The Talkability of Victory

Baseball is back. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training. Legions of fans (and fantasy gurus) are dusting off their allegiances and refreshing their commitment to following their hometown team's fate for a grueling stretch of 162 games. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I've learned that off-field affinity bears little to absolutely no impact upon on-field success. The world of sports is a rare arena in which consumer dialogue and endorsement of a brand fails to significantly impact that brand's "success" (as measured by victories, not dollars).

So, in this context, just how talkable is victory? How "engaged" do consumers remain in their favorite sports brand if the team hasn't given them an on-field justification to stay engaged?

With an off-season that provides countless rivalrous entertainment options, from the Super Bowl to Jersey Shore, baseball is often forgotten, shoved to the sidelines until fans have a reason to care yet again; until a blank slate and fresh start offer a new glimmer of "this year could be the year" hope.

However, some fans do engage in off-season dialogues. And some offseason dialogue is significantly more robust than others. Many who drive the off-season conversation are die-hards (brand evangelists). A good handful find their interest and conversation stirred back into action by the exciting announcement of an impending acquisition or the next great hope who can carry their team to victory.

The following chart attempts to uncover a correlation between on-field victory and off-season dialogue across online (blog) channels.

Comparative Graph of 2009 MLB Regular Season Victories and Offseason Blog posts (in Jan/Feb 2010) - Yankees v. Phillies v. Cubs v. White Sox + "Baseball"

New York Yankees - 103 regular season victories (World Series champion); 112.22 blog posts/day= 1.08 blog post/victory
Philadelphia Phillies - 93 regular season victories (World Series loser); 45.53 blog posts/day = 0.489 blog post/victory
Chicago Cubs - (83 regular season victories, no playoff presence); 53.7 blog posts/day = 0.646 blog post/victory
Chicago White Sox - (79 regular season victories, no playoff presence); 36.33 blog posts/day = 0.459 blog post/victory

Findings:

Although the World Series winners (Yankees) were the most talked about team, simply making the World Series (Phillies) doesn't guarantee more off-season dialogue than other teams
The Chicago Cubs, lacking a postseason appearance, drove significantly more off-season dialogue than the World Series runner-up Phillies

Conclusions:

Building a truly talkable brand requires more than just short-term salience (i.e. a World Series appearance)
Building a truly talkable brand requires building a deep, ongoing connection/relevance in shaping the identity/lives of its consumers (fans) - which the perennially-losing though deeply-revered Cubs have clearly achieved
Although the Philadelphia Phillies are the "oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports" (thanks, Wikipedia) - and have appeared in back-to-back World Series (actually winning in 2008) - short-term salience alone - aka "buzz" - is not enough to sustain talkability

Considerations/Limitations:

Please note, the sample size is painfully small and insignificant, as it features just four teams and tracks off-season dialogue over just one season.
It also doesn't account for varying rates of salient alternative off-season entertainment options among each of the four local markets.
Nor does it account for "control seasons," as postseason appearances could unfairly drive an increase in off-season dialogue, simply for prolonging the period of salience.
It fails to account for potential errors/limitations in the freeware IceRocket.com software used to generate the graph
Additionally, some might argue that "victories" is the incorrect metric by which we measure "success" - if truly trying to find similarities/parallels between a sports "brand" and a traditional consumer "brand" - the evaluative metrics ought to be ticket sales, ad revenue, TV revenue, food/beverage revenue, etc. - to truly understand the impact of talkability on the brand's bottom line.

FINAL 2009 MLB REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS - Source: ESPN.com