – June 2014 (n = 48,947).
Grand Finalists the Sydney Swans lead the pack for the ninth straight year as the AFL’s most widely supported club – 1.135 million supporters. The Swans are streets ahead of Grand Final opponents Hawthorn (448,000 supporters) in tenth according to the latest data from Roy Morgan Research for the 12 months to June 2014.

The best supported clubs in the home of football, Victoria, are Collingwood (739,000) and Essendon (692,000) while the Brisbane Lions (634,000) are the second best supported club outside Victoria.

Losing Preliminary Final clubs Port Adelaide (243,000) and North Melbourne (209,000) are at the lower end of the support ladder in 2014, although they are ahead of the two newest clubs in the AFL that also have clearly the least number of supporters – Gold Coast Suns (107,000) and last of all the GWS Giants (64,000).

AFL Club Supporters 2014

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5838-afl-supporteres-2014-201409260552
not really surprising as they have old south melbourne fans & been the only team in Sydney city of 4.5 million for decades, plus been so successful for several years now
Collingwood & Essendon no real surprises but lions at number 4

 

[Jaeger]

I don't get it.

How are they getting this info? What's it based on?

Who votes on this? I haven't ever.

 

[bombersfan4000]

I don't get it.

How are they getting this info? What's it based on?

Who votes on this? I haven't ever.

click on the link and read about it.
roy morgan are a well known and respected research company

 

[gopies1981]

Sydney Swans top AFL supporter ladder well ahead of Hawks in tenth

• September 26 2014
  
• Finding No. 5838
  
• Topic: Public Opinion Special Poll

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2013 – June 2014 (n = 48,947).
Grand Finalists the Sydney Swans lead the pack for the ninth straight year as the AFL’s most widely supported club – 1.135 million supporters. The Swans are streets ahead of Grand Final opponents Hawthorn (448,000 supporters) in tenth according to the latest data from Roy Morgan Research for the 12 months to June 2014.

The best supported clubs in the home of football, Victoria, are Collingwood (739,000) and Essendon (692,000) while the Brisbane Lions (634,000) are the second best supported club outside Victoria.

Losing Preliminary Final clubs Port Adelaide (243,000) and North Melbourne (209,000) are at the lower end of the support ladder in 2014, although they are ahead of the two newest clubs in the AFL that also have clearly the least number of supporters – Gold Coast Suns (107,000) and last of all the GWS Giants (64,000).

AFL Club Supporters 2014
View attachment 82627
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5838-afl-supporteres-2014-201409260552
not really surprising as they have old south melbourne fans & been the only team in Sydney city of 4.5 million for decades, plus been so successful for several years now
Collingwood & Essendon no real surprises but lions at number 4

It's pretty easy to see why Sydney are no.1! They are in the biggest city in the country. They would also have the most soft core supporterbase. But also would have the very least hardcore fans and explains why the afl give them more money in the salary cap money that the swans players don't really need. Also they have a very strong following in Victoria due to them being South Melbourne.

Collingwood, Essendon and Carlton seem pretty accurate in terms of nationwide support. Brisbane are 4th due to being in a city of 2 million.
Pretty surprised that Adelaide and west coast supporter base in only between 500,000 - 600,000.

 

[Sydney Bloods]

I think you'll find in your rant about the poll is off we have very little support. these polls are are highly unscientific, mainly because most people in sydney have NO ******* CLUE who hawthorn, collingwood or hawthorn are, they just don't care about AFL.

as such when roy morgan asks them, would you take the time to answer this poll.
which of the following AFL teams do you support and list them without an option for I don't follow an AFL team 90% of respondents would answer Sydney because its the city they live in and we are Sydneys team (GWS have almost no marketing impact)

so fear not precious you're still most highly followed club in the league with 80K members and pulling less than half of them to your games.

 

[telsor]

I 'support' Melbourne Storm in the NRL, but wouldn't even know if they made the finals. I imagine that's what a lot of the Sydney 'support' is like.

 

[The_Reaper]

No way West Coast are smaller than Adelaide

 

[Hawkk]

click on the link and read about it.
roy morgan are a well known and respected research company

Roy Morgan don't measure level of commitment. These numbers are always slanted against the Melbourne clubs as the teams that aren't based in saturated markets claim a buffer of latent respondents that have no commitment to the team they claim (or tick the box) to support. For example, I've lived in Brisbane on/off for a few years, if Roy Morgan asked me which NRL club I support, I'd probably say the Broncos (but with bugger all commitment or interest in the Broncos). I wouldn't even bother to like them on facebook or follow them on twitter, but if asked which team I'd go for in the NRL I'd flippantly back them...

