Tracking the A’s

I’m interested in the Oakland A’s popularity on the web compared to the teams they’re playing almost as much as I’m interested in winning the games so I came up with a little game of my own.

Here are some basic stats that I’m going to report on from Alexa.com. I’d really like to do a more integrative report, where I compare sports coverage on TV game ratings, but for general comparisons Alexa will do fine.

Oakland A’s vs Chicago White Sox: July 4th, 2008

I took the first page that comes up when I search “Oakland athletics” and “Chicago White Sox” in both a web and blog google searches.  The sites listed on these first pages are then ranked by Alexa according to the traffic they receive.  This way, we can see who’s writing about the teams and how popular these sites are.  Whichever team gets the lowest Alexa ranking (with Alexa higher traffic = lower ranking number) wins!  

Searching “Oakland Athletics” only gives us a small percentage of sties that are actually writing about the A’s.  Other search terms could include “A’s”, “Oakland A’s”, “Althletics”, etc.  But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just stick to Oakland Athletics.

Google Web Search “Oakland Athletics” page 1 sites and their Alexa ranking:

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com        #205
http://athletics.mlb.com          #205
http://en.wikipedia.org      #8
http://sports.espn.go.com     #61
http://www.sfgate.com      #859
http://sports.yahoo.com      #1
www.sportsline.com      #543
www.athleticsnation.com      #151,738
http://shop.mlb.com      #205
www.tickco.com     #29,858

A’s Web Total: 183,683

Google Blog Search “Oakland Athletics” page 1 sites and their Alexa ranking:

http://athletics.mlbnewsblog.com      #1,284,550

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com      #2,106
http://mbd.scout.com      #1,533
http://ballhype.com      #8,899
http://blog.libero.it/thedfense/5015509.html     #156
http://oaklandasnews.livejournal.com      #53
http://point-spreads.com     #102,041
http://www.btlsfan.com      #171,335
http://www.athleticsnation.com      #151,738
http://www.athleticshomeplate.com       No Alexa Ranking (site’s traffic is too low – not in top 100,000)  Automatically gets ranking of  #100,001

A’s Blog Total: 1,822,412

Google Web Search “Chicago White Sox” page 1 sites and their Alexa ranking:
http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com      #205
http://en.wikipedia.org      #8
http://sports.espn.go.com      #61
http://www.sportsline.com      #543
http://www.stubhub.com      #2,978
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com      #974
http://www.baseball-almanac.com      #34,058
http://sports.yahoo.com      #1
http://www.tickco.com      #29,858
http://www.chicagotribune.com      #974

CWS Web Total:  69,660

Google Blog Search “Chicago White Sox” page 1 sites and their Alexa ranking:
http://www.betus.com      #9,049
http://www.whitesoxlocker.com      #10,387,755 (ouch!)
http://whitesox.mlbnewsblog.com      #1,284,550
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com      #2,106
http://www.youtube.com       #3
http://blog.libero.it/thedfense/5015509.html      #156
http://point-spreads.com      #102,041
http://www.emueagles.com      #636,467
http://bleacherreport.com      #8,236
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com      #3,651

CWS Blog Total:  12,434,014

Google Web Winner:
Chicago White Sox

Google Blog Winner:


Oakland Athletics

Overall Winner:

Oakland Athletics


Summing up:
The Chicago White Sox won by a ranking of 114,023 on the web search, which is the most popular kind of search, meaning that the White Sox are probably selling more tickets and merchandise because they’re generating more fans.  (I’m guessing that if people love the Sox enough to send traffic to blogs and sites, they love the Sox enough to buy tickets and merchandise)


Athleticsnation.com has a great google ranking, but their Alexa ranking is through the roof.  The A’s can take advantage of having a site with such a great google ranking by investing in some advertising on the site or start pitching content to the writers for more accessable posts.  Come on A’s, Athleticsnation.com has an amazing google ranking, give them some love and attention – it will pay off in a big way.

I think the CWS may have won if we had some actual stats on the Athleticshomeplate.com site.  The Athletics Home Plate site has soooo much potential as a site that could generate a lot of ticket/merchandise sales and general popularity for the A’s.  Love and attention guys, that’s all these sites need.

Also, Yahoo is #1 in Alexa rankings – both teams should be working to get as much posted about their teams on Yahoo as possible right now.