Friday Fun: World Cup Soccer Sentiment

By Jennifer Zaino on July 9, 2010 9:25 AM

The Netherlands is the World Cup Winner!

OK, don’t panic. You didn’t miss the big game. That’s still scheduled for Sunday. We’re just reporting that it’s the winner in positive sentiment, according to the outcome of Attensity Group’s social media sentiment analysis of whether fans are favoriting Spain or Holland.

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, videos, and online forums were analyzed to reveal that 54 percent of the total conversation about the World Cup is directed toward Spain (see pie chart). But only 47 percent of the chat has been positive. Holland gets 46 percent of the total talk, but the positive sentiment hits 53 percent, Attensity says.

People apparently were happier with the Spanish team when it went up against the young German players the other day. Attensity reported that a couple of days ago sentiment breakdown showed the Spanish team getting more positive feedback. Attensity said that of the positive sentiment generated by both teams, Spain owned 55 percent of it, while Germany owned 45 percent of it. Germany chalked up 51 percent of the total negative discussion.

Personally, I’m going with Spain. They played hard against Germany — a team that I was feeling pretty positive about — and they were gracious winners. I’ll be happy with the outcome either way, though of course still regretting the U.S. won’t be there. Maybe in 2014.

Anyway, let’s get on to what surely will be the next topic for sentiment analytics vendors to tackle — LeBron James and his move to the Miami Heat. In the immortal words of Mike Myers as Linda Richman on SNL’s Coffee Talk skit, “Talk amongst yourselves.”