NFL Brand Takes a Hit in Social Media

September 26, 2012 | Comments Off

What’s worse than no football season? A football season with bad refs.
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Let’s take a look at sentiment towards the NFL and football referees over the last year.  The NFL (red line) generated thousands upon thousands of social media conversations. At least 30% of those conversations were positive, and more and more have been positive over the year. At least until September, that is. On the other hand, the poor referees haven’t been in the good books all year with no more than 19% of messages about them being positive. And, they took a big hit in June and July when fewer than 8% of social media conversations were positive.

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But if we look just at daily conversations since September 1st, and particularly since yesterday when massive errors in refereeing took place, everything changed. While people chatting on social media continue to be just as unhappy with the refs, now they are also extremely unhappy with the NFL. The percentage of conversations about the NFL that were positive dropped drastically from around 40% to only 20%. That’s a massive decline that won’t make for an easy rebound. The NFL had better have a good plan to get themselves out of that hole.

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So what exactly are people saying about the replacement referees? If we look at just the kinds of words and phrases people used when they talked about referrees over the last two days, the words really aren’t all that mean. People are disappointed, they think people ought to be embarrassed, and they feel the whole situation is a disgrace and a blow to integrity of the sport. But hiring unqualified employees isn’t really the fault of the employees.

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Who’s fault is it? Certainly, the NFL’s fault. I’d like to tell you what kinds of words and phrases people used when they talked about the NFL but my mother told me to never say those words. I’m sure you can read them but please don’t read them out loud.

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