The Geography of Derby
In February 2006, the center of the derby universe was somewhere in a field in southwestern Kansas.
Sound unlikely? Come with me.
Say you and a friend are playing on a see-saw. If the two of you are balanced equally, not touching the ground, then your collective center of balance is at the pivot of the see-saw. Now instead of a see-saw, imagine a map of the United States. And instead of you and your friend, imagine 305 million people, standing on the map. Where is their collective center of balance? Well, as of 2009, the pivot of our national see-saw was in southern Missouri.
Geographers refer to this as the “population centroid”, the center of balance of a population on a given area. In the case of the continental US, the population centroid is well to the east of the actual geographic center of the US, which is in Kansas. This is because there are more people in the eastern half of the country. In see-saw terms, this is like having a heavy person one end of the see-saw, and a light person on the other end. The center of balance (pivot) moves towards the heavier end.
Centroids can tell us a lot – especially watching how they move over time. As Americans migrated to the Sunbelt states over the years after World War II, the population centroid moved from Indiana south and west towards its present location.
Comments
NERRRRRRRRRRDS!
Well done, Howie.
Quebeaum? Is that you?
What are you doing using Murder's account? :)
yeah, this is one of those moments when I realize I'm a much, much bigger geek than I ever suspected.
dyte!
i'd really like to see this info with hewlett smackard's dyte ratings, or mid atlantic derby news' rankings average information.
Agreed 100%
Although I don't trust the guy who put those ratings together...
After spending an hour and a
After spending an hour and a half back-breakingly shoveling out my driveway today, i'm not sure why i didn't move my centroid to the sunbelt sometime between 1950 and 2000 myself. Nice work though.
May i now suggest "The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia" by David Mccandless as extra credit reading?
Sweet maps!
Thanks for the article. Would love to see one on WFTDA/USARS skater membership to get a better idea of the numbers--after all, some leagues have 15 members and others close to 100. Or, derby fandom--perhaps by bout attendance.
Anyway, this is delicious and so nerdily satisfying. When are there going to be grants for roller derby research? We should start a collective of derby-demics for those of us in academia.
bump
this is delicious and so nerdily satisfying.
Agreed!
ivory tower derby
Thanks! and thanks to Justice and DNN for giving me the space. yeah, there's probably a critical mass of overeducated skaters and refs out there... one of our skaters here in ROCK (Rainbow Smite) was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education last year!
Here, here!
We should start a collective of derby-demics for those of us in academia.
I couldn't agree more! It's only fitting since all of my skool projects/papers involve derby in some way. Why not pool our findings! Posterity, people! Right?
And Howie, fantastic work!
Old Skool Beatdown
Rose City Rollers
North wins there?
Or, derby fandom--perhaps by bout attendance.
So heavily weighted somewhere between Key Arena and Roy Wilkins Auditorium?
Piling on to the North
And Indianapolis. Naptown Roller Girls draw crowds between 3,000 - 4,000 at the Pepsi Coliseum.
There's a lot of derby love in Indy.
naptown fans
omg NO KIDDING. the dedication and derbysmarts of the Naptown fanbase is something to behold.
Its very healthy
Its very healthy posting.thansk for sharring . WFTDA/USARS is great.You can freely submit and list your site to spammer link deleted free of charge or try the new another spammer link deleted.
Maya,
Uh oh...
WFTDA/USARS is great
They're getting smarter...
At least one positive thing to take away from this. If machines really become sentient like they do in the Terminator movies, we only have to fear that they'll just become really good at selling us Viagra pills.
I'm in favor of summary execution
... for spammers. Who's with me?
Comment spam spiked way up in the past two or three weeks, meaning either a) the CAPTCHA we were using has been programmatically defeated, or b) the cost of labor somewhere in the world is low enough that humans are registering and solving it. Gnosis switched to a different CAPTCHA in hopes of solving the problem, and it definitely stemmed the tide... but we're still seeing a trickle, so the problem is far from fully solved.
