Introducing Team Heroine Positive Vibes Tracker

Part 1: The National Women’s Soccer League Teams

Introducing the Team Heroine Vibes Tracker in partnership with Areto Labs which is set to change the game in women’s sport and female athlete sentiment tracking.

I’ve been using Areto Listener to track and evaluate public sentiment, or as I call it the community’s ‘Vibes’ across the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) teams and players on social media.

Areto’s groundbreaking technology uses real-time Artificial Intelligence (AI) to track social media comments and run advanced language analysis, specifically designed to detect Toxic speech and bias.

Of course, not all comments are ‘Toxic’ and in fact the overwhelming majority of comments towards the teams and players in the NWSL are within a ‘Positive’ range (as per the Areto Algorithm evaluation levels).

Areto’s technology breaks down social media posts into levels of ‘Toxicity’ and uses a simple calculation to break down the Good, the Meh and the Ugly:

a) Good = There is a higher than 65% chance people will find these comments positive i.e “Get up Kansas City it’s @thekccurrent gameday!!!”

b) Meh = There is a pretty decent chance (34-66%) people will find these comments neutral i.e “@ThornsFC But you don’t know the rules. What a great example of bad humans.”

c) Ugly = There is a higher than 65% chance people will find these comments toxic or hateful i.e “@mPinoe Stfu yoy dumb C&*%... no one gives a F#$& what you think or have to say”.

I’ve evaluted the first four rounds of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) from 14 March (leading into the opening game) until 7 Arril (a few days after round 4). I tracked all 12 teams and 27 key players which produced 28,149 Twitter comments.

Below is a collection of the most interesting things I’ve enjoyed uncovering in this 2-Part blog series. Part 1 covers the teams and Part 2 will look at insights around players.

Positive Vibe Tracker - First 4 Rounds of NWSL Challenge Cup

1. The public are vibing new team San Diego Wave

The public have been responding positively to having fresh blood in the competition with newcomer, San Diego Wave coming out in first place in terms of positive public sentiment. Perhaps this is because it has a ‘blank slate’ and doesn’t carry over the negative baggage seen in the league last season (sexual assault and bullying allegations).

I hear you say, if this was the case then Angel City FC would be in second place being the other new team in the league. In my eyes Angel City is the most ‘famous’ team in the league having garnered huge media attention, in part thanks to their celebrity-packed ownership (Eva Longoria, Natalie Portman, Christina Anguiler, Serena Williams to name a few) and their unique approach and model.

However, this may also explain why they are not higher on our Positive Vibe Tracker. When we look closer at the Twitter comments on their account, they seem to be a more polarising team. Comments range from supportive; “I love you Christen Press Letssss Go!” to nasty; “F*%k these people so much” so this may be pulling their average Vibe score down.

2. Shiny and new gets the most attention

If we stick with the two newcomers in the league, San Diego Wave and Angel City FC, these new and shiny teams are getting talked about the most.

Angel City leads the way being the team who received the most Twitter comments during the first 4 rounds of the NWSL Challenge Cup at 3990 comments, over double the 1783 average comments per team.

San Diego is just behind, especially when we take into account that they have played one less game than Angel City and we see comments spike around games. The number of comments they received sits at 2453, however if we were to adjust this to account for playing one less game, they would likely be sitting at around 3,270 comments so in second place after Angel City FC.

*adjusted due to playing one less game.

Surprisingly at the other end of the table with the least amount of comments were the North Carolina Courage and Chicago Red Stars, who during the competition’s previous seasons have done consistently well on the field. Perhaps that consistency or knowing what to expect is at the detriment of creating talkability.

3. Battle of California

San Diego Wave currently trumps Angel City ON and OFF the field.

Their second face-off on 2nd April resulted in a 4-2 win to San Diego on the pitch. The battle OFF the pitch was much closer though in terms of positive community Vibes with San Diego just in front with average positive sentiment of 93.2% and Angel City hot on their heels at 91.6%.

4. Orlando Pride’s “Gay” mistake

If we go back and look at the Positive Vibe Tracker for the teams and look at the bottom end of the table, just exactly why are Orlando Pride coming in last place for positive sentiment?

They receive by far the highest proportion of ‘Toxic' comments out of any team in the league. In fact they attract nearly ‘double’ the percentage of ‘Toxic’ comments than that of 1st placed positive vibe-magnet, San Diego FC and are noticeably behind the other teams when we look at average positive Vibes.

