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Pitch Inspection – US Masters, FA Cup, Premier League and London Marathon

Another jam-packed weekend of sport, another jam-packed edition of Pitch Inspection. This week, our bespoke analytics tool, Pitch Social Insights, looks into the US Masters, FA Cup and Premier League football and the London Marathon.

Master pre-tournament favourite Rory McIlroy went into the first round with 96.5% positive sentiment on Thursday. However after a disappointing weekend, this had dropped to 66.7% with Rory finishing in tied 8th place on Sunday evening. Bubba Watson took the green jacket, by which time “face” and “£1000” had become popular key phrases on Twitter, following the story that a UK man had placed a large bet on McIlroy to win, after he saw a likeness to the Northern Irishman on a Danish pastry!

Wigan took on Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday afternoon with both sets of fans hopeful before the game with positive sentiment at 90% pre-match. Sentiment dropped to 57.4% during the 120 minutes as Arsenal fans voiced their concerns on Twitter, but with the Gunners securing the tie on a penalty shootout, positive sentiment had returned to 83.3% as Arsene Wenger’s men continued their pursuit for a first trophy in nine years. Arsenal fan Josh Franceschi, singer of rock band You Me at Six, was a top influencer on Twitter:

In the biggest game of the Premier League season, Liverpool hosted Man City in the top of the table clash at Anfield. In a game that captured the imagination of an international audience, top influencers on social media appeared from the UK, South Africa, Kenya and the USA. As Liverpool came out 3-2 winners, mobile was the number one posting device, with 22.2% of users posting from Twitter for iPhone. Conversely, the big relegation battle between Norwich and Fulham registered desktop as the most popular device, but Twitter for iPhone still dominated with 24.1% of all posts been made from that source. TV presenter/producer Richard Osman was the top social influencer, with his Fulham side coming out 1-0 winners.

Double Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah took part in Sunday’s London Marathon, and as the elite runners began social media users were confident he could translate his form from the track to success on the road with 89.7% positive sentiment. Despite finishing a very respectable 8th place, “rough” was a popular keyword as the press reported a difficult competitive marathon debut. However, overall sentiment remained very supportive, with a high of 96.9% registered on Sunday evening as the British public voiced their support for the Olympic legend.

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