We're going to keep looking for a solution that doesn't require a human approval step (so new commenters can join the conversation immediately), but if that fails, the next step is probably to set newly registered users to "moderated" so their first comment (or two, or however many) has to be approved before they're turned loose. Doing that would eventually mean DNN would be looking for a couple comment wranglers, so we don't become the bottleneck on this.
This is a war we're committed to winning.
Word
Keep fighting the good fight!
In defense of spammers
The business would not exist if spammers couldn't make money off it. Even if less than 1% of people (who am I kidding? MEN) didn't respond with their money, that's still a massive level of income for everyone along the spam food chain.
I'm not the God-of-all-spam-detection, but the last batch appeared to be human-like but ultimately non-human. You'll notice this page is #3 on this Google Search:
http://www.google.com/search?q="WFTDA%2FUSARS"+site%3Aderbynewsnetwork.com
They're harvesting keywords from the site and injecting them into their body text. They just happened to pick a wacky one to use.
One piece of advice might be to alter your robots.txt to stop Google, Bing, etc. from indexing the pages that allow comments. If the spammers can't find them in searches then they're less likely to spam them.
The Joy of Spam
I certainly can't be the only one to see a certain elegance to the sentence "Its very healthy posting.thansk for sharring"
I think you have the exact right amount of spam here at DNN. It's not overrunning the site and, when it pops up, it usually contains some deranged poetry.
Plus, since the spam gets posted in older topics, it affords a little trip down memory lane. I had almost forgotten that Howie Swerve was a goddamned lunatic.
Hooray for off-brand herbal supplements and the foreign robots who promote them!
I think we should be culturally sensitive on this.
We need to be culturally sensitive towards our Hawaiian friends with Pacific Roller Derby and not talk bad about Spam, which is their national dish.
Did you know that my name in Hawaiian is "Lolo Haole?" My Hawaiian neighbor back in Vegas taught me this.
See you in April in "The City," Marty?
Don't forget where it's made!
We need to be culturally sensitive towards our Hawaiian friends with Pacific Roller Derby and not talk bad about Spam, which is their national dish.
And made in Austin, Minnesota - a city pretty much equidistant from the Minnesota RollerGirls, North Star Roller Girls, and Sioux Falls Derby Dollz!
Hawaiian National Derby Team
...Spam...which is their national dish.
Do they have a military? And, who is their leader?
This reminds me. Poobah, when are you going to compile all of the data to confirm my theory that the average IQ in derby is higher than the general population?
Here's your answers.
...Spam...which is their national dish.
Do they have a military? And, who is their leader?
Their leader is Melo. He leads their military as well. He and his battalion of surf-commandos were the first Hawaiian troops to enter the Bay of Kalua Pig in their successful invasion of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico tried to get New Mexico to declare war against Hawaii, but Hawaii's British Columbian allies threatened to retaliate.
No argument here
Spammers suck.
There are a couple more recent ones -- check the "Recent Comments", they're obvious.
by the numbers
And - I understand this only covers WFTDA leagues. It would be interesting from a numbers standpoint to include non-affiliated leagues as well.
I counted 11 leagues in Colorado the other day, although only 6 of them are WFTDA/WFTDA-Apprentice.
yes it would!
lots of great suggestions here! I was thinking about talking to derbyroster.com to see if they have addition dates for their listings, to do an all-inclusive map (although check out Weird Al's Google Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=s&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-b...
attendance and membership data might be harder to get. might need an NSF grant.
and more than one person has suggested mapping the Dyte centroid... :) I'm game.
this is interesting..
I didn't even know we as many teams as we did her in the land of Lincoln.
You run into a lot of
You run into a lot of qualifying problems with non-WFTDA leagues. SDDD is a no-brainer, since they're good enough to be DNN ranked in interleague FT competition. But how many leagues have been "declared" vs how many have actually played interleague games? Or even intraleague games? I know, for example, Cayman Islands was the 4th league ever formed, but I never heard of them ever playing any games (that doesn't mean they didn't, I just never found any record of it). Out of 450 or so leagues, how many have made it as far as playing a game?
