Has the Six Nations Netflix documentary given the tournament a Buzz and viewership boost?

Buzz for the Six Nations in the lead up to the 2024 edition was trailing well behind that of the 2023 tournament about two weeks before kick-off, but things have witnessed a quick turnaround after the launch of Six Nations: Full Contact on Netflix – the documentary about the event – and the start of the games.

Six Nations’ Buzz score 17 days before kick-off in 2024 stood at just 0.5 compared to 6.9 in lead up to the 2023 edition. By the day of the launch of the documentary, 10 days before the first round of matches, Buzz score had risen a little to 3.5, still trailing the 2023 edition by nearly five points.

But things picked up rapidly for the 2024 edition quickly thereafter and four days out from the start of the event, the 2024 edition scores surpassed those seen in 2023.

Since then, Buzz in 2024 has stayed at par or slightly ahead of scores in 2023 for the most part of eleven days into the start of each event, only dipping marginally lower on the final day of our analysis, with much of the tournament still to be played.

A sports property’s Buzz score is the difference between the percentage of respondents hearing positive things (from friends, family, or the media) and the percentage hearing negative things about it in the past two weeks.

But, a look at positive Buzz alone shows a more pronounced difference, getting as high as 7.5 percentage points in favour of the 2024 edition on Day 9 of the event (26.2% vs 18.7%). As of Day 11, positive Buzz score in 2024 stands at 22.5%, ahead of the 20.6% at the corresponding stage in 2023.

In addition to Buzz improvements, our analysis suggests that even the share of people watching might be markedly higher. Current Customer scores for the Men’s Six Nations Championships have recorded an average score of 28.7% during the first 11 days of the 2024 event compared to 22.9% during the equivalent period in 2023. Current Customer scores are a measure of the share of consumers who say they have watched or followed an event in the past 12 months. This means that Current Customer scores in 2024 could also include those who remember watching or following the 2023 edition. But by the same token scores in 2023 could include responses of those who watched or followed the 2022 edition. Thus, the overall uptick in 2024 is likely an outcome of greater levels of following the ongoing tournament.

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Methodology: YouGov SportsIndex measures the public's perception of sports brands on a daily basis across 16 metrics. Buzz scores are based on questions: “Over the past two weeks, about which of the following sporting events/leagues have you heard something positive (whether in the news, through advertising, or talking to friends and family)?” And, “Which of the following sporting events/leagues have you heard something negative about?” The difference between percentages of the responses to the two questions gives us the net score between –100 and + 100. Scores are based on a 7-day moving average with an average daily sample size of 255 UK adults.