24.2% of Orlando Pride’s comments are considered to contain ‘Toxicity’. To give this context the average negative Vibes across all teams is 16.5% and next in line at attracting negative sentiment is Gotham City with 17.9% so significantly lower than Orlando Pride.

So what could be causing such ‘Toxicity’ on Orlando Pride’s Twitter account?

When we dig a bit deeper, it may be linked to politics. The state of Florida is facing a very divisive issue around the LGBT+ community in what is known as the ‘Dont Say Gay’ Bill.

Orlando Pride as a team has historically been an avid supporter of the LGBT+ community, having a number of ‘out’ and vocal players on the team, they celebrate Pride Month, have a number of LGBT+ partnerships and activations and even have a connection with the LGBT+ community through their name; Orlando ‘Pride’.

However, at the game on 19th March, Orlando Pride management removed a banner displaying the word ‘Gay’ from Orlando supporters who were clearly supporters of the LGBT+ community and were displaying a banner to raise issue with the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill’. This erupted in a flurry of anger online.

In fact over a third of all comments on Orlando Pride’s Twitter account across the 4 rounds came within the 4-day period around this incident. Orlando Pride later apologised saying they got it wrong and shouldn’t have had the banner removed.

However, it was too late and by the looks of it the damage was already done. The Twitter Vibes in the 4 days between 20th - 24th March around this incident created an increase in negative Vibes’ of 45%.

The fallout from this incident is a good reminder to act in line with your brand and community values, otherwise it’s likely you will see and feel the backlash.

5. Washington Spirit Tweet comes back to bite

I was surprised to see Washington and Gotham City at the bottom of the table. Washington Spirit won the Championship last season and have Rookie of the Year, Trinity Rodman on their team and Gotham City have a number of big names like Ali Krieger, Kristie Mewis and Ashlyn Harris in their squad.

Again, if we dig a bit deeper it appears as though a cheeky Tweet from Washington Spirit and association with the players embroiled in controversy could be at the centre of this.

Washington Spirit put out a smug Tweet which was likley intended to hail their player’s' skill but was also taken by some as poking fun at legendary US player, Ali Krieger who fell over on the turf field while defending a 1-on-1.

Not only did their opponents, Gotham City hit back but wife of Ali Krieger, Ashlyn Harris defended the heckle by biting back at Washington Spirit’s inferior facilities.

Daughter of Dennis Rodman and US women’s national team youngster, Trinity Rodman got in on the action “I didn’t see anyone else fallin like that? U can accept her angles got broke”.

This turned into an ugly battle with Harris’ then personally attacking Rodman who recently made the US women’s national team; “One camp in and she’s feeling confident hunny”.

It was an ugly string of Tweets for not just the players but the teams as well.

When looking at the positive Vibes around this Tweet fiasco, we can see both teams took a hit with controversial Tweet Instigator, Washington Spirit coming off slightly worse.

A good lesson to teams and players to steer clear of posting Tweets that could be seen as nasty or creating conflict.

This was Part 1 of a 2-Part Blog series that looked at the positive Vibes of the 12 TEAMS in the National Women’s Soccer League.

Check out Part 2: The Players which takes a closer look at the Vibes around the PLAYERS, including which player came off worse during the Twitter war above.

I also uncover who and how various groups including Sponsors, Sport Organisations, Marketing Managers, Female Athletes and Coaches may benefit from the Team Heroine Vibes Tracker.

READ PART 2: The Players

Follow me on Linkedin or subscribe to my monthly women’s sport sponsorship & marketing newsletter to ensure you don’t miss Part 2’s release.

If you have any questions about Areto Lab, their Areto Listener software or want further details about the Team Heroine Vibes Tracker around the NWSL, get in touch rebecca@teamheroine.com

Notes:
a. Tracking evaluation dates include14 March (the week leading up to the season kick-off) to 7 April (a few days after Round 4)
b. 28, 149 comments Twitter comments tracked during the period across the 12 NWSL teams and 27 NWSL players
c. San Diego and OL Reign had only played 3 games with all other teams playing 4 games. Average comment numbers were adjusted for 4 games
d. Areto Labs here, we’ve used a pretty simple calculation based on our AI “toxicity” results for the good, the meh and the ugly breakdown. Good = there’s a higher than 65% chance people will find these comments positive. Meh = there’s a pretty decent change (34-66%) people will find these comments neutral. Ugly = there’s a higher than 65% chance people will find these comments toxic or hateful.