You can't reasonably consider all non-WFTDA leagues equal. Had SDDD been accepted into the WFTDA (they applied, but were turned down), they would have made Western Regionals based on their record this year. How many other non-WFTDA leagues could make that claim? I don't think there were any others. But what if there were?
If SDDD is a complete anomaly this year, it isn't safe to assume there won't be more non-WFTDA leagues cropping up that play WFTDA regulation games (really the only baseline that is practical) at a rankable level within the next two years. That's assuming you wanted to restrict such a study to just leagues that play WFTDA regulation flat track. Though the number of leagues outside that definition is relatively small. LADD and I think Red Dirt even play flat track games under WFTDA regulation rules and officiating, and they are *banked track* leagues.
You'll definitely want an NSF grant. I checked the funding opportunities index at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/azindex.jsp?start=A but couldn't find anything for Roller Derby (or sports or athletics for that matter) :)
Caymans? Nah.
But how many leagues have been "declared" vs how many have actually played interleague games? Or even intraleague games? I know, for example, Cayman Islands was the 4th league ever formed, but I never heard of them ever playing any games (that doesn't mean they didn't, I just never found any record of it). Out of 450 or so leagues, how many have made it as far as playing a game?
The Cayman Island league was apparently a pipe dream that never went anywhere. If you're going to look at league listings, seriously don't look at ones maintained by individual leagues. Because leagues get added and never get removed or updated.
Cat O'Ninetails' Roller Derby Worldwide is about as good a guide to what leagues are out there as anyone's likely to find. Some folks (whistles innocently while looking up) let her know when leagues are showing evidence of not existing any more (or ever). Web hosting going dormant and/or MySpace profile going dormant for a certain amount of time are useful clues.
Her aim with the site is to give new and forming leagues a chance for potential skaters to find their local league, whether it's finished forming up or not. As such there are some leagues on the list that have never skated a bout. DerbyMatic's league database on the other hand, only lists leagues that have held bouts. Though it also leaves defunct leagues that didn't change into something else on the list, provided there's a bout history there to maintain.
The built-in queries probably can't give us a list of leagues who've ever held bouts. I'm sure a custom one could be cooked up that'd do so. As for leagues that still exist who've done so, that's pretty much as easy as looking for leagues that have skated a bout in the past year.
I heart derby data
This is awesome. Thank you!
sorry
for gross miss use of the english language.
News generation
Google Trends shows the top 10 places where news of roller derby has been published since 04:
Cities
1. Tucson, AZ, USA
2. Austin, TX, USA
3. Madison, WI, USA
4. Portland, OR, USA
5. Louisville, KY, USA
6. Denver, CO, USA
7. Kansas City, MO, USA
8. Seattle, WA, USA
9. Minneapolis, MN, USA
10. Houston, TX, USA
(from: http://google.com/trends?q=roller+derby )
Snob resistance from the big markets?
It's interesting that the medium sized markets with derby are more amenable to reporting on it while the bigger markets (e.g., NYC, Philly, LA/So Cal, Bay Area, Chicago) with derby aren't as interested. I guess with more professional sport diversions, maybe the bigger cities don't consider derby worthy of the print. Who knows? Sexism? Resistance to the new and unusual, yet edgy?
I have to wonder about that.
I have to wonder about that. A Google search with "LA Times" and "Roller Derby" show an awful lot of articles in just the last year alone. Maybe they only go by the headline?
I don't know how they're
I don't know how they're measuring it but the L.A. media have been very supportive of derby, and especially of the L.A. Derby Dolls. We've gotten a tremendous amount of press from L.A. media; not just from the LA Times but LA Weekly, all of the local blogs etc. We get quite a bit of inquiries and articles every week so the interest is definitely there (you can see for yourself as most of it is archived on our site - http://derbydolls.com/press/).
But yes, the L.A. media landscape (and I would imagine most comparable cities) is a very difficult one to navigate as there is a lot of clutter to break through and you have to compete for space against genuine news, celebs and Paris Hilton's crotch. Despite that, they've been very very kind to us so we try to make sure they are recognized for their support and the quality of their reporting.
