Here at the Gurgler we are fond of answering the questions that nobody asks, look at a back catalogue of some of our rubbish for proof. But with very little rugby league to talk about, a bit of player movement and Sam Burgess weddings aside, we wondered which club could claim to be the best supported.
UPDATE – We have the figures for Best Supported Club for 2016 too.
We have come up with a figure, what we are calling The Gurgler Fan Index (GFI) in a blatant attempt to blow our own trumpet, and the results are reasonably interesting and not overly surprising. It is certainly a little more in depth than our previous attempt to determine which NRL Mascot is the best. At best it is great NRL off season filler, at the other end it is complete garbage and a waste of time reading.
HOW IT WAS DETERMINED
We decided on a range of Categories including Social Media, Membership, Crowd Figures, and as ever one obscure category. All teams were ranked top to bottom in each category, and 16 was assigned to the top performed in each category, 15 to second, etc, until the lowest ranked team got one points. To determine the overall winner, the scores from all the categories were totalled and the winner appeared. But we won’t tell you who that is yet, hang on for a little bit of sizzle.
NOTES
Whilst some of the categories may be heavily favoured towards teams like the Broncos, we have also used a cross reference back to the size of the city which we call the City Corrected figure. For Sydney we used the total for the Sydney metro area and divided by the nine teams. For North Queensland we used the populations of the major cities in the catchment area.
We considered TV viewing figures, but that would include too many neutrals.
0.5 are due to teams that are equal in a category and the ranks scores are added and divided equally amongst the relevant teams.
Social Media figures are as of the official account on December 31, 2015.
Full figures are available if anyone is interested.
CATEGORY 1 – TWITTER STATS
| TEAM | TWITTER FOLLOWERS | TWEETS | TWEET LIKES | TWITTER SUB TOTAL |
| NEW ZEALAND | 15.5 | 12 | 16 | 43.5 |
| SOUTHS | 15.5 | 13 | 14 | 42.5 |
| MELBOURNE | 13 | 15 | 12 | 40 |
| BRISBANE | 14 | 8 | 15 | 37 |
| BULLDOGS | 12 | 14 | 10 | 36 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 10 | 16 | 9 | 35 |
| ROOSTERS | 11 | 10 | 13 | 34 |
| PARRAMATTA | 9 | 7 | 8 | 24 |
| NEWCASTLE | 4 | 6 | 11 | 21 |
| NORTH QLD | 8 | 9 | 3 | 20 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 5 | 11 | 4 | 20 |
| MANLY | 7 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| PENRITH | 2 | 4 | 7 | 13 |
| CRONULLA | 3 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| GOLD COAST | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| CANBERRA | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
CATEGORY 2 – FACEBOOK LIKES
| TEAM | FACEBOOK LIKES |
| BRISBANE | 16 |
| MELBOURNE | 15 |
| SOUTHS | 14 |
| PARRAMATTA | 13 |
| BULLDOGS | 12 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 11 |
| NORTH QLD | 10 |
| ROOSTERS | 9 |
| MANLY | 8 |
| GOLD COAST | 7 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 6 |
| NEWCASTLE | 5 |
| CRONULLA | 4 |
| PENRITH | 3 |
| CANBERRA | 2 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 1 |
CATEGORY 3 – HIGH CROWD, LOW CROWD
| TEAM | HIGHEST CROWD 2015 | HIGH CROWD CITY CORRECTED |
LOWEST CROWD | LOWEST CROWD CITY CORRECTED |
DIFF HIGH TO LOW | HIGH LOW SUB TOTAL |
| NORTH QLD | 11 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 13 | 65 |
| NEWCASTLE | 10 | 16 | 12 | 16 | 10 | 64 |
| BULLDOGS | 15 | 15 | 13 | 14 | 3 | 60 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 9 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 11 | 54 |
| BRISBANE | 16 | 3 | 16 | 3 | 15 | 53 |
| SOUTHS | 12 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 4 | 48 |
| PARRAMATTA | 14 | 14 | 7 | 9 | 1 | 45 |
| ROOSTERS | 13 | 13 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 42 |
