Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Indians - biggest sports data/info mongers

Shabash hai hum sabko. We are biggest sports data/info mongers, at least on official websites. Let me correct it maybe, we are 2nd biggest sports data/info mongers.

I came across an article that mentioned user traffic to US Open (Tennis) website - usopen.org. It received most users from US (as expected with Internet users and event) and guess what 2nd position for traffic is grabbed by India.

This got me a little curious as usopen.org did have video content but only limited to US. I checked up for other Tennis Grand Slam websites. What do I find, again India has 2nd most traffic to these websites, except at wimbledon.org where its close 3rd. Interestingly, wimbledon.org had video content offering with live webcast of matches in whole of Europe so understandably UK had most traffic with US and India following closely. Australianopen.org and rolandgarros.com websites again had India at 2nd spot with host country traffic numbers behind India.

Then I checked it up for olympic.org and beijing2008.cn, official websites of IOC and Beijing Olympic Games, and now what do I find here. Similar phenomenon. Users from India are 2nd most frequent visitors to these websites.

What do you think, we were following Paes and Bhupathi all the while for tennis and at Olympics Bindra, Vijender and Susheel.. hmmm come on let's be frank, we didn't. Why am I little convinced, read further?

What about English Premiere League, hmmmm this is one website which I have visited personally once in a year, but my countrymen have already beaten me to it. Indian users are 2nd to UK here. More, same is true for manutd.com. But we do get beaten handsomely at liverpoolfc.tv, but we still remain 3rd for chelsea.com and arsenal.com, behind UK and Nigeria.

What were we following, imagining Rooney as an Indian sibling or what?

Now I threw in a further challenge, what about UEFA, FIFA, Soccernet, La Liga websites. It was too much already but traffic from India still features in Top 20 if not Top 10 on these websites.

I've not spend too much time in analysing what this all means but one thing is for sure, we have an interest, actually a very strong interest in sports. Ok, redefine it, people in India who have access to Internet possess a strong interest towards Sport related information. What to take from it, how to make the best of it, needs to be defined if at all thought about. But it is worth taking a note.

Kyun? Did I mention not enough of us get off reading it and doing some sport?

4 comments:

Kaushalendra said...

now get into details of what indians were looking at these sites. I guess mostly women athletes in nice dresses. May be you can get that data in one site and start a commercial site specifically for indian users :)

Aditya said...

@ kaushy, what about premier league, you reckon all of us fancy boys too? no discrimation between boys in shorts vs girls in skirts.. huh. aakhir ye choice da maamla hai bhai.

harshrc said...

I think the explanation is simple. We have a huge 'english speaking and english reading' population who happen to be internet users. Internet users have certain pet sites and these tend divert traffic to your sports sites at major sports events.

India and Soccer said...

Great articles which made me happy and sad as well, We are such a big country (Main reason for our position for info mongers)and we are more reading about international sports and international athelets which makes me sad, but what makes me happy is that there is a big interest in sport in India which will sometime in future will create a big sports industry and culture in India and create more Indian superstars to cheer for :)