MLB Stadium Sentiment Analysis

Author

Isaiah Johnson

Published

December 12, 2023

Introduction

In 2023 the LA Dodgers had the highest average attendance in the MLB and the Oakland A’s had the lowest average attendance. The goal of this analysis is to see if their stadium’s are playing a role in each team’s attendance numbers. To do this, Tripadvisor reviews for Dodger Stadium and the Oakland Colisseum will be anlayzed through sentiment and compared to see if the stadium reviews reflect each team’s attendance.

Analysis

This analysis will go into emotional sentiment, particular words, and total positivity for each stadium.

Stadium Sentiment Scores

Question: How does the Oakland Colisseum and Dodger Stadium compare in emotional sentiment?

This graph shows the emotion sentiment of words from each stadiums review and shows the total number of words written that relate to each emotion. This is also separated by each team with the green bars being Oakland and the blue bars being the Dodgers.

Oakland’s reviews overall had more postive words, but also more negative words. The Dodgers reviews. This may point out that people either liked or disliked the A’s stadium, where the Dodgers may have had more neutral reviews. People were more positive about the A’s stadium, but less negative about the Dodger’s stadium. With that being said, both stadium’s reviews had much more positive things said in them than negative.

Word Analysis

Question:Which words do people use when reviewing each stadium?

This graph shows scorable words (positive or negative) and how many times they were written in each stadium’s reviews. The graph only shows words that appeared 4 or more times. If a positive word appeared 5 times it would be shown in the graph as 5, if a negative word appeared 5 times it would be shown as -5. The first thing to note is that there are very few words that are repeated 4 or more times across both sets of reviews. This can be good as it can mean people put more effort in and were more personal with their reviews. Oakland certainly had more negative words repeated, although words counted as negative like cheap and concession could have been written with a positive meaning. The word fans was used in the most reviews across both stadiums. This is interesting as good fan culture in the stadium might be able to make up for a sub par stadium. A big topic that was the opposite in the reviews was the dodgers stadium was described as expensive and Oakland’s stadium was described as cheap. Both words were counted as negative, but again there are cases where each word can be written in a more positive way than negative. Overall much more positive words were written than negative.

Positivity by Day of the Week

Question: What are days of the week are best to go to each stadium?

This graph shows the positivity score for each day of the week for each stadium. The positivity score is calculated by subtracting the total negative words by total positive words. Another thing to note is that this graph takes into account what day the review was made and that can be different from which day a reviewer attended a game or event.

For Oakland the day with the highest positivity score is Saturday and by a big margin. For the Dodgers, their highest positvity score comes on Thursday. Overall, Oakland had more total positivity over the weekend and the Dodgers had more positivity during the week days. This makes sense for a couple of reasons. First Oakland does most if not all of their promotional days on the weekend, where the Dodgers do promotions more spread out across the week. Another reason this could be the case is ticket prices. Where Oakland’s ticket prices are cheaper than the Dodgers, people can more easily go to a game on the weekend where they have more time and can enjoy a game. Ticket prices are usually more expensive on the weekend and for a team like the Dodgers this may put tickets out of the price range of a lot of fans. These fans might be able to more easily afford a ticket during the week when ticket prices are down.

Conclusion

Although this is a small sample size of fan sentiment,the results from the sensitivity analysis were much closer than expected. As previously mentioned, the Oakland A’s had the least average attendance in 2023 and yet, had more positive stadium reviews than the LA Dodgers, who had the highest average attendance. One think from the analysis that can point to this discrepancy in attendance is that the A’s did have more negative reviews than the Dodgers. This can be for many reasons, but Oakland’s stadium seemed more love it or hate. It is clear that the attendance was a problem for Oakland and the MLB and that the stadium was labeled as a reason, as just recently in November 2023, the MLB approved the relocation of the A’s to a new stadium in Las Vegas for the 2028 season. It will of course then be much more clear how much of an impact their stadium made on their attendance.

