Arsenal Lose ESL Popularity Battle

Football is in the doldrums following the announcement that Europe’s elite clubs intended to launch a European Super League.

Fans from the United Kingdom and the continent have shown their contempt for plans to create a special league for those teams at the top level of European football, with the rest of their leagues being left to pick up the pieces.

On Tuesday, B-Cure ambassador John Barnes, ex-Liverpool and England footballer, made his feelings clear on British television as he hit out at the proposals. With conversation rife on social media, the B-Cure Laser by Good Energies team has used sentiment analysis to see how the news has been received among fans. Which clubs have fans thrown their support behind, and which clubs have infuriated fans to the point that they have considered walking away from the team they have backed through the years?

Using sentiment analysis, B-Cure analysed more than 1,000 tweets containing club-specific hashtags for the 12 ESL founding members, the remaining Premier League clubs, as well as PSG and Bayern Munich, who both turned down the opportunity to join the ESL.

A pre-announcement sentiment score as well as a post-announcement sentiment score was collated to see how the clubs have been perceived on social media, with 1 being extremely positive, 0 being neutral, and -1 extremely negative.

Key findings:

ARSENAL fans are the MOST OUTRAGED of English Premier League clubs involved in ESL – Arsenal (-0.192), then Liverpool (-0.093), Man U (-0.061) 

BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION: Most loved EPL club post-ESL announcement. Top 6 For Fans: Brighton & Hove Albion \ Leicester \ Southampton \ West Ham \ Wolves \ Leeds United

LEEDS UNITED: EPL club with most positive sentiment change – 0.326 improvement (Barcelona most overall 0.723)

Overall Premier League sentiment IMPROVED (0.438 improvement) vs Top 6 sentiment decline (-0.019 decline) 

IMPROVED sentiment among clubs who rejected/weren’t invited to ESL proposal: 0.046, while the 12 ESL clubs’ sentiment dropped a combined -0.022

REPUTATIONAL HIT for JP Morgan – sentiment dropped -0.161

ENGLISH SUPPORTERS more PASSIONATE than Spanish and Italian fans – Support for Premier League clubs enjoyed positive 0.438 swing, with Serie A having a positive change of 0.073, and LaLiga sentiment dropping -0.104

56% SOCIAL FOLLOWER GROWTH for MANCHESTER UNITED against daily average. Highest for the 12 ESL founding members.

Source: bcurelaser.co.uk