NSW fans more vocal on social than Victorians for A League grand final claims study
Social activity during yesterday’s A-League grand final peaked at 7pm as Melbourne Victory celebrated its win over the Sydney FC, according to data from RadiumOne.
We are Champions! Thank you, #MVFC members & fans. We did it! #ALeagueGF #ALeagueChampions #10YearsProud pic.twitter.com/bmsm8otLCw
— Melbourne Victory (@gomvfc) May 17, 2015
Data captured across the entire A-League season, from October 2014 to May this year, revealed there were 1.3m A-League fans across all social networks, with Melbourne Victory boasting a larger number (232,000) compared to rival Sydney FC (197,000).
But while the victorian team may have been victorious on the day NSW fans were louder online on Grand Final day, with NSW responsible for 53 per cent of all shares compared to Victoria’s 35 per cent for A-League related content.
Victory captain Mark Milligan was the player with the most shares across social media.
RadiumOne director of strategic accounts Asia Pacific Adam Furness said: “Through live sport and entertainment – we know consumers are in a highly passionate state. We know this through their sharing, interactions, posts and activity both publically and via dark social channels.
“In sport and entertainment the magic fusion of technology and human emotion is marketing utopia. Rights holders, brand marketers and sports sponsors are now starting to leverage this to great effect.”
According to a media release from SBS, the A-League was the number one trending program on Nielsen TV Twitter ratings across SBS and Fox Sports, attracting a unique audience of 179,800 with 2.6m impressions.
A live stream of the game on theworldgame.sbs.com.au was viewed 12,417 times.
Furness said events like the A-League grand final is an opportunity for brands and marketers to connect with a passionate audience who are highly engaged on social media.
“Marketers and sponsors want to connect with consumer passion, and they put so much of their effort into creative messaging in the hope that it will evoke emotion. Instead of seeking to evoke an emotion, consumers’ passion points are becoming the trigger for brands to activate – in real-time,” he said.
“In the case of a huge event like the A-League Grand Final, smart software and programmatic media delivery harnesses that emotion in real time – giving brands and sponsors the ability to connect with the audience, when they are right in the passion sweet spot of engagement.”
The #ALeagueGF is SOLD OUT! pic.twitter.com/4MJvzqabe3 — Hyundai A-League (@ALeague) May 17, 2015
According to RadiumOne’s figures, of the fans talking about football online, 30 per cent shared content from their mobile devices while 70 per cent were sharing via a desktop.
Across the entire season, more than 70,000 ‘dark social’ shares (via email or instant messages) of A-League related content occurred, reinforcing a recent global study by RadiumOne into sharing behaviours which found that 71 per cent of sporting content shared online is via dark social channels. In Australia, 75 per cent of shared sports content is via dark social channels.
Comparatively, globally 20 per cent of sport content is shared on Facebook, and 10 per cent is shared on other public social networks.
Source: RadiumOne (click to enlarge)
Miranda Ward
*SBS is currently an advertiser on Mumbrella
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