Social Analysis Reveals Sports Industry Opportunities

2
Summary
When the World Cup focused worldwide attention on soccer, we analyzed
the market opportunity for bringing international soccer teams to play in
the US.
Using Crimson Hexagon’s ForSightTM platform to the largest set of
unsolicited consumer opinions (i.e. social media data), we studied the
social perception of international soccer teams playing in the US.
Specifically, we analyzed US conversation about two top soccer teams in
the international rankings: AS Roma and Liverpool FC.
 How would fans respond?
 How can teams effectively position the game within the US?
 Where is consumer interest highest in the US?

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Buzz Summary
AS Roma Italian Buzz 01.01.13 – 08.08.14

4
Buzz Summary

5
What Resonates
For the Italian team,
national pride emanates
through Tweets

6
Topic Waves

7
Top Influencers & Hashtags

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Tweets
Marketing efforts for
memorabilia are highly
successful as users
promote their swag on
social channels.

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@OfficialASRoma
To take a deeper dive into social data directly
linked to the AS Roma brand, we analyzed
engagement with the official Twitter handle.
January 1st 2013 – August 8th 2014

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Total Post Volume
@OfficialASRoma Twitter Social Account 12.19.13 – 08.08.14
Potential Impressions on March 10th
185,588,587

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Summary

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Trends
• As the number of
followers increased by 66
percent, the fanbase and
total account mentions of
@OfficialASRoma and
positive engagement
sentiment increase
together.
• On May 12th, the
positive sentiment
reaches 62% with AS
Roma account mentions
peaking at 88%.

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Top Verbatim

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ITA vs US Conversation
We then compared the Italian conversation with the
AS Roma conversation in the US.

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Summary Buzz
AS Roma US vs ITA 01.01.13 – 08.08.14
Italy USA

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Topics
Italians are consistently sharing posts about their
favorite team. They are strong supporters of the
beloved ‘giallorossi’ and topics like ‘Daje Roma’ or
‘Forza Roma’ are unique cheers proprietary for
Romans and their untouchable ‘squadra’.
US conversations is more sporadic; themes are
concentrated around isolated events. We can
see islands of scattered discussions usually on
a day of a game, with some commenting on
individual duels or players.
AS Roma US vs ITA 01.01.13 – 08.08.14
Italy USA

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Affinities
The affinities of the US audience are sport-centric, including interests such as US soccer, Landon
Donovan, FIFA World Cup, hockey, and NHL. On the other hand, interests among people talking in
Italy almost perfectly depict the stereotype of Italian lifestyle: ‘luxury goods’, Ferrari, politico, governo,
‘haute couture’, and Coco Chanel. And sport segments trickle into the conversation with ‘la liga’,
Wimbledon, championships.
AS Roma US vs ITA 01.01.13 – 08.08.14
Italy USA

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Liverpool FC
Buzz Monitors
We created comparable analysis for the league
team, Liverpool FC.

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Summary Opinion
Liverpool FC Buzz 01.01.13 – 08.08.14

20
What Resonates

21
Topic Waves

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Top Influencers & Hashtags

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Tweets
What shines through for Liverpool? Their fan base and love
of their team.

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Affinities
AS Roma US vs ITA 01.01.13 – 08.08.14
The Affinities for Liverpool FC tell a clear geo-
centric story - gravitating not only towards sport
oriented segments, but also corresponding the
geo-segments closely to the team with the most
devoted fan base and strongest global presence.
Liverpool is inseparable from conversation about
England. As such, Affinities clearly visualize like-
minded messaging through segments such as
Steven Gerard, Premier League, Liverpool,
England, Inglaterra, BBC and many more.

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@LFCUSA
Twitter Social Account Monitor
We created another Social Account Monitor on
ForSight to analyze the brand conversation
directly associated with LFC’s account.
December 19th 2013 – August 8th 2014

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Total Post Volume
@LFCUSA Twitter Social Account 12.19.13 – 08.08.14
Potential Impressions on July 21st
76,136,297

27
Summary

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Growth Trends
Liverpool’s US handle experienced a boom right
before their US Tour and the fan base grew
exponentially from July 20th onwards. Social fans
grew by more than 7.5 times overnight (i.e.
738%). The boom directly impacted the overall
volume of engagement, positive engagement and
sentiment, which averaged around 40% on daily
basis.
Total Engagement Engagement Sentiment

