Men Still Driving Down NFL Consumer Perception: Women Show Early Rebound

Ted MarzilliCEO YouGov Direct
September 17, 2014, 8:23 PM GMT+0

While men have led the rapid drop in consumer perception of the NFL in the wake of the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson controversies, women have shown early recovery trends since this past weekend.

However, for both genders, the numbers are still deeply negative.

To measure consumer perception, YouGov BrandIndex utilized its Buzz score, which asks respondents "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?"

Buzz score can range from 100 to -100, with a zero score equaling positive and negative feedback. All measurements are for adults 18 and over.

  • On September 8th, the NFL was at its highest consumer perception point of the year with a Buzz score of 36, which combines both men and women.
  • By Sunday, September 14th, that score had dropped to -37.
  • The most current score, as of Tuesday, September 16th, shows an uptick to -30.
  • The NFL's previous lowest score was -26 in June 2012, impacted by the New Orleans Saints bounty crisis and new rules restricting purses and bags in stadiums.

The recent uptick was caused by the women's individual Buzz score metrics hitting -30 over the weekend, and then turning around to -9 by Tuesday. The men's score is currently -51. The score for the general population of adults 18+ is -30.

So far, both Gatorade and Anheuser-Busch brands, the two biggest sponsors of the NFL, have seen their Buzz scores improve modestly over the past few days.

Buzz NFL: Men, Women 18+

Buzz NFL: All Adults 18+