META: UMich Athletics Popularity vs Blog Hits
This is more of a question for Brian (or the powers that be) regarding "The Blog," but I figured the back and forth of a forum might be more interesting than simply dropping this into the mail bag.
It's starting to become quite clear that the Athletic Department is facing an interesting set of challenges at the moment, especially within the context of Michigan Football. Efforts to embolden the University of Michigan brand and foster better relations among student ticket holders haven't met great success. Home scheduling match-ups have become lackluster at best, and combined with our recent on-field performance ticket sales are waning.
Throughout the years that I've followed this site, I know that at critical junctures MGoblog has been slowed to a literal standstill due to crippling amounts of traffic from fans and readers. I'm wondering how readership has been as of recent, and if recent moves by the AD that have diminished ticket sales have also resulted in less traffic at the site. This was prompted by the most recent kickstarter for HTTV; I may be wrong but I can't seem to remember previous campaigns going this "deep" into the fundraising cycle.
In regards to the home scheduling, 2014 is really an outlier. Next season's home schedule boasts: Ohio State, Michigan State, Oregon State, BYU, Rutgers, Northwestern, UNLV. Selling season tickets will probably not be an issue in 2015.
I respectfully disagree. Attendance may not be an issue next year but season ticket sales will most likely continue to fall IMO. Many long-time holders of tickets in specific areas, once gone, are highly unlikely to want to purchase less desireable season tickets just for the "right" to sit in a particular seat all year - especially when the secondary market is so easy to access and presents a much more affordable option once you remove the PSL fees from the equation. I think once the inertia of "I renew my tickets because I've always renewed my tickets" gets broken it will be VERY hard to get back. I do think, however, the ticket packages will be quite popular, especially since they will be able to sell an anchor game including ND, MSU or OSU to move tickets for other, less diserable games.
Given the schedule and the likelyhood Michigan will be fielding a very good team next year I think the seats will most likely get filled but method of filling them, IMO, will be different.
I don't have access to MGoBlog's stats, but I have seen page hits diminishing on my blog over the last year. Not to crippling levels, but it's noticeable.
Many thanks for sharing that. I'm not trying to get at proprietary business info for anyone's site, just am VERY curious at the effects that recent decisions at the AD have had upon the overall fan population.
Magnus what did you expect ever since you changed things to "click here to see a dude in a scmedium"
I thought everybody liked pictures of Popeye doppelgangers...
I actually can't click through to your site at work... it's blocked. Maybe you can move things around so whatever content is causing the block is not necessarily on the front page... then maybe you can get a lot more hits.
I don't really know what's causing the site to get blocked. I don't run any fancy gadgets on the site, and anything mildly inappropriate is kept off the front page. My guess is that it's blocked because someone at your work was spending too much time gandering at the ladies, or just too much time on the site, period.
I still watch all the games, but I admit I watch now with a different perspective- almost numbess. I don't get the pregame butterflies. The wins and losses don't give me the same highs and lows anymore.
I used to think its because I grew up, started a family and it changed my priorities. But sometimes I feel this is how much of the collective fan base feels as well.
The site stats are publicly available here. There's no question the success of the team affects the traffic on the blog—you can see that traffic slowly grew during the 2011 season, when the team was doing well, and in each of the last two years traffic has remained pretty stagnant during the season (and that's despite the basketball team providing a nice boost near the end of those two seasons, too).
What I was going to say...
Some learnings (according to Quantcast):
1) The all-time universal armageddon of pageviews: "The Process", with 10.7m pageviews that month, and that doesn't count mobile. No other month tops 8m, including mobile.
2) This here is a football blog. The NCG run for hoops garnered only 5.9m pageviews, with this April 4.5m. These are outpaced by a couple of run-of-the-mill football months, and also well-outpaced by traffic around the dates of signing Hoke's first full recruiting class, with the latter the 2nd highest month at 7.6m views.
3) When you look at uniques, "The Process", "A New Hoke" (Sept 2011), and Denard over Neb/Ohio (Nov 2011) stand out as all-time highs.
You can play around with different views. Tried to compare to mgoblue.com, but not easy to do since it isn't directly measured by quantcast.
Another look...there are many different ways to access data like this...this is certainly not more definitive and has issues.
71% of visits are from "Addicts" in the U.S...!!! LOL. That's me. I check first thing in the morning and right before I sleep and a million times in between everyday.
We also have the highest affinity for "Fantasy Sports"?
LOL
Well, I guess our board does play the imaginary game of "5-Star Wars"... it's like Pokemon, you got to collect them all.
The AD's lack of popularity, right or wrong, is only one factor. There is certainly something else that is affecting everyone.
As far as branding. Don't fool yourself that this focus is new, Brandon just openly talks about it but it's always been done and if an AD was not concerned about the Brand that would be very bad.
I couldn't help but notice that "grannyhookup.com" was just above MGoBlog in popularity at the moment I checked..
These web stats are like crack to me. Once I start looking, I can't stop.
linked by Ace, and it is fascinating!
Among other things I looked at, one thing really stood out:
Web traffic for MGoBlog from Bolivia is off the chart! Literally.
In other words, < 10 "cookies" last month April '14 were originated in Bolivia.
How can that be? To me, with as many exiles that have been sent there by MGoBlog leadership, certainly something doesn't seem to add up.
or...should I instead be looking up the stats for Bolivia Illinois, or maybe Bolivia North Carolina?
Those <10 hits from Bolivia are all RollDamnTide.