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Sentiment Trends

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Top Verbatim
Most Popular RT

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Liverpool FC vs. AS ROMA
at Fenway
So what does this mean for competition in the US?
We analyzed the two teams together and their
games played in the US over this past summer.
July 11th 2014 – August 1st 2014

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Summary Opinion
Liverpool FC & AS Roma Game at Fenway 07.11.14 – 08.01.14

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Positive Conversation
Positive statements about the game itself were the largest category with 46% of the overall
conversation. ‘Fútbol’ enthusiasts rejoiced in this game. Within the category, 24% of the
tweets discussed the game as a great event at Fenway.
The second largest sub-category was intent to purchase at 13%. Partaking in that discussion
were people seeking tickets or sharing their excitement about recent ticket purchases.

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Team Mentions
Looking at discussion about the teams, the chatter was six times greater for Liverpool FC
at 44% than for AS Roma at 7%. Fans, particularly Bostonians, were extremely excited
about the LFC team being in the US and in Boston, posting tweets that this is their
“dream come true” moment.
The AS Roma conversation was minute compared to LFC. When the AS Roma team was
discussed, the conversation wasn’t about specific players, it was mostly regarding the
team coming to in Boston at Fenway.

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Opinion Proportions
Our monitor’s structure captures the proportional responses and trends of individual topics.
First, the proportions were skewed toward the AS Roma, so we can assume that this was due
to an early arrival of the Italian club and their players to Boston. As the US Tour and the game
unfolds, the LFC is dominating the pool of conversation. With their strong presence, LFC topics
quiet down the other categories and it’s associated conversation expands. Other topics return
in presence after initial reaction to LFC, as seen in the last interval of the time frame.
AS Roma trends and dominates
the overall conversation
breakdown throughout the first
week of the analyzed period.
However, at the precise moment
Liverpool FC categories invades
the field, the ASR categories
deflate, then basically disappear.
The other categories shrink
instantly as Liverpool
categories gain on their
proportion of conversation
and consequently, they
inflate as the Italian category
slowly loses its dominance.

36
Global Demographics
Looking at posts per capita on a
global scale, Ireland and the UK
rank significantly higher than the
US, as can be expected.
However, the amount of posts for
the US is significantly lower than
anticipated, with only three posts
per million which matches post
rates coming from Australia.

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US Demographics
At the country level, Massachusetts is the
clear volume winner with most posts per
capita; 38 posts per million. New
Hampshire follows closely behind with 17
posts per million and Vermont with 13
posts per million, ranking second and third
for the highest engagement in the
conversation per capita.
Given that New York is near the states with
highest engagement, and has similar
income level and quality of lifestyle, it is
surprising that the volume in New York is
quite low - only 4 posts per million.

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Affinities
The naturally expected segments populated when we targeted domestic US
conversation around the highly anticipated soccer/football event that
happened in Boston. Our algorithm organically reveals affinities such as
Liverpool, Major League Soccer, Premier League, and also some segments with
high geo-proximity characteristics such as New England
The second largest grouping we discerned
were personalities and leading athletes,
either international or on a national level
such as Steven Gerard, Luis Suarez, Landon
Donovan, Mamadou Sakho. It is surprising
that AS Roma, although being one of the
rivals in this game, has not earned any
presence in our affinities breakdown and
neither has any Italy related segment at all.
The American-English connection dominates
the majority of affinities associated to the
game.

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What does it all mean?
With this analysis, we get a full
picture of the teams and
conversation associated with this
soccer event’s US relationship and
perception.
With this social analysis, future
soccer-based opportunities that
appear in the US can prove what
worked and what can be improved,
as well as potential
players/spokespeople to garner
attention for events in the future.

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About
Crimson Hexagon is a leading provider of social media analysis software.
Powered by patented technology and an in-house data library of more than 500
billion posts, Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ platform delivers the industry’s
deepest and most actionable insights from social media data to hundreds of
brands and agencies. Clients include leading global organizations such as
Microsoft, Paramount Pictures, Starbucks, Simon & Schuster, and Twitter, and
leading agencies such as Droga 5, CP+B, HUGE, and We Are Social.

Social Analysis Reveals Sports Industry Opportunities

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Social Analysis Reveals Sports Industry Opportunities