The NFL Draft is just hours away, and while this year’s prospects have had less involvement on social media compared to previous classes, they were more likely to perform social media profile maintenance, according to an analysis made for THE DAILY by MarketCast. The fact that this year's class has been deleting posts may indicate an elevated sense of awareness of the impact that old social media posts can have on potential draft stock; 82% of this year’s draft class deleted at least 1 social media post.
The analysis shows that this year's draft class was posting to social media at a slightly lesser rate than the '19 class.
This year's prospects had a significant decrease compared to last year in terms of having verified accounts across various social media platforms.
This year’s hopefuls had just as much explicit-language posts as the previous class. Mentions stemmed primarily from posts created during high school and middle school.
The '20 class had more social media posts containing explicit photos or video. These posts were much more frequently “likes” than posts or retweets/reposts.
The percentage of prospects who had some sort of political engagement remained consistent. However, political content was less severe this year. Of the political posts in '19, 27% were moderate to severe, compared to only 8% of political posts in '20.
This year’s prospects were wary of negative mentions referencing NFL teams: 87% percent of the '20 class had no negative mention of NFL teams compared to 55% in '19.
The '20 class was consistent with the '19 class when it came to posting drug/alcohol-related content: 6% of drug and/or alcohol-related posts made by last year’s class contained moderate or severe content. But just 2% of such posts were moderate/severe in '20.
Other notable takeaways from the data:
- Offensive lineman were the most likely to have flags (of any level of severity) against them on social media and were most likely to have political mentions.
- Running backs were most likely to negatively mention an NFL team.
- Cornerbacks were most likely to have severe explicit language.
- Linebackers and wide receivers were most likely to have explicit content and drug/alcohol-related content.
