The ultimate American football showdown happened on Sunday, pitting the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals. What does the media coverage tell us about the event? We turned to Nexis Newsdesk™ for a head-to-head comparison of the weekend’s hottest match-up.
Team vs. Team
The Bengals may have been the underdogs entering the contest, but when it comes to media coverage, they were enjoying the lion's, er, tiger's share of the headlines, with more than 60 percent share of voice.
However, to the victor goes the media spoils. The day after the game concluded, the tables had turned, and the game-winning Rams took the spotlight with almost 70% of the coverage.
Despite their loss, post-game analysis also reveals that almost all media love a Cincinnati Cinderella story. More than one-third of the Bengals’ media coverage skews positive (38%), with less than one-tenth (7%) skewing negative. Perhaps the media fanfare will turn the tide going into next year’s match-up.
Quarterback Sneak
As Bengals fans are fond of saying, “Who dey think gonna beat them Bengals?” Well, when it comes to media coverage… Matthew Stafford comes out on top. Using our Nexis Newsdesk™ to dig deeper into the general media coverage of the event, we see that Rams’ quarterback had a slight edge over Bengals’ quarterback Joe Burrow. However, if we look back over the past month, the quarterback with the greatest coverage is none other than Tom Brady. After his team’s big game hopes were dashed, the Greatest of All Time made headlines with the news of his forthcoming retirement—and earning more media than either of his rivals.
Stars of the Halftime Show
The halftime show was a huge triumph, with 49% positive coverage and only 3% negative (48% neutral). All the artists were favorably mentioned, however, rapper Snoop Dogg was the night’s Top Dog with the most media mentions. He was followed by Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre—who was technically the show’s headliner—and surprise guest 50 Cent, respectively.
Battle of the Brands
The battle for attention isn’t limited just to athletics; advertisers also leap at the opportunity to be part of the conversation. Which were the most talked about brands? Car companies came in big, with Chevrolet, GM and BMW each taking a big slice of the pie. Amazon ranked high with its star-studded “mind-reader” commercial. However, the true winner was Coinbase, with an ad so popular it crashed the app it led viewers to.
