This weekend, the Premier League season created more unrelenting drama, the Formula 1 season continued to divide opinion and the World T20 headed towards the knockout stages. Here’s a look at the social media insights in this week’s Pitch Inspection.
The highlight of the Premier League fixtures was the top of the table clash between Arsenal and Man City. In a pulsating game, both sets of fans seemed happy with the result as an overall 77.4% positive sentiment was recorded. 9am and 7pm were peak hours for content volume, with a large drop in the two hours prior to the 5.30pm kick-off:
One of the most influential users on Twitter was Economics Editor for the BBC (and Arsenal fan), @peston.
Hopes disappointed, expectations surpassed #AFCvMCFC
— Robert Peston (@Peston) March 29, 2014
In the Aviva Premiership, Leicester took on Northampton at Franklins Gardens. Social media anger levels rose to 42.9% in the first half (average 30.8%), as Saints hooker @DylanHartley was involved in an incident with opposite number and England colleague @TomYoungs87. As a result, allegations of “biting” became a top phrase as Leicester came out 22-16 winners.
The ATP Sony Open came to a close on Sunday night as @DjokerNole came out on top to extend his winning streak over @RafaelNadal to 3 matches. Although average positive sentiment grew steadily over the weekend (average 88.3%), there was a 15% drop in positivity and 25% rise in perceived Anger levels as the Serb took the title, suggesting a Nadal victory would have been a more popular outcome amongst the tennis faithful. Just 34% of all content was posted from a mobile device, but this did illustrate a 20% growth in mobile usage from last week’s focus on Andy Murray at the same tournament.
On Saturday, Formula 1 headed to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysia GP. “Jim” was a popular phrase on Twitter as Lewis Hamilton’s 33rd pole position equalled Jim Clark’s British record. On Sunday, positive sentiment hit a low of 11.7% during the race.
Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull continued to struggle with an average weekend positive sentiment of just 37%, but the German still managed a podium position, finishing in third place. After a post-race press conference in which he criticised the 2014 F1 engine noise, this dropped to just 15%, but then rose to over 50% as the public majority seemingly echoed his opinions. Key phrases “appeal” and “sanction” appeared on Sunday as it was rumoured that Red Bull may drop their appeal against a ban on Vettel’s teammate Daniel Ricciardo (imposed following a fuel violation at the Australian GP) in order to avoid a punishment for their number one driver.
