2021 BUZZ REPORT the World’S Top-Ranked Events Across Ten Markets
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
2021 BUZZ REPORT The world’s top-ranked events across ten markets sport.yougov.com WELCOME Welcome to the 2021 edition of our SportsIndex Buzz Report – an expanded international report following on from seven years of our annual UK buzz reports. In a year that saw the COVID-19 pandemic wreak havoc As you might expect, YouGov Sport’s Annual Buzz Report will on the world and its sport schedules – leaving some of therefore make different reading this year. This is also because Frank Saez Founder and the world’s biggest events in its wake – both fans and we have made changes to the scope of the report by including Managing Director the sports industry have shown great imagination, data we now collect on leagues and events from around the YouGov Sport fortitude and resilience in keeping sport alive. world. This year’s report takes a more global look at sport – diving into the buzz around sport across ten different markets. Despite the pandemic, sport did return, providing many fans with a welcome break from the reality of isolation We hope you will find this an insightful read about sport in a and quarantine. turbulent and unexpected year. 1 0 M A R K E T S Keep informed We regularly share industry insights from the data we UK Germany draw from around the world every day. From tweets and blogs right through to in-depth reports, you can find it all US India on our site. Australia Japan sport.yougov.com/insights Brazil Mexico France UAE 2 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE CONTENTS HEADLINES … AMERICAS EUROPE REST OF WORLD INTRODUCTION PERFORMANCE BY MARKET UK GERMANY US INDIA AUSTRALIA JAPAN BRAZIL MEXICO FRANCE UAE CONCLUSION ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO | 15 FEBRUARY 2020: Kendell Williams competes in the Women's Long Jump duringCONCORD, the 2020 NORTH Toyota CAROLINA, USATF IndoorUS | 11 ChampionshipsOCTOBER 2020: at AlbuquerqueDescription Convention Center. 3 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE US NFL SHINES EARLY HEADLINES: With Super Bowl LIV falling prior to the pandemic outbreak and restrictions, the NFL sets an early high-water mark to top AMERICAS our rankings. While it’s no surprise to see the NFL top any of our sports rankings, when it comes to Buzz, it is unusual to see every top-ten peak score laid down by the fifth month of the US sports calendar. The COVID-19 pandemic tore through schedules MEXICO in 2020, leaving some of the world’s biggest LIGA MX DOMINATES sporting events in its wake. Despite a strong showing by the NFL, Liga MX, the country’s premier football league, comfortably tops our Mexico rankings. BRAZIL BEAUTIFUL GAME With a late November surge, the Brazilian Série A overtakes a strong October showing by Formula 1 to take our 2020 Buzz title. 4 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE GERMANY UP UP AND AWAY HEADLINES: The Vierschanzentournee Four Hills ski jumping event escaped the start of the pandemic and out-scored EUROPE football’s Bundesliga to take FRANCE our 2020 Buzz title in Germany. A further ten football properties TOUR ON TOP make the top 10. 2020’s Tour was a genuine classic, with the winner being UK decided only on the final day of general classification racing as SIX IS FIRST the lead changed hands A February kick-off helps the between two countrymen. men’s Six Nations Championship This September excitement to top our UK rankings for the was enough to hold off a strong first time after years of strong October showing by the showings in the top five. With delayed French Open at Roland strong appeal to even casual Garros. fans, European rugby’s top national team competition shows it’s mettle by posting top- ten scores both pre and post the shut-down period. In March one of sport’s biggest events – the pan-European UEFA Euro 2020 football tournament – was delayed due to COVID-19. 5 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE UAE HEADLINES: FIFA KEEPS IT Despite diplomatic tensions, public perception in UAE has REST OF WORLD come through positively as the FIFA World Cup tops our 2020 Buzz rankings with the FIFA Club World Cup (hosted by UAE in 2017 & 2018) not far behind. INDIA JAPAN AUSTRALIA IPL IS KING LET THE GAMES BEGIN JANUARY ACE Despite delay and a move to Prior to postponement, the Australia’s top 3 Buzz scores Dubai, the Indian Premier Olympic Games posted were posted in January, with the League records the highest Japan’s top Buzz score Australian Open coming through as score across all our featured amongst a diverse collection of the clear winner over two cricket markets to nudge the ICC international events. A 2021 properties. Strong showings by Cricket World Cup for top repeat title would be no other sports as the country opened honours in India. surprise. up in the Autumn are not enough to dethrone the country’s signature event. 