A new study has revealed that Australian Football League, or AFL, was Australia’s most popular sports website in 2023.
Melbourne based SEO service, Impressive.com, analysed web traffic data to find Australia’s most popular sports websites over the past year based on the number of visits they receive each month.
Using Semrush, they compiled a list of the country’s twenty most visited sports websites, and then used Ahrefs to find the estimated number of Australian visitors throughout 2023.
Australian Football League, or AFL, ranked as the most popular sports website in Australia throughout 2023, with approximately 1.89 billion total visits in the past year alone. As the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football, AFL received 158.1 million visits per month on average and was visited by Aussies the most in October, when it received approximately 232 million website visits.
Fox Sports Australia came second with around 1.65 billion total visits throughout 2023. It had the most visits in March last year, with around 199.9 million visits, and receives an average of 137.8 million visits each month. Fox Sports Australia is the country‘s leading producer of sports coverage and is home to popular subscription television sports.
Sports Bet took third place with 903 million visits in 2023. The online sports betting service was most popular in October, receiving around 86.1 million visits, and garners an average of 75.2 million visits each month.
NBA Australia came fourth with around 671.3 million visits throughout 2023. The site provides the latest news, scores, schedules, and stats for sports fans in Australia. It had the most hits in July 2023, with 89.4 million visits, and receives an average of 55.9 million web visits per month.
TAB ranked fifth with approximately 666.2 million visits in 2023. It had the most visits in March 2023 with 71.9 million total visits and receives an average of 55.5 million visits per month. TAB is an online bookmaker that provides online sports and horse racing betting services to its customers.
Other sports or sports news websites to make the top ten include ESPN, Formula1, Racenet, Cricket, and The Age.
“Many Aussies are huge sports fans, so it comes as little surprise to see such big annual numbers for these sites across the industry,” says Robert Tadros, CEO and Founder of Impressive.com.
“In fact, 41 per cent of Australians [aged 15+] participated in a sport-related activity at least once a week during 2022, according to a report about participation in sport released by Clearinghouseforsport.gov.au.”
“The large number of streaming services in the top ten also suggests a shift from watching or catching up on sports on standard television due to the increased choice and freedom available online instead,” Robert added.
“It is worth revisiting these figures annually due to how quickly trends can change, alongside the ever–increasing number of platforms to consume sports events from.”
