Google Trends: How popular are the Timbers?
by Ryan Gates on Dec 19, 2011 12:16 AM PST
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PrintI was reading the Oregonian today and there was an article which talked about the top ten Portland searches for 2011. The top ten are:
1. Oregon DMV
2. Oregon Unemployment
3. Oregonian
4. PCC (Portland Community College)
5. Multnomah county library
6. oregon live (The website that publishes Oregonian articles)
7. OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry)
8. portland timbers (Promoted this year to Major League Soccer)
9. portland general electric
10. occupy portland
This started the old thinking juices flowing and I started looking for national search trends on the Portland Timbers with Google Insights. Which then lead me to look at how the Timbers compared to other MLS teams. The results were surprising and not because the Timbers did well. Find out why after the jump.
Just to see if the age old adage "a larger market generates more interest" is correct or not I decided to compare the Timbers against both the New York Redbulls and the LA Galaxy. Since Portland has become the new darling of MLS I wanted to compare how the Timbers against the previous MLS darling, the Seattle Sounders. Finally to get some perspective I threw in one of the older clubs in the midwest, the Columbus Crew.
For each team I put a basic search query, which were Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, New York Redbulls, Columbus Crew and LA Galaxy Soccer (I had to do this query because LA Galaxy had searches like Mario Galaxy or Samsung Galaxy attached to it). The results (for all of them click here) were then shown in different ways such as bar graphs, line graphs and regional interest breakdowns.
Before the results an explanation as to what the numbers mean in the results. Here is Google's convoluted answer:
The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don't represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. When we don't have enough data, 0 is shown. The numbers next to the search terms above the graph are summaries, or totals.
For those of you like me who are not statisticians and can't speak their language what Google did was take the highest point and made that 100 and compared all other points to that peak. So here is the line graph comparing all the search queries from 2004-2011.
As you can see the Seattle Sounders returned the highest peak in 2009 when they first entered the MLS. Portland had a similar peak in March 2011 when they entered the league. However the biggest surprise has to be the complete lack of searches done for the New York Redbulls. I even tried changes the words around but all the other combinations showed even less results. New York is not paying attention to the New Jersey Energy Drinks and neither is the rest of the country.
Despite having three DP's and one of the most recognizable soccer players in the world the LA Galaxy just aren't as big as some people think they are. However Columbus is bigger than what most people think and apparently more popular.
Just looking at the results brings about more questions than answers but one thing that stands out from the results and that is the fact that the Pacific Northwest is becoming the Kings of MLS.
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good research!
Im sure things will change for new York once they get awarded they’re second franchise. Blah! I understand google searches don’t paint the entire picture of a teams popularity, but this does make a strong point that just because there are a lot of people that live in your market does not mean your team will thrive. MLS was smart to move to places like Portland and Vancouver that don’t have other pro sports to compete with during the summer months. Hopefully any future expansion or moves (DC) would consider “fringe” markets as Portland, Vancouver and Columbus.
by mosonicoug on Dec 19, 2011 8:31 AM PST via iPhone app reply actions
Indeed
can’t underestimate the popularity of baseball in the northeast, where MLS has to compete directly with in those summer months. New York, Boston, Philly, etc. are never going to be soccer towns and I’m still fairly convinced that most of the midwest isn’t, either (at least from talking to a lot of other Packer fans and assorted other am. football junkies that make snarky comments every time Fox is talking about soccer). Just like most other sports, a region usually has one sport that dominates it, since the Sonics moved and Grizzlies failed, basketball is no longer the king in this region that it once may have been.
Also fun to see that in Portland the Timbers are the ONLY sports team up there.
No Ducks. And that’s when they went to the BCS national title last year and were top 10 this year.
Jag kom, jag såg, erövrade jag.
I don't know how Google analytics or this data work specifically
but technically the Oregon Ducks are not a “portland search” because they are a Eugene based team, so that could be why they aren’t in the top 10 (not that I want them in the top 10, mind, just a possible explanation)
New York does better
when “Red Bulls” is two words. Still, its not that much better.
I would argue that google insights don’t necessarily measure interest overall, because people who are really interested in these teams don’t need to do a google search for them (e.g. I can’t remember the last time I googled “timbers,” and I’m definitely an interested person). In that case, then, the Google insights mostly measure tangential interest in each team. Like, “huh, a lot of people have been talking about this soccer team called the Timbers, maybe I’ll do a google search to find out more about them…”
This would (hopefully) explain why the Timbers have higher search numbers in Lake Oswego and Beaverton than in Portland. It would also explain why the Sounders have high numbers at all (people in Seattle saying, “wait, we have a soccer team? I should really educate myself about them by doing a google search so I can go troll a Timbers blog”).
On the other hand, though, tangential interest is an echo of overall interest and media coverage, so the fact that the Sounders’ and Timbers’ numbers are so much higher than the Galaxy’s and Red Bulls’ numbers would suggest that interest in the Sounders and Timbers is indeed higher. It would also suggest that media coverage in the PNW is more pervasive than in NY, where the paper of record devotes a vast majority of its soccer coverage to European leagues.
When I write, I write for the Timbers. Contributing Editor of Stumptown Footy
Agreed
I don’t know what I was thinking when running the initial search but nice catch there. I also agree it is a catch-22 in terms of media coverage and interest. If there was more interest in a team there would be more media coverage and the opposite is true, if there was more interest it would drive more coverage.
All of that together makes me happy Fox Soccer is no longer involved and NBC Sports is now involved as they want to market the games and get their money back.
Contributing editor to Stumptown Footy the Portland Timbers SBN blog.
NY Times today
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/sports/nbc-sports-chief-aims-to-build-an-empire.html?ref=sports
Don Garber, the M.L.S. commissioner, said he declined to stay at Fox Soccer Channel for more money because Lazarus and other executives convinced him of their vision about the future NBC Sports Network.
"Dick never really embraced the game, but that was a function of NBC being steeped in traditional sports," Garber said. "Mark comes from the cable world, where you need to be hungrier and more innovative."
MLS turned down more money for more households and a greater vision.
Jag kom, jag såg, erövrade jag.
Oregon Unemployment
Sigh.
If you guy’s ever want see something telling, go to Google Trends and see what Americans are searching versus what Chinese are searching.
We're going to turn it on, we're going to give you the power.
by yepyou'reright on Dec 19, 2011 3:31 PM PST via iPhone app reply actions
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