--- title: "MLB Stadium Sentiment Analysis" author: "Isaiah Johnson" date: "2023-12-12" format: html: code-tools: TRUE self-contained: TRUE execute: warning: FALSE # Prevent all warnings from displaying in the output. message: FALSE # Prevent all messages from displaying in the output. echo: FALSE # Show all code in the output. --- ```{r} library(tidyverse) library(lubridate) library(tidytext) library(textdata) MLB_reviews<-read_csv("https://myxavier-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/johnsoni4_xavier_edu/ETD0h33I7RZIgk5IoDdTljMBOSUfceB6pmRs7WwVYWePGg?download=1") MLB_reviews <- MLB_reviews %>% filter(Team %in% c("LA Dodgers", "Oakland")) MLB_reviews$review_date <- ymd(MLB_reviews$review_date) MLB_reviews <- MLB_reviews%>% arrange(review_date) %>% mutate(review_id = row_number()) tidy_MLB <- MLB_reviews %>% unnest_tokens(word, review_content) %>% anti_join(stop_words) bing <- get_sentiments("bing") MLB_counts <- tidy_MLB %>% group_by(Team, word) %>% summarize(n = n()) %>% inner_join(bing) MLBattendance<-read_csv("https://myxavier-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/johnsoni4_xavier_edu/ET-jknNMHhBBsORmk2XIyMoB3oUX5wnBNr-osNGsWwxeZw?download=1") MLBdata<-MLBattendance %>% left_join(MLB_reviews) MLBdata <- MLBdata %>% filter(Team %in% c("Oakland", "LA Dodgers")) ``` # Introduction In 2023 the LA Dodgers had the highest average attendance in the MLB and the Oakland A's had the lowest average attendance. The goal of this analysis is to see if their stadium's are playing a role in each team's attendance numbers. To do this, Tripadvisor reviews for Dodger Stadium and the Oakland Colisseum will be anlayzed through sentiment and compared to see if the stadium reviews reflect each team's attendance. # Analysis This analysis will go into emotional sentiment, particular words, and total positivity for each stadium. ### Stadium Sentiment Scores #### Question: How does the Oakland Colisseum and Dodger Stadium compare in emotional sentiment? ```{r cars} nrc <- get_sentiments("nrc") tidy_MLB %>% inner_join(nrc, by = "word", relationship = "many-to-many") %>% group_by(sentiment, Team) %>% summarize(n = n()) %>% ggplot(aes(x = sentiment, y = n, fill = Team)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = "dodge") + scale_fill_manual(values = c("blue", "green")) + labs(title = "Stadium Sentiment Scores", subtitle = "Total number of emotive words scored ", y = "Total Number of Words", x = "Emotional Sentiment", fill = "Team")+ theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1, vjust = 1)) ``` This graph shows the emotion sentiment of words from each stadiums review and shows the total number of words written that relate to each emotion. This is also separated by each team with the green bars being Oakland and the blue bars being the Dodgers. Oakland's reviews overall had more postive words, but also more negative words. The Dodgers reviews. This may point out that people either liked or disliked the A's stadium, where the Dodgers may have had more neutral reviews. People were more positive about the A's stadium, but less negative about the Dodger's stadium. With that being said, both stadium's reviews had much more positive things said in them than negative. ### Word Analysis #### Question:Which words do people use when reviewing each stadium? ```{r} MLB_counts %>% group_by(Team) %>% filter(n>3) %>% mutate(n = ifelse(sentiment == "negative", -n, n)) %>% mutate(word = reorder(word, n)) %>% ggplot(aes(word, n)) + geom_col() + coord_flip() + facet_wrap(~Team, ncol = 2) + geom_text(aes(label = signif(n, digits = 3)), nudge_y = 8) + labs(title = "Positive and Negative Words for Oakland and the Dodgers ", subtitle = "Only words appearing at least 4 times are shown") ``` This graph shows scorable words (positive or negative) and how many times they were written in each stadium's reviews. The graph only shows words that appeared 4 or more times. If a positive word appeared 5 times it would be shown in the graph as 5, if a negative word appeared 5 times it would be shown as -5. The first thing to note is that there are very few words that are repeated 4 or more times across both sets of reviews. This can be good as it can mean people put more effort in and were more personal with their reviews. Oakland certainly had more negative words repeated, although words counted as negative like cheap and concession could have been written with a positive meaning. The word fans was used in the most reviews across both stadiums. This is interesting as good fan culture in the stadium might be able to make up for a sub par stadium. A big topic that was the opposite in the reviews was the dodgers stadium was described as expensive and Oakland's stadium was described as cheap. Both words were counted as negative, but again there are cases where each word can be written in a more positive way than negative. Overall much more positive words were written than negative. ### Positivity by Day of the Week #### Question: What are days of the week are best to go to each stadium? ```{r} tidy_MLB %>% inner_join(bing) %>% mutate(day = wday(review_date, label = TRUE)) %>% group_by(Team, day, sentiment) %>% summarize(n = n()) %>% spread(sentiment, n, fill = 0) %>% mutate(sentiment = positive - negative) %>% ggplot(aes(x = day, y = sentiment, fill = Team)) + geom_col(position = "dodge") + scale_fill_manual(values = c("blue","green")) + labs(title = "Stadium Positivity Scores by Day of the Week", subtitle = "Positivity score is the total number of positive words minus total negative words", y = "Total Positivity Score", x = "Day of the Week", fill = "Team") ``` This graph shows the positivity score for each day of the week for each stadium. The positivity score is calculated by subtracting the total negative words by total positive words. Another thing to note is that this graph takes into account what day the review was made and that can be different from which day a reviewer attended a game or event. For Oakland the day with the highest positivity score is Saturday and by a big margin. For the Dodgers, their highest positvity score comes on Thursday. Overall, Oakland had more total positivity over the weekend and the Dodgers had more positivity during the week days. This makes sense for a couple of reasons. First Oakland does most if not all of their promotional days on the weekend, where the Dodgers do promotions more spread out across the week. Another reason this could be the case is ticket prices. Where Oakland's ticket prices are cheaper than the Dodgers, people can more easily go to a game on the weekend where they have more time and can enjoy a game. Ticket prices are usually more expensive on the weekend and for a team like the Dodgers this may put tickets out of the price range of a lot of fans. These fans might be able to more easily afford a ticket during the week when ticket prices are down. # Conclusion Although this is a small sample size of fan sentiment,the results from the sensitivity analysis were much closer than expected. As previously mentioned, the Oakland A's had the least average attendance in 2023 and yet, had more positive stadium reviews than the LA Dodgers, who had the highest average attendance. One think from the analysis