Commonwealth Games tops YouGov’s 2023 Global Sport Rankings list in Australia

International sporting events have been acknowledged in YouGov’s Global Sport Rankings 2023 in Australia, with the Commonwealth Games - which saw Australia as the biggest medal winner - leading the ranking with a ‘Buzz’ score of 33.1 points.

The Games, held in the UK-city of Birmingham from end-July to early August last year, generated the most positive Buzz among Australians, ahead of fellow landmark sporting event, the FIFA World Cup (23.6 points), which ranked in second place.

YouGov SportsIndex measures the public’s perception of sports brands on a daily basis across a range of metrics. The 2023 Sport rankings are based on the Buzz scores, which measures whether respondents have heard something positive or negative about a brand recently.

The first domestic sporting event to make the ranking was rugby league’s State of Origin series, which made considerable strides from its ninth-place finish in 2022’s ranking to come in third this year (22.0 points).

The recently concluded Australian Open - the first since 2020 held without COVID-19 attendance restrictions - was the fourth buzziest sporting event with a score of 21.3 points. This was not the sole tennis event on the ranking, with Wimbledon ranking in sixth (18.9 points) after the AFL (20.6 points).

Swimming Australia (18.3 points) ranked seventh, while Formula One made a return to the rankings for the first time since 2021 in eighth (18.0 points). Cricket Australia ranked ninth (17.7 points) and AFL Women’s rounded off the overall ten buzziest sporting events (17.2 points).

YouGov Sport has also ranked the unique selling points of major Australian sports clubs ranking the AFL’s Melbourne Demons and Sydney Swans as the top brands.

Methodology
SportsIndex is one of YouGov Sport’s signature tools. It operates in 35 markets around the world, tracking 200 key domestic and international competitions across more than 30 sports.  A core of 21 properties is tracked in every market, allowing for international comparison. Many other events, leagues and tournaments appear in multiple markets; while some competitions are tracked only in the country which hosts them.

Images: Australiam squash player Rachael Grinham competes at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.