| CRONULLA | 7 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 41 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 5 | 2 | 15 | 2 | 16 | 40 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 8 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 34 |
| CANBERRA | 1 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 31 |
| MELBOURNE | 4 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 14 | 30 |
| GOLD COAST | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 25 |
| MANLY | 3 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 24 |
| PENRITH | 6 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 24 |
CATEGORY 4 – AVERAGE CROWDS
| TEAM | AVERAGE CROWD | AVERAGE CROWD CITY CORRECTED |
AVERAGE MONDAY NIGHT CROWD |
AVERAGE SUB TOTAL |
| BULLDOGS | 15 | 15 | 16 | 46 |
| NEWCASTLE | 14 | 16 | 12 | 42 |
| SOUTHS | 13 | 13 | 15 | 41 |
| NORTH QLD | 12 | 14 | 13 | 39 |
| ROOSTERS | 11 | 12 | 8 | 31 |
| PARRAMATTA | 9 | 11 | 9 | 29 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 8 | 10 | 10 | 28 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 5 | 7 | 14 | 26 |
| CRONULLA | 6 | 8 | 11 | 25 |
| BRISBANE | 16 | 3 | 0 | 19 |
| MELBOURNE | 7 | 1 | 7 | 15 |
| PENRITH | 4 | 6 | 5 | 15 |
| GOLD COAST | 3 | 4 | 6 | 13 |
| CANBERRA | 1 | 9 | 3 | 13 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 10 | 2 | 0 | 12 |
| MANLY | 2 | 5 | 4 | 11 |
CATEGORY 5 – MEMBERSHIPS
| TEAM | MEMBERS | MEMBERS CITY CORRECTED |
NEW MEMBERS | M’SHIP SUB TOTAL |
| SOUTHS | 16 | 16 | 10 | 42 |
| ROOSTERS | 11 | 12 | 14 | 37 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 14 | 14 | 8 | 36 |
| BRISBANE | 15 | 3 | 16 | 34 |
| NEWCASTLE | 13 | 15 | 1 | 29 |
| PARRAMATTA | 12 | 13 | 4 | 29 |
| BULLDOGS | 10 | 11 | 7 | 28 |
| MANLY | 7 | 9 | 11 | 27 |
| CRONULLA | 4 | 6 | 12 | 22 |
| NORTH QLD | 8 | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 1 | 4 | 15 | 20 |
| PENRITH | 6 | 7 | 6 | 19 |
| CANBERRA | 2 | 8 | 9 | 19 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 3 | 2 | 13 | 18 |
| MELBOURNE | 9 | 1 | 5 | 15 |
| GOLD COAST | 5 | 5 | 3 | 13 |
CATEGORY 6 – HIGHEST PRICE FOR A JERSEY ON EBAY
| TEAM | EBAY HIGH |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 16 |
| NORTH QLD | 15 |
| PARRAMATTA | 14 |
| BRISBANE | 13 |
| CRONULLA | 12 |
| SOUTHS | 11 |
| ROOSTERS | 10 |
| MELBOURNE | 9 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 8 |
| MANLY | 7 |
| NEWCASTLE | 6 |
| PENRITH | 5 |
| GOLD COAST | 4 |
| CANBERRA | 3 |
| BULLDOGS | 2 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 1 |
CATEGORY 7 – TAKING IT TO THE FANS – NUMBER OF HOME GROUNDS USED
| TEAM | NUMBER OF HOME GROUNDS USED IN 2015 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 16 |
| SOUTHS | 15 |
| BULLDOGS | 12.5 |
| PARRAMATTA | 12.5 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 12.5 |
| MANLY | 12.5 |
| ROOSTERS | 8.5 |
| MELBOURNE | 8.5 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 8.5 |
| PENRITH | 8.5 |
| BRISBANE | 3.5 |
| NORTH QLD | 3.5 |
| NEWCASTLE | 3.5 |
| CRONULLA | 3.5 |
| CANBERRA | 3.5 |
| GOLD COAST | 3.5 |
TOTAL OVERALL SCORE
| TEAM | TOTAL SCORE |
| SOUTHS | 213.5 |
| BULLDOGS | 196.5 |
| ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA | 176 |
| BRISBANE | 175.5 |
| NORTH QLD | 172.5 |
| ROOSTERS | 171.5 |
| NEWCASTLE | 170.5 |
| PARRAMATTA | 166.5 |
| WESTS TIGERS | 146.5 |
| MELBOURNE | 132.5 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 124 |
| CRONULLA | 119.5 |
| MANLY | 106.5 |
| PENRITH | 87.5 |
| CANBERRA | 76.5 |
| GOLD COAST | 73.5 |
So there you have it, given 100,000 marched to keep them in the competition it is not much of a surprise to see Souths top the list, although they’d be happy if a bigger percentage of that crowd showed up for more games. Bulldogs too are famed for their fans so second isn’t surprising either.
There wasn’t much in it between 3rd and 7th, a few extra through the gate may have just tipped it.
Gold Coast are also probably no surprise in last given they are the newest team in the comp and haven’t played finals football in a while. But that’s just our study, I’m sure someone more important and smrter could come up with better. Whether they can be bothered is another point.