Roy Morgan are okay with political marketing (which is their forte) but when you get complicated topics like football support ( ) it's bloody hard to qualify support bases amongst the clubs.

The best way to measure support is to slide crowd attendance, membership and social media numbers and see where the clubs sit. Some clubs stay the same, others shoot up while some tumble.

Posted this ages ago (June 2013) but something like this, numbers aren't important it's the methodology that I'm interested in! If someone could do a 2014 version of this (I did one earlier this year but I can't find it) it would put this debate to bed.

Apologies for the formating but you could stretch this out to include the all forms of club/supporter social media engagment (Facebook 'likes', Twitter 'followers'), look at Dreamteam 'subscribers' and use membership numbers as a useful reference...

For example, ranked from 1st to 18th it could look something like this...
1. Collingwood
225,741 'likes' (2nd), 44,800 'followers' (1st), 17,727 'subscribers' (3rd), 73,649 members (1st)
2. Essendon
229,716 'likes' (1st), 40,700 'followers'(2nd), 17,334 'subscribers' (4th), 51,528 members (6th)
3. West Coast
136,841 'likes' (3rd), 25,391 'followers' (8th), 25,467 'subscribers' (1st), 57,333 members (3rd)
4. Carlton
135,054 'likes' (4th), 37,400 'followers' (3rd), 15,157 'subscribers' (5th), 43,827 members (7th)
5. Adelaide
104,630 'likes' (7th), 29,657 'followers' (6th), 21,128 'subscribers' (2nd), 45,000 members (6th)
6. Richmond
106,827 'likes' (6th), 29,700 'followers' (5th), 10,651 'subscribers'(8th), 56,039 members (4th)
7. Hawthorn
91,608 'likes' (8th), 29,224 'followers' (7th), 13,372 'subscribers'(6th), 60,250 members (2nd)
8. Sydney Swans
113,049 'likes' (5th ), 32,447 'followers' (4th), 8,800 'subscribers'(11th), 33,172 members (11th)
9. Fremantle
68,698 'likes' (10th), 20,002 'followers' (11th), 12,540 'subscribers'(7th), 40,000 members (8th)
10. Geelong Cats
50,464 'likes' (12th), 27,991 'followers' (8th), 10,263 'subscribers' (9th), 38,602 members (10th)
11. St Kilda
90,371 'likes' (9TH), 23,295 'followers' (9th), 7,854 'subscribers' (12th), 31,811 members (13th)
12. Port Adelaide
46,134 'likes' (15th), 17,261 'followers' (15th), 9,627 'subscribers' (10th), 39,005 members (9th)
13. North Melbourne
47,905 'likes' (14th), 19,975 'followers' (12th), 7,136 'subscribers' (14th), 32,127 members (12th)
14. Melbourne
32,126 'likes' (17th), 20,875 'followers' (10th), 4,953 'subscribers' (14th), 30,783 members (14th)
15. Brisbane Lions
57,554 'likes' (11th), 15,268 'followers' (17th), 7,585 'subscribers' (13th), 21,608 members (16th)
16. Western Bulldogs
49,027 'likes' (13th), 14,846 'followers' (18th), 4,643 'subscribers' (16th), 26,843 members (15th)
17. Gold Coast
41,926 'likes' (16th), 18,094 'followers' (14th), 2,509 'subscribers'(17th), 11,807 members (18th)
18. GWS Giants
30,304 'likes' (18th), 16,074 'followers' (16th), 1,602 'subscribers' (18th), 11,941 members (17th)

I think this is an extremely accurate indication of club support and is reflected in attendance irrespective of form

The reality is that is the true indicator of committed support amongst the clubs

 

[Albert Ross]

Mediaweek ‏@MediaweekAUS 22h
TV audiences in Sydney watching @sydneyswans in #AFLGF 2005: 991k (win) 2006: 765k (loss) 2012: 740k (win) 2014: 551k (loss)

The audience for Swans Grand Final appearances in the Sydney market almost halving over 10 years?

 

[Hawkk]

The audience for Swans Grand Final appearances in the Sydney market almost halving over 10 years?

But Andrew Wu told me that the Bloodz move to secure Franklin has been a roaring success

 

[sthmelb_dimmies]

I don't get it.

How are they getting this info? What's it based on?

Who votes on this? I haven't ever.

Call Gary, I'm sure he has the answers you are looking for. He's kindly provided his MOBILE number for your info.

 

[Albert Ross]

I think you'll find in your rant about the poll is off we have very little support. these polls are are highly unscientific, mainly because most people in sydney have NO ******* CLUE who hawthorn, collingwood or hawthorn are, they just don't care about AFL.