Why media isn't writing about derby
At least in terms of covering specific games...
Media likes photos delivered right away (like two hours after said event). They also like their photos filled with IPTC data. Photographers submitting stuff to the press generally have to tag and identify all the skaters or at least the teams in the photos, describe what they are doing, where they are doing it.
I attempted to do this for the Nationals this year submitting them to Global Look (or Zuma Press).
Here are the steps I took.
A) sift through photos that I actually thought were news worthy (told a story, had nice composition)
B) tag and identify the photos
C) upload the photos into a black hole (aka the press FTP site)
Because I like sleep, I never got around to going through the photos until I was in the car going back home. It took me a few hours in the car and a day at home to wade through all the photos selecting about 50 from just under 10,000.
If the skater name wasn't visible in the photo I picked, I'd scan through other photos to check to see if the name was visible in those. Using the printed program I could also get the skater name from the number. With the exception of Olympia. They had no names on the backs of their uniforms and the photo in the program didn't have any data that could be cross referenced.
I sent the team an email for the skater data. They were great in that they got back to me in a day. Still, that was another day gone.
By the time the photos were tagged and uploaded to the press ftp site the event was almost a five days old or a week after the event started.
So daily newspapers were out. Now it would be up to weekly publications to pick it up and unless they were actually looking for Roller Derby, the declaration of derby, Derby in philly, the nationals 2009, or various other tags that I had to tag each photo with, the publications wouldn't know to look for the photos. And who knows they might be looking at another news feed. Maybe they use Getty?
As you can see the window of opportunity of submitting photos for news gets pretty small.
Posting photos after each game or by the end of each day would increase the changes of publication but it's still not a done deal. A few minutes between games barely allows me to copy photos off the camera. In order to do this properly I'd need an assistant that just takes the photos and tags everyone, does photo tweeking, and uploads the photos to the FTP site. This would be done while the games were being played. Kind of like shooting fashion week I suppose. Maybe at the next Nationals I can figure a way to do this.
Another option would to be photographing every odd game and have another photographer shoot the even games. Then during the game we're not shooting we could be doing all that boring computer stuff.
This reminds me of an
This reminds me of an allegedly true story i heard where some wrestling promoter called the local newspaper and asked why the results of the matches were never in the next day's newspaper. The sports page editor asked the wrestling promoter when his bouts finished, and the promoter said "around 10 PM." The sports page editor said "well, that's why -- our sports page deadline is 8 PM. By the time your event is over and your results are in, we've already gone to press." The promoter then asked, in all apparent sincerity, "what if we got you the results BEFORE the matches?"
addendum
I also would like to say I skipped the step of post processing. I hate post processing (because I, personally, am lazy). Photographers who do this increase the time it would take to deliver the photos. There are those that do manage to do it and they are amazing.
In conclusion (ha ha this sounds so official), the next time your see your league photographer, give them a hug, a high five, and/or appreciate what they do. I'm pretty fortunate in that I have the appreciation of pretty much the entire Canadian eastern region (wow did I actually type that?) and I'm saddened when I talk to other photographers that are not treated as well by their league.
Granted it's hard to compete with Hammer City and Montreal cause they're the best leagues anywhere :-).
Aw shucks.....
Granted it's hard to compete with Hammer City and Montreal cause they're the best leagues anywhere :-).
Thanks Hot Bagel! Looking forward to seeing you early in the new year if not sooner! Great Nationals coverage too!
xoxo Perky
On The Media
(sorry, couldn't resist the NPR reference)
I'm responsible for handling the media during bouts, and I can assure you that the photographers and videographers have zero interest in covering an entire evening. They show up and keep shooting until they get something they can use and then go home. Their work is usually processed within hours and ready for their media outlets before last whistle.
We've also had journalists who did long form work which had a ton of leadup and full coverage of an evening. That was usually done within 24 hours of the event.
So, yeah, the kind of stuff most derby photographers do wouldn't be useful for media outlets.
Bagel, your photos are great
Bagel, your photos are great!
