Our footy season in Search: 5 trends that show what ignited Aussies’ passions

We Aussies are devoted to sport – so much that our search interest in sport surpasses our search interest in the weather every year.*

With this passion in mind, we’ve been on a mission to help Aussies connect with the sports they love – whether you’re learning about our rich sport heritage, following live footy scores and fixtures, or even voting for your favourite AFL players directly in Search.

As another epic AFL season comes to a close, we’re looking back at the moments that made Aussies search, cheer and come together. It was the season we discovered Sydney Stack, saw the rise of the Brisbane Lions– and Tayla Harris taught us that sometimes a kick is #morethanakick. To rediscover the highs and lows, check out this video round-up – inspired by a combination of Google Trends data, collated over the 2019 AFL season:**

Whether we were elated, deflated or on the edge of our seats, we turned to Search to stay on the ball and back our teams. Here are a few more trends that give a glimpse into our curiosities this AFL season:**

1. AFLW is on the rise: 

Search interest in AFL Women was the highest on record this season in Australia – up +70% compared to last year according to Google Trends. And Tayla Harris was the most searched player this season across both Women and Men’s leagues.

Here’s the list of most searched female AFLW players this season in Australia:

1. Tayla Harris
2. Erin Phillips
3. Moana Hope
4. Daisy Pearce
5. Sharni Layton

2. The most searched male AFL players were…

Players from Richmond, North Melbourne and Geelong topped the list of our most searched AFL players in Australia:

1. Dustin Martin
2. Majak Daw
3. Gary Ablett
4. Eddie Betts
5. Toby Greene
   

3. We rallied for a cause 

Over the past five years, Search interest in Motor Neurone Disease has been Trending – and spiked sharply during The Big Freeze, a fundraising campaign led by former Demons coach, Neil Daniher.

4. The Magpie Army leads the pack

Collingwood conquered Searches for AFL teams overall! Here’s the list of the most Searched AFL teams over the season:

1. Collingwood Magpies
2. Essendon
3. Carlton
4. West Coast Eagles
5. Geelong Cats

5. Tassie, SA and VIC are the biggest AFL aficionados (when it comes to Search)

Aussies showed their dedication this season and were full of questions – looking up who is playing, who is winning, how to vote for AFL players, and even how to bounce an AFL ball. Who Searched the hardest? Here are the top ranked states by search interest in AFL this season:***

1. Tasmania
2. South Australia
3. Victoria
4. Western Australia
5. Northern Territory
6. Australian Capital Territory
7. Queensland
8. New South Wales

Whether you’re tuning into live games, learning how to kick or looking up the archives, Search is here to help at every stage of the game.

*Data is based on a comparison of total searches for sports-related and weather-related terms, geo-located to Australia and aggregated by year. 

**Search trends mentioned or featured are based on Google Trends data and include a range of “top” and “trending” search queries on AFL. The data is limited to searches within Australia over the course of the 2019 AFL season. Top or Most Searched: The "top searched" queries are those that rank highest by search volume for a given timeframe and location. Trending Searches: "Trending" queries are the search terms that had the highest spike in traffic over a given period of time as compared with the previous equivalent period. 

***Search data by state or region: Search interest by region reflects search interest in a particular topic in a given region as a proportion of all searches on all topics on Google in that same place and time. 

What is Trends data? Trends data is an unbiased sample of our Google search data. It’s anonymised (no one is personally identified), categorised (determining the topic for a search query) and aggregated (grouped together). This allows us to measure interest in a particular topic across search, from around the globe, right down to city-level geography. 

For more information on Trends data and how it works, read about it here!