A recent YouGov SixthSense report on pub sports viewing revealed that 33% of British adults watch sport in pubs. Large proportions of those watch football but what is the impact of summer sports, more traditionally watched in the home?
The last month has seen three of the showcase sporting events of the British summer, with the Wimbledon fortnight followed by the British Grand Prix and The Open Championship.
Like all sports these events are heavily coveted by brands who look to be associated as official sponsors, suppliers (such as Robinson’s at Wimbledon), players’ kit sponsors (Darren Clarke received a £2m bonus from his Sports Direct owned clothing sponsor Dunlop for winning The British Open), on team livery etc.
We’ve looked at the YouGov/SMG Insight SportsIndex buzz scores to assess how much interest those events generate.
Wimbledon gets the greatest buzz; starting its rise from the mid-teens 10 days before the tournament started, peaking at +49 after finals weekend and remaining at +23 today.
The British Grand Prix gets a short sharp lift going from +14 to +27 in the ten days around the event before starting to fall back (now at +20) whilst The Open had a slower steadier rise from +8 at the start of the month to +23 now and, perhaps due to the popular victor, is still going up.
YouGov/SMG Insight SportsIndex buzz
The negative attention chart shows that all events do well in keeping their attention predominantly positive – Wimbledon and The Open see barely any negative noise at all.
But the Grand Prix, whilst still low, does reach a high of 10 per cent hearing negative news.
YouGov/SMG Insight SportsIndex negative attention
So, by looking at our figures, sponsors can see that all three events generate the desired noise and positive vibe but Wimbledon wins the battle of buzz and The British Open leads in terms of keeping the noise positive.
