News of a breakaway European Super League was met with a strong response from both the media and the masses. Following the intense reaction from critics, each of the six English clubs that originally signed up for the league swiftly withdrew from it, leading to the suspension of the proposed tournament.
Data from YouGov BrandIndex reveals the extent of the impact the news had on the UK clubs -- Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. We look at the Buzz Score of gain a better understanding of how the story affected the narrative around these teams.
Each team witnessed a heavy drop in its Buzz Score, which is a net score of the positive and negative things respondents have heard about a club. On April 18, only two teams – Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur – were in the red. Two days later every team went into negative too. And the teams are yet to recover from the setback.
As of April 29, the highest Buzz Score of any ‘Big 6’ club was -29.1, held by Chelsea. Manchester United was at the bottom of the pile with -35.9, with Liverpool (-34) only marginally ahead. Interestingly, all teams showed a marginal uptick in scores after April 28.
The decision to join the European Super League being a managerial one, we also examine the impact of the episode on perceptions of the management of each club. For this, we use the Quality metric, which is a net score of whether consumers connect a club to a good management or a bad one.
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Methodology: Buzz scores are based on the questions: “Over the past week, which of the following teams have you heard something positive about?” and “Which of the following teams have you heard something negative about?” Scores are a 4-day average of daily scores between April 16 - April 29, 2021. Sample sizes range from 295 to 307 UK adults.