6 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE ABOUT SPORTSINDEX SportsIndex is one of YouGov Sport’s signature capabilities. It operates in 34 markets across the world, IMPRESSION tracking 200 key domestic and international properties FORMER across 30 sports. Twenty-one properties are tracked in CUSTOMER QUALITY every single market. CURRENT CUSTOMER VALUE (FOLLOW / In every market, it takes a list of the leading sports properties – a mix of SUPPORT) domestic and international events, competitions and leagues – and, from PURCHASE REPUTATION 500,000 surveys annually, it measures the public’s perceptions of them. INTENT Every day, and for every property on our list, we track 16 separate metrics, SATISFACTION providing a treasure chest of data for sports marketers and administrators. CONSIDERATION (WORTH 16 FOLLOWING) SportsIndex gives our clients the capability to do everything from measuring the effect of yesterday’s news headlines to establishing a METRICS season-on-season trend stretching back years. And because it operates WORD OF MOUTH RECOMMEND internationally, users can track and compare properties across the world. AD AWARENESS INDEX ATTENTION AWARENESS BUZZ 7 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE WHAT’S A BUZZ SCORE? OUR DATA Our Buzz score is the difference between the percentage of respondents The 2021 Buzz Report provides insight about all the sports events we hearing positive news and the percentage hearing negative news about an monitor against just one of the 16 metrics we measure – ‘Buzz’. event in the previous two weeks. So, depending on what is going on, an event’s Buzz score can reveal whether conversations around a property are Every day, we ask people this question... positive or negative at a point in time. “Over the PAST TWO WEEKS, which of the following sporting events Buzz scores can range from +100 (where everyone we asked has heard have you heard something positive/negative about?” something positive) to -100 (where everyone we asked has heard something negative). A completely neutral score, therefore, would be zero. From the answers we collect, we derive a Buzz score for each event. A score of 45 would show positive sentiment towards a property, by a margin of 45 percentage-points. Buzz score Men's Six Nations Rugby Championship during 2020 For our Buzz rankings here, we look at the highest average Buzz score each property has scored each calendar month. Then we take the highest of 30.0 those twelve scores and compare them with highest monthly scores of 25.0 every other property we track in that market. 20.0 We track up to 80 properties in each country but for the sake of this 15.0 report, we display only the top ten in each market overall (domestic and international). In addition, we show a top five or top ten ranking for each 10.0 market for those competitions hosted or held (in part or in their entirety) 5.0 in each market over the year, 0.0 1 Jan 1 Feb 1 Mar 1 Apr 1 May 1 Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 8 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE 1 INTRODUCTION 9 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION If there were ever any danger that sport had somehow The COVID-19 pandemic tore through schedules in become devalued by its ubiquity or its polish, then 2020, leaving some of the world’s biggest sporting 2020 was the year that taught every fan to be grateful events in its wake. Fans around the world eagerly for the role it plays in our lives. anticipated the return of live action, and while some competitions have come back, there is no question that sport without fans is not quite the same. NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND | 30 DECEMBER 2020: Sadio Mane of Liverpool heads towards goal during the English Premier League (EPL) match between Newcastle United and Liverpool at St. James' Park. The match was played without fans, behind closed doors as a COVID-19 precaution. 10 SPORT.YOUGOV.COM 2021 Buzz Report Return to CONTENTS PAGE The year began normally enough, with fixtures and events being fulfilled at a regular rhythm in the first few months of 2020. But come March, and in Leagues began to focus on finding ways to get the space of seven days, the world was rocked by the delay of two of sport’s biggest events – the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo and the fixtures fulfilled – even in the absence of spectators. pan-European UEFA Euro 2020 football tournament.