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In A Sentimental Mood: Facebook Bringing Research Component To Sports

Chiefs fans are the NFL’s most optimistic about the upcoming season and Chargers fans are the least, according to new data that Facebook is introducing today that monitors how fans feel about their favorite teams. Already used in politics, the social media company is expanding its “Sentiment Data” to sports by monitoring the Facebook posts and comments for all NFL fans that use the site. No sponsor is attached to the research, which is being released to coincide with the start of the NFL season tonight. “This is our first usage of this sentiment analysis in sports,” said Facebook Head of Global Sports Sponsorships Dan Reed. “It’s too early to say what sort of applications this might take going forward.” Facebook has used the “Sentiment Data” around politics (starting with the '12 U.S. Presidential election) and decided to expand it to sports earlier this year when execs saw a ton of action around the Super Bowl. Facebook says 65 million people had 265 million interactions around the game. “One thing we wished we could have done during the Super Bowl was dive a little bit deeper into that social conversation and not only understand how many people were talking about the game but determining how they were feeling throughout the game -- especially fans of those two teams,” said Facebook Data Editor Robert D’Onofrio. Facebook is starting with the country’s most popular league, but it also can use the data for other sports. Currently, it only measures how fans feel about their favorite teams; eventually it could be used to determine, for example, how one team’s fans feel about rival teams. Facebook execs say that close to 50 million people have liked at least one NFL team page on the site. Facebook’s “Sentiment Data” gathered during the preseason showed that Eagles fans were the NFC East’s most optimistic when QB Sam Bradford made his debut. Conversely, Redskins fans were the division’s least optimistic when QB Robert Griffin III was benched in favor of Kirk Cousins. “We think this is interesting and insightful and new,” Reed said. “There’s so much potential with this kind of insight. We’re just getting started. Sports is so emotional and so social."


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