Zignal Insights: Monitoring and Predicting the NFL Draft
The 2014 NFL Draft afforded us the opportunity to use Zignal to analyze one of the biggest events on social media. During this experiment, we dove into the data to find exciting new insights while also testing our ability to monitor real world events. THE RESULTS The NFL Draft drives an immense amount of traffic. There were over 500,000 mentions in the hours leading up to the event, topping out at over 93,000 per hour during the first picks at 8:10 pm EST. Our realtime analytics kept pace with the high-volume conversation, constantly updating to reflect each round of breaking news, from rumors to the first pick. M E T HOD O LO G Y We monitored broadly, tracking all mentions of NFL Draft and #NFL Draft across media types. Our coverage includes the full Twitter API, public Facebook, hundreds of thousands and news and blogs. Additionally, we used our Issues feature for a second layer of Boolean searching to measure top prospects by position. While there was a significant amount of chatter in the day leading up to the event, momentum started to build most as a result of rumors, predictions, and proximity to the start of the event. There were also spikes in the conversation near the end of the work day and immediately before the event began. Popularity was a decent predictor of placement in the draft, with the rank of total mentions corresponding to pick placement in most cases. The exception to this is Johnny Manizel; even though Jedeveon Clowney was expected to be the first pick (and was), Johnny Manziel was the most talked about athlete. Manziel defied the popularity trend and was the 22nd pick in the first round. Analysis of the conversation in the seconds immediately after the first draft pick accurately reflected the first pick, with the Houston Texans and Jadeveon Clowney showing up most prominently in the word cloud. 2
Social media was the primary form of dialogue Trends Media outlets engaged with fans on social media more than through traditional news stories. Fans used Twitter to voice their predictions for draft day. As a result, speculation, predictions and rumors were prominent words in the word cloud throughout the day. Fans also used Twitter for celebrity gossip, fashion, and speculations about Walk-Up music for each player. These types of tangential topics accounted for the majority of trending stories leading up to the event, indicating the widespread appeal of this event. N E W MED IA A Vine of Jadeveon Clowney was a trending story, with 3,724 mentions before the draft started. Trending stories by top mentions on May 8, the day of the draft 4
Traditional sports sources were top influencers Trending and Popular Stories Traditional media outlets ranked highly among top influencers, with the NFL, ESPN, CBS Sports, and USA Today accounting for much of the shared content. The NFL s draft countdown tweet was a trending story throughout the day, with over 3,000 mentions. Separately, the NFL also had the 3rd most popular tweet. ESPN s story on Derek Carr ESPN also ranked highly with a story about Derek Carr, a Quarterback from Fresno state. This story was shared 4,548 times. Traditional outlets also used video sharing sites to spread clips of the draft candidates. YouTube was a prominent source and was ranked as the most shared site overall. The official NFL Twitter account s countdown tweet 5
Predictions and rumors drive the conversation Rumors Rumors began to form at 9:00 am EST that the Dallas Cowboys were going to draft Johnny Manziel, a Quarterback from Texas A&M, causing the overall conversation to spike to around 10,000 mentions per hour. Cowboy-Manziel Rumors Increasing Mentions The conversation began to gain momentum during the lunch hour on the East Coast. From noon to 1:00 pm EST there were 21,504 mentions. In the first 15 minutes, the conversation peaked at 7 mentions per second. Mentions during lunch Quarter Million Mentions By 5:00 pm EST, the NFL Draft campaign had reached a quarter million mentions. In one 15 minute period at the start of the event, there was an average of more than 2000 tweets per minute. The most talked about team throughout the day was the Houston Texans, reflecting their position as the first round draft pick. Mentions at end of work day 3
Popularity is often a good predictor of the draft Issue searches allowed us to add a second layer of Boolean queries to our search and filter the results by position RESULTS Quarterback FALSE The most talked about Quarterback was Johnny Manziel, with 17,075 mentions before the draft, was the 22nd pick. Blake Bortles, with 3,722 mentions, was the first QB drafted. Defensive Ends TRUE Jadeveon Clowney was by far the most talked about Defensive End with 8,197 mentions, and was also the first pick overall. Running Backs TRUE Running Backs were not as popular with fans or the teams. Bishop Sankey was the first picked, as the 54th pick overall. He had 747 mentions before the draft. Wide Receivers TRUE The most popular Wide Receiver was Sammy Watkins, with 4,355 mentions, and he was also the first Wide Receiver pick. The second most popular, Mike Evans, was the second picked. Safeties FALSE Calvin Pryor was the first pick among Safeties but was only the second most popular. The most popular, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix was the 21st pick. Cornerbacks TRUE The most popular (976 mentions) Cornerback, Justin Gilbert, was picked first for this position. Tight Ends TRUE The most popular Tight End, Eric Ebron, was also the first pick. Inside Linebackers TRUE CJ Mosley, the only Inside Linebacker with significant mentions was the first picked at 17th overall. 6
Zignal visualizations show realtime changes in the conversation Immediately prior to the event, the word cloud widget highlighted the general conversation surrounding the event, including the NFL Draft official hashtag, walk-up songs, and coverage of the event. Word cloud widget generated at 7:45 pm EST on May 8 At 8:00 pm EST, the Houston Texans picked Jadeveon Clowney, a Defensive End from South Carolina, as the first overall pick in the draft. The word cloud widget captured this change in the conversation immediately, with Clowney becoming the largest word overall. Word cloud widget generated at 8:00 pm EST on May 8 7