On Sunday, January 6, reports suggested that the lengthy NHL lockout was about to end. Teams are starting to hold practices. Games are expected to begin later in January, and the Stanley Cup will be presented in June. After such a long and heated break, will fans come back to professional hockey? Social media analysis of Twitter discussions revealed some notable insights.
People expressing opinions about the NHL and NHL teams on Twitter are as disappointed with the league and professional hockey as they are happy that the lockout has finally ended.
In the three days after a resolution was announced, most of the conversation (56%) was simply sharing the news that the lockout had ended.
If we remove that neutral conversation, we can clearly see the split social opinion on the NHL and the end of the lockout.
With social opinion now representing the whole conversation, we find that 49% of the conversation expresses positive sentiment about the end of the lockout and NHL hockey, while 50% expresses negative sentiment.
Using Crimson Hexagon’s ForSight™ social media analysis platform, we uncover the nuance and motivation of this positive and negative sentiment. Within the “Positive” category, 37% of the conversation expresses that they are “Glad the lockout ended.” Additionally, 12% of the social conversation expresses that they are “Excited to see games.”
Of the “Negative” category, 16% of the conversation communicates frustration with the NHL, and 34% expresses decreased interest in professional hockey due to the lockout and severely delayed season.
We also use ForSight to investigate how social opinion changes over time.
In this proportion graph, we see that the share of the conversation expressing “decreased interest in hockey” and the negative segment of conversation overall both increase from January 6, the day of the announcement, to January 8.
At Crimson Hexagon, we will keep an eye on the trend of declining interest in NHL hockey and, potentially, fan loyalty. What do you think? Will the NHL suffer in the long-term from this year’s lockout? Let us what you know on Twitter @crimsonhexagon.
If you’d like to see how to use ForSight for social media analysis to understand social opinion about your company or brand, please request a free demo.