Quantity vs Quality
NYT only had one piece, to my knowledge, on derby (with a natural emphasis on Gotham). Despite that, however, they were one of the few major papers that covered Northwest Knockdown. It was a very well done piece, in my view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/magazine/01Derby-t.html
I also seem to recall some ire that Portland papers declined to cover the event as well - though I don't recall the reason - that led to a little bit of an uproar a year ago.
Indeed; there's even a
Indeed; there's even a reference to the no-coverage brouhaha in the NY Times article you cite. I thought the line was just something along the lines of 'fringe sport, not of interest to our readers'. Fair bit of coverage of the resulting storm of complaint letters, though.
Denver and Minneapolis
Both areas with two WFDTA teams in very close proximity to each other, both doing great marketing.
the other derby
much as I appreciate Derby City RG, and much as I'd like to think Kentucky is one of the top 5 roller derby markets, somehow I think that the Louisville listing has more to do with horses than skates.
horses on skates?
Interesting thought.. I searched for roller+derby but it would be interesting to know how loose the match was.
Interesting point
When one changes the query to "roller derby" (with quotes: http://google.com/trends?q=%22roller+derby%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&so...) you get the following:
1. Tucson, AZ, USA
2. Austin, TX, USA
3. Madison, WI, USA
4. Portland, OR, USA
5. Denver, CO, USA
6. Seattle, WA, USA
7. Louisville, KY, USA
8. Minneapolis, MN, USA
9. Houston, TX, USA
10. Phoenix, AZ, USA
Louisville is still up there, but not as high.
That's just measuring where
That's just measuring where the terms "Roller derby" were used in searches. Not in the body of articles themselves. For the articles that show up, "Roller derby" had to be in the headline.
So any league that specifically succeeds in branding itself would be searched under the league name, not "roller derby", and any article where the writer/editor had an ounce of creativity will probably have a pun in the headline without mentioning "roller derby". Also, not all articles or news casts will result in a Google search for "roller derby", especially if the league succeeded in getting their league website published.
It appears that the purpose of the tool is to check how well your "branding" attempts are working. So if a league's attempts to publicize itself are resulting in a "roller derby" search instead of their league name, their attempt at branding has failed.
Speaking of branding, look at the top cities where "WFTDA" is searched: http://google.com/trends?q=%22WFTDA%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
same phenomenon outside USA
Do the quote search in the UK region and London comes WAY down the list.
(we have to use the quotes otherwise you get the results for the town of "derby" in there too)
http://google.com/trends?q=%22roller+derby%22&ctab=0&geo=gb&geor=all&dat...
Cities
1. Edinburgh, United Kingdom
2. Sheffield, United Kingdom
3. Birmingham, United Kingdom
4. Brentford, United Kingdom
5. Poplar, United Kingdom
6. London, United Kingdom
7. Thames Ditton, United Kingdom
8. Manchester, United Kingdom
...and Thames Ditton???
OMG
Howie Swerve has finally proved what a huge, huge geography nerd he is!
We love him both for and despite this :)
~dr.SKabs
DC Rollergirls
another derby-demic here...
if we ever need a historian, i'm up for it. (perhaps after i finish my thesis though. i'm kind of in the middle of it right now.) maybe i can actually use my degree for something then. :)
that's just the women
What happens when the mens leagues are mapped too?
Does it move opposite the women or do we need to wait one more year to have statistically significant numbers?
not exactly
Well, it's not even really "the women"... it's just WFTDA. So the first question is "what happens when we put all the other non-WFTDA leagues in?"
I might try this (and adding men as well) if I can get league start-dates... but that's a lot of data to go out and find...
h~
How to find start dates...
A fair number of them have been worked out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roller_derby_leagues
hitting you on my quest too
Howie
Don't know if you've seen my postings about trying to get a handle on Derby attendance in the last couple years. Really appreciated your geography of derby
posting... wondering if you've got any insights regarding national Derby attendance
numbers, or a direction of sources you could point me in order to keep building
stats into this project.
Thanks
Hell Ocho