F.Y.I.

AFL wins social media battle of the codes, claims 20FOUR

The battle between the football codes over Grand Final weekend was firmly won the AFL, claims sporting social content site 20FOUR.

Battle of the codes: 20FOUR reveals who really won this year’s grand final

20FOUR explores who prevailed between AFL and NRL across social media and fan engagement

Sydney, Australia, 23 October 2017 – As AFL’s Richmond Tigers and NRL’s Melbourne Storm bask in the glory of their Premiership victories, another war was waging across social media. Sports social content platform 20FOUR today revealed the winner in the battle of the footy codes, declaring the AFL victorious over the NRL in audience engagement during this year’s grand final.

Just over 3.5 million people tuned in to watch the Tigers’ historic win over the Adelaide Crows compared to nearly 3.39 million who saw the Storm’s triumph over the North Queensland Cowboys. While the AFL’s grand final game broadcast drew a higher average audience, the NRL’s pre-match entertainment Macklemore pulled in 1.37 million viewers – 40.4 per cent of overall average television audience. The AFL’s act The Killers attracted 1.04 million – 29.7 per cent of the average.

Macklemore was more than a one-hit wonder, continuing to provide ongoing buzz for the NRL. Videos of Macklemore’s performance on the NRL’s Facebook page accounted for a huge 71.7 per cent of its total video views. Furthermore, total Facebook engagement was 415 per cent higher for the NRL (872,478) against the AFL (210,163). In contrast, if audience engagement around musical acts are eliminated, then the AFL comes out on top (201,258) over the NRL (168,686).

Facebook engagement excluding musical acts Metric AFL NRL Winner
Video Views 1,754,791 908,000 AFL
Total Engagements 201,258 168,686 AFL
Total Post Reactions 190,833 146,600 AFL
Total Post Comments 10,498 4,009 AFL
Total Post Shares 8,832 14,464 NRL

When removing entertainment acts from the equation, the AFL dominates the social figures with higher video views, engagements, post reactions and comments

The AFL adopted an ‘always on’ approach to social media during the grand final weekend, producing five posts during the match compared to the NRL which did not make any updates during the showdown. Reflecting across the whole weekend, the AFL created 188 per cent more original social media content – 32 posts – as opposed to the NRL’s 14 posts. The AFL dominated visual content and published 14 videos, making up 44 per cent of its social media output. The NRL posted four videos.

When adding to the mix the AFL’s higher Google trends ranking (100) compared to the NRL (78), it is clear that the AFL were the true winners of the 2017 grand final, which notably was achieved with a 48 per cent smaller Facebook audience than the NRL.

From a company media release

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