Roy Morgan are okay with political marketing (which is their forte) but when you get complicated topics like football support ( ) it's bloody hard to qualify support bases amongst the clubs.

The polls are quite scientific, quite thorough and give an advertising agency or corporate a very good sense of the reach of the prospective sponsorship, and a good tool for clubs to know how much to charge for that sponsorship.

It is just if you want that info you need to spend the $950 per report for the dozen reports that you need. They will tell you their discretionary income, the newspaper they read, their age, their health, what they spend their money on etc.

This headline grabber is marketing. It generates newspaper columns. It is a great way for Roy Morgan to promote their brand and products. It is taking the first page off their report and releasing it and it alone.

 

[Hawkk]

The polls are quite scientific, quite thorough and give an advertising agency or corporate a very good sense of the reach of the prospective sponsorship, and a good tool for clubs to know how much to charge for that sponsorship.

It is just if you want that info you need to spend the $950 per report for the dozen reports that you need. They will tell you their discretionary income, the newspaper they read, their age, their health, what they spend their money on etc.

This headline grabber is marketing. It generates newspaper columns. It is a great way for Roy Morgan to promote their brand and products. It is taking the first page off their report and releasing it and it alone.

Like I said this article doesn't go into level of commitment beyond the superficial. I've done a lot of work with Roy Morgan, both commercially and politically but it doesn't stake up for football.

Hawthorn and Richmond have 70,000 and 65,000 paid up members each, do you honestly believe that either have fewer actual supporters than Geelong let alone half the following of Sydney or Brisbane?

Certainly when you look at the social media numbers this doesn't stake up (which is more closely aligned to membership and attendance)

Regionalised clubs have a distinct advantage with these surveys in terms of sampled supporters (in this news article) respondents may align goodwill to a city or town but show no actual support for that club. The Victorian club are at a disadvantage in this poll (including Collingwood and Essendon who are easily #1 and #2 with respect to Australia wide support)

 

[Albert Ross]

Regionalised clubs have a distinct advantage with these surveys in terms of sampled supporters (in this news article) respondents may align goodwill to a city or town but show no actual support for that club.

I don't disagree. I am only pointing out that "who do you support" is question 1 of many. I agree that the article is superficial - it is marketing. But it isn't a survey, it is a single question.

The further questions will take into account attendance, membership, radio and TV viewing, purchasing of merchandise etc.

What Roy Morgan have released to generate some headlines is incomplete, not inacurate.

 

[SJ]

Like I said this article doesn't go into level of commitment beyond the superficial. I've done a lot of work with Roy Morgan, both commercially and politically but it doesn't stake up for football.

Hawthorn and Richmond have 70,000 and 65,000 paid up members each, do you honestly believe that either have fewer actual supporters than Geelong let alone half the following of Sydney or Brisbane?

Certainly when you look at the social media numbers this doesn't stake up (which is more closely aligned to membership and attendance)

Regionalised clubs have a distinct advantage with these surveys in terms of sampled supporters (in this news article) respondents may align goodwill to a city or town but show no actual support for that club. The Victorian club are at a disadvantage in this poll (including Collingwood and Essendon who are easily #1 and #2 with respect to Australia wide support)

Yes I believe Geelong has a lot of supporters both in Geelong and the western district of Victoria who would never go to the footy but 'support' Geelong. Think of it as a smaller example of the Sydney/Brisbane examples above.

 

[SJ]

Sydney Swans top AFL supporter ladder well ahead of Hawks in tenth

• September 26 2014
  
• Finding No. 5838
  
• Topic: Public Opinion Special Poll

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2013 – June 2014 (n = 48,947).
Grand Finalists the Sydney Swans lead the pack for the ninth straight year as the AFL’s most widely supported club – 1.135 million supporters. The Swans are streets ahead of Grand Final opponents Hawthorn (448,000 supporters) in tenth according to the latest data from Roy Morgan Research for the 12 months to June 2014.

The best supported clubs in the home of football, Victoria, are Collingwood (739,000) and Essendon (692,000) while the Brisbane Lions (634,000) are the second best supported club outside Victoria.

Losing Preliminary Final clubs Port Adelaide (243,000) and North Melbourne (209,000) are at the lower end of the support ladder in 2014, although they are ahead of the two newest clubs in the AFL that also have clearly the least number of supporters – Gold Coast Suns (107,000) and last of all the GWS Giants (64,000).

AFL Club Supporters 2014
View attachment 82627
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5838-afl-supporteres-2014-201409260552
not really surprising as they have old south melbourne fans & been the only team in Sydney city of 4.5 million for decades, plus been so successful for several years now
Collingwood & Essendon no real surprises but lions at number 4

The biggest issue for me there is how low Melbourne is placed and how far they must have fallen in support over the past 40 years.

