So the not so surprising news broke late yesterday afternoon that Sam Burgess was returning to rugby league with the South Sydney Rabbitohs. We quickly set up a campaign to track mentions of Sam Burgess and his Twitter handle. In less than 24 hours, there’s been 21,095 tweets. Certainly a massive sporting talking point, which even made the numerous appearances on Radio 4 Today.
The tweet volume graph above shows over time when most of the conversations on Twitter took place. Not surprisingly the peak was when the decision was announced. The other peaks revolve around news, and demonstrates the influence of news broadcasting as a ‘watercooler’ for conversations on Twitter.
We also stepped back in time, with Twitter provoking the old union v league debate the ’80’s and early ’90’s. The reaction from fans was mixed as can be seen from the sentiment and emotion visuals below:
League fans were understandably happy to have their man back. What was perhaps more surprising given the hyperbole around Sam at thew world cup was the sadness expressed by union fans. This tweet sums up a huge number, expressing the same sentiment:
The news also attracted some big names to the conversation, including an unlikely footballer:
We’ll leave the last word to the man who is probably more happy than Sam – Russell Crowe:
