Mycolts.net: early registrants show demographics, preferences

OK. I definitely don’t have statistically valid data yet, but I couldn’t resist peeking at the first 300 records inside our Fan Network database. These are people who have discovered our registration page one way or another.

Here’s a look at the gender breakdown. The male / female ratio we see here follows exactly what we’ve seen in previous Web surveys. In addition, while overall NFL fan base is about 50% male, AVID NFL fans skew about 75% male. Not surprisingly, it looks like the avids are the first to sign up.

Here’s a quick look at geographic breakdown. We see over 31 states and half a dozen countries represented so far. Not surprisingly we’re getting the majority of our early registrations from Indiana. We’ve been getting some press coverage here lately. I would expect this ratio to flip and follow our general Web traffic patterns, where we see 75% of our visitors coming from outside the state.

Here are merchandise preferences. We asked registrants if they might like to buy a Fan Network T-Shirt, personalized with their home town (or the name of their group). A healthy percentage of early registrants seem interested in this idea. This is encouraging. Instead of forcing you to buy a membership in the Fan Network and throwing the T-shirt in as a perk, we are offering free membership. Members can elect to buy gear if they want to. We believe the personalization will be attractive to fans as it will allow them to be more visible in their communities and also be somewhat unique (as these personalized shirts will be created in relatively small batches).

Here are group preferences. Overall, it looks like a strong majority of registrants are interested in belonging to a “sub” group within the larger fan network. Again, this is no surprise. I think this number will grow as people see what you can actually do inside a group. You’ll be able to find people in your area, for starters, but you’ll also be able to post and read local events, and earn visibility inside your group that might not be possible on a network-wide basis. You can be a big fish in a smaller pond.

We have not begun to promote the Fan Network, so all this data is just for fun at this point; but we’ve been working behind the scenes on this thing for over a year, so it feels good to let the cat out of the bag and see that people are interested in joining.