 

[HowYouDoin]

The audience for Swans Grand Final appearances in the Sydney market almost halving over 10 years?

They were smashed in that game... If the score were reversed. I bet you, the swans would have smashed 2012's figures.

 

[bombersfan4000]

The biggest issue for me there is how low Melbourne is placed and how far they must have fallen in support over the past 40 years.

who knows this is only 1 poll
why would a new fan want to support melbourne. their last flag was in the 60s, they have been runners up a few times & a basket case for decades, unfortunately

 

[SJ]

who knows this is only 1 poll
why would a new fan want to support melbourne. their last flag was in the 60s, they have been runners up a few times & a basket case for decades, unfortunately

Yes which spells huge trouble for them, only two generations ago they were arguably the biggest and most successful club in the country.

 

[bombersfan4000]

Yes which spells huge trouble for them, only two generations ago they were arguably the biggest and most successful club in the country.

all of their 12 flags came before 1964 & their traditional home ground was the MCG. They were originally one of the big clubs, but your right SJ, being very mediocre on and off field for several generations of fans. but hopefully with talk of cricket victoria moving to the junction oval melbourne will be able to set up their admin at the MCG, and become a power club again

 

[madmug]

all of their 12 flags came before 1964 & their traditional home ground was the MCG. They were originally one of the big clubs, but your right SJ, being very mediocre on and off field for several generations of fans. but hopefully with talk of cricket victoria moving to the junction oval melbourne will be able to set up their admin at the MCG, and become a power club again

Its the old problem, too many clubs in the one market. They cant all improve their support base because the real 'footy' population is not infinite. Overall clubs have had success at selling memberships over the last decade or so, but it cant just continually increase.

It will be hard taking support off other clubs. Clearly most people who 'identify' with a club do not become members or even go to the footy.

The GWS figure must be a particular worry to the AFL.

 

[Albert Ross]

The GWS figure must be a particular worry to the AFL.

It won't be though. The peak Home season attendance for the Swans was 419,364.

The Swans drew 374,797 to their homes games this year.

The Giants drew 252,331 to their homes games this year.

People watching football in Sydney has increased from its previous high of 419k to a new high of 627k. Even with Giants crowds falling year-on-year and the Swans not matching their peak, the total live audience for football in Sydney has never been higher.

 

[bombersfan4000]

Its the old problem, too many clubs in the one market. They cant all improve their support base because the real 'footy' population is not infinite. Overall clubs have had success at selling memberships over the last decade or so, but it cant just continually increase.

It will be hard taking support off other clubs. Clearly most people who 'identify' with a club do not become members or even go to the footy.

The GWS figure must be a particular worry to the AFL.

GWS has to start winning first.the fans will start to take interest. the main problem is many of the NRL teams based out there aren't exactly pulling big numbers either.
home ground averages
GWS 9226k crowd 15047k members
NRL teams
penrith 11462k crowd 16170 members
tigers 11104k crowd 13104 members
bulldogd 15425k crowd 15847 members
all of those NRL teams have been around for 60, 70 years plus, in their own traditional heart land, the tigers are a result of a merger of a couple of teams.

by afl standards the Giants are doing pretty bad, but stacked up against the western based NRL teams they aren't going so bad, considering how bad they are going and only been around for 3 years, no one is going to turn up and support a new team that gets thumped each week

 

[ep2018]

I 'support' Melbourne Storm in the NRL, but wouldn't even know if they made the finals. I imagine that's what a lot of the Sydney 'support' is like.

We had a lot of those types, now that we're s**t they've jumped on the Freo bandwagon.

 

[madmug]

It won't be though. The peak Home season attendance for the Swans was 419,364.

The Swans drew 374,797 to their homes games this year.

The Giants drew 252,331 to their homes games this year.

People watching football in Sydney has increased from its previous high of 419k to a new high of 627k. Even with Giants crowds falling year-on-year and the Swans not matching their peak, the total live audience for football in Sydney has never been higher.

It won't be though. The peak Home season attendance for the Swans was 419,364.

The Swans drew 374,797 to their homes games this year.

The Giants drew 252,331 to their homes games this year.

People watching football in Sydney has increased from its previous high of 419k to a new high of 627k. Even with Giants crowds falling year-on-year and the Swans not matching their peak, the total live audience for football in Sydney has never been higher.

Its the low figure of 64,000 which I trust is the figure for people who have at least some feeling/recognition/support of a club. They will really need to work to improve that. It would be interesting to see the financials for GWS, sponsorship & other incomes. All that would help us all to bench mark progress.