Where in the World Will They Come From Next?

Ever since I added Flag Counter to the site a few years ago, I've been fascinated to watch the expanding range of countries from which visitors to MoS have hailed - many, I acknowledge, having visited purely by accident, only briefly, and never again. I doubt the Aland Islands has many hard-core AFL fans.

Currently, MoS has had at least one visitor from 146 countries, but none at all from a further 95. 

This year, over the course of the entire AFL season, I'm going to run a competition for anyone who'd like to guess which of the missing countries will finally register a visitor sometime during the season.

The competition will work like this:

  • Entries can be made any time up to the first centre-bounce in the first game of the 2016 season. I'll post details of entrants and selections in the 1st week of the regular season.
  • Entries will consist of five country names (or their numbers in the list below), in order from 1 to 5.
  • These can be submitted to me via Twitter where I'm @MatterOfStats, or via e-mail at tony.corke@gmail.com.
  • The winner will be determined as at the final siren of the 2016 Grand Final and will be determined based on, firstly, how many of the five countries nominated have provided at least one visitor during the 2016 season and, secondly, in the event of a tie, the earliest date at which any of the entrant's nominated countries provided a visitor. So, for example, if Entrant A and B both nominated 2 correct countries, if Entrant A's list contained countries providing visitors on June 12th and August 5th, while Entrant B's list contained countries providing visitors on July 1st and July 31st, Entrant A would win because June 12th predates July 1st.

There'll be no prizes, just a broad acknowledgement of your forecasting prowess. Should any of the 95 countries on the list provide a visitor to MoS prior to the first game of the season I'll update the list here and seek a replacement country from anyone who might have nominated that country amongst their five. There've been no visitors to MoS from new countries so far this year, and only four since October of 2015, so there's a good chance we'll start the season with all 95 still in play. (There's also a possibility we'll finish the season in that same position, but let's agree to be positive about all this.)

Here's the list:

So, go ahead and nominate your five countries. Surely there's a footy fan with Google in at least one of them.