All Blacks always well connected
It seems it’s not just on the field where the All Blacks dominate our Aussie neighbours.
New research out of Australia puts our rugby national side atop the list for fans’ emotional connection to a team.
The data was collected and crunched by the True North Research group.
It showed the All Blacks are now understood to represent ‘‘the pinnacle for emotional connection in any sport’’ around the world – smashing all Australian teams along the way.
According to the group, emotional connection (EC score) was a combination of pride, trust, enjoyment, respect and bond to any one side.
The All Blacks scored 251, the highest ever achieved by any team, among the 296 assessed.
Second place went to the Australian national Women’s Cricket side, with an emotional connection (EC) score of 190.
The Australian women’s soccer, 7s and netball sides all came in before the first male team, the national cricket side.
The research was conducted as an online survey between March and April this year, from a sample size of 4832 Australian and New Zealand residents.
True North Director Georgie Maynard said she was not surprised to see the All Blacks dominate the list.
‘‘We wanted a benchmark reading for this [EC score] and I knew the All Blacks would register very high – it’s evident by the 99 per cent familiarity rate across the country,’’ she said.
‘‘The EC score takes into consideration those five core elements; pride, trust, enjoyment, respect and bond to any one side. The All Blacks were always going to register high on those fronts.
‘‘Looking around we saw there was already data on crowd numbers, attendance, all that sort of stuff. But nothing on why people kept turning up, why they ride that emotional roller coaster.
‘‘So the EC score is a good measurement of just that.’’
National teams from both sides of the Tasman, summer league sides and 14 professional leagues were evaluated.