Monitoring and Predicting the NFL Draft - Zignal Insights
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Zignal Insights:
Monitoring and
Predicting the NFL Draft
©2014 Zignal Labs
ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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.
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,
M E T HOD O LO G Y
We monitored broadly,
and proximity to the start of the event.
tracking all mentions of
“NFL Draft” and #NFL Draft There were also spikes in the conversation near the end of the work day and
across media types. immediately before the event began.
Our coverage includes the full Popularity was a decent predictor of placement in the draft, with the rank of
Twitter API, public Facebook, total mentions corresponding to pick placement in most cases.
hundreds of thousands and
news and blogs. 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
Additionally, we used our talked about athlete. Manziel defied the popularity trend and was the 22nd
Issues feature for a second pick in the first round.
layer of Boolean searching to
measure top prospects by
Analysis of the conversation in the seconds immediately after the first draft
position.
pick accurately reflected the first pick, with the Houston Texans and
Jadeveon Clowney showing up most prominently in the word cloud.
©2014 Zignal Labs 2
ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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
©2014 Zignal Labs 4
ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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 ESPN’s story on Derek Carr
most popular tweet.
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
©2014 Zignal Labs 5ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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
©2014 Zignal Labs 3ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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 Defensive Ends TRUE
The most talked about Quarterback was Johnny Manziel , with Jadeveon Clowney was by far the most talked about
17,075 mentions before the draft, was the 22nd pick. Blake Defensive End with 8,197 mentions, and was also the first pick
Bortles, with 3,722 mentions, was the first QB drafted. overall.
Running Backs TRUE Wide Receivers TRUE
Running Backs were not as popular with fans or the teams. The most popular Wide Receiver was Sammy Watkins, with
Bishop Sankey was the first picked, as the 54th pick overall. 4,355 mentions, and he was also the first Wide Receiver pick.
He had 747 mentions before the draft. The second most popular, Mike Evans, was the second picked.
Safeties FALSE Cornerbacks TRUE
Calvin Pryor was the first pick among Safeties but was only The most popular (976 mentions) Cornerback, Justin Gilbert,
the second most popular. The most popular, Ha Ha was picked first for this position.
Clinton-Dix was the 21st pick.
Inside Linebackers TRUE
Tight Ends TRUE CJ Mosley, the only Inside Linebacker with significant
The most popular Tight End, Eric Ebron, was also the first mentions was the first picked at 17th overall.
pick.
©2014 Zignal Labs 6ZIGNAL INSIGHTS
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
©2014 Zignal Labs 7You can also read
