Numbers
- Mar 25, 2014
- 40,920
- 96,248
- AFL Club
- Fremantle
- Other Teams
- Fighting Furies
Hello and welcome all to the end of season summary of the match thread activity for each of the Sweet FA teams for this season.
The usual caveat applies here, where it's stated that this data is purely a measure of quantity...not quality. These numbers are however a good indicator of the health of the league, and may give us an indication of which clubs are in greater need of new posters going forward for the good of the league.
As a reference, here are the previous articles authored by WaynesWorld19, Ant Bear and myself:
Season 31 Analysis
I'll start off with some comparative data between the teams, and some trends over the seasons. Then over the next few days I'll do a club-by-club analysis. Now let's dive straight into it.
So first up we have the total match thread posts by each of the teams in the league. As has been the case for the last few seasons, the Bombers are clear leaders at the front of the pack with a massive 17,058 posts - the most by any team in the history of Sweet. Right after them - both also with over 10,000 posts are the Roys and Demons. Then we have the Royals, Dragons, Furies and Wonders grouped together in the eight thousand range, with the Bears a fraction back on 7,404. Then we have the four least prolific teams in the league: the Warriors, Phoenix, Swamprats and Gumbies in the five thousand range. You could probably split them into three tiers (high / medium / low), but ultimately these are all healthy numbers. In recent history (S27-28) teams have failed to reach 3,000 posts for the season, and most teams are comfortably double that now.
What is generally considered a better indicator of the health of the league is the number of posters who are active in match threads each week - that is, making at least one post in their team's match thread. It is always curious to find relationships between total posts and the average weekly number of posters. The three most prolific clubs (Bombers, Demons, Roys) all still perform well in this category - the Demons especially so with 19.88 posters turning up per week - but the Furies drop fairly low in the average posters (14.00, 10th) relative to their total posts (6th), and the Warriors rise up (15.25, 7th) relative to their total posts (9th). This suggests that the Furies have great buy-in from their limited number of posters, whilst the Warriors are ticking along with minimal contributions from a number of theirs. The big red flag in this category are the Gumbies with a mere 12.38 posters per week - not terrible in isolation, but it certainly indicates an imbalance in the league relative to the stronger clubs.
As for the total number of posters to make an appearance this season, for the first time in three seasons we have a club with less than 20 posters appearing in match threads for the season - the Gumbies only managing to get 18. The other teams are comfortably over 20 posters, although the numbers can be inflated by trades and players retiring mid-season. The Bombers, Demons, Royals and Wonders were particularly impressive in this category.
The table on the left shows what the average percentage contribution each side has had in Season 32 match threads. This is with all neutral posts disregarded. A percentage of 50 would indicate even discussion between them and their opponents, whilst a higher number would suggest that the team likes the sound of their own voice or are prone to a bit of insular discussion. A range of 45-55% would probably be considered acceptable, so this would indicate that the Bombers and Roys love to chat amongst themselves (this is consistent with last season), whilst the Gumbies, Phoenix and Warriors are struggling to keep up with the pace of the match threads.
Then we have the contentious "match thread wins" category that doesn't really mean too much and is a relic from earlier seasons. It does line up fairly well with the % of match thread table though. This season the Roys "won" the most match threads, with the only "loss" being against the Demons in Round 9. Whilst the Warriors, Gumbies and Phoenix had a much harder time of it - the Gumbies only out-posting their opponents twice all season: the Phoenix in Round 8 and the Swamprats in Round 10.
The table of the right shows what percentage of a team's match thread posts come from their Top 5 posters (by quantity). The higher the number, the more reliant they are on their five best to keep their numbers up. Of course this is proportional to their output, it would be much more surprising if a one of the more prolific teams was higher up this list - the Wonders at 71.32% suggests some big posting numbers from a small number of players. The Gumbies are the most reliant on their top five posters (which is widely known), whilst as usual the Demons have a much better spread of contribution across their list.
These three green tables expand upon how well balanced a team's list is, and it is interesting to see the rankings change as the contribution criteria changes. A perfectly balanced list would see 20 posters each contributing 5% of their team's match thread posts, so I feel the middle table is the best one to work off - once you see a larger number of posters on the 10+% contributions there is an implied reliance on those posters. Compared to previous seasons these numbers are fairly even, suggesting that most clubs have similar number of posters contributing towards the bulk of their total posts. The Demons are always an interesting example in this category, as we can see here with a league-high 14 posters chipping in for 2+% of their posts, and a league-low 2 posters contributing over 10% - although the Wonders, Bombers and Roys are not too far behind them.
I feel that these tables in blue give one of the best indicators of team activity though, and the posting threshold that one would put greater importance on would vary from person to person. There have indeed been requests for higher thresholds in the past, and I have included a 40+ post category for the first time. Personally I feel that 10 posts per week indicates good engagement in a match thread, but I can see reasons for 20+ being the better one. The Bombers performed well in both these metrics, as did the Roys, whilst the Gumbies were the worst in all categories.
Back in the day the "weeks with >300 posts" table was considered the pass mark for match thread activity for each team. In fact, there even used to be a "weeks with >100 posts" table! Thankfully the SFA has evolved into a much stronger entity (no team dropped below 200 posts this season!), and the >600 post table is now considered the benchmark - whilst the >900 post entries are frowned upon. Last season there were 10 occasions when teams posted more than 900 times in a thread, whilst this season it rose up to 18. The Dragons, Bombers, Roys, Bears and Wonders never dipped below 300 match thread posts this season, whilst the Royals did it 15 after only achieving it twice last season. Interestingly the Bears were in the 300-600 post range on all but two occasions this season.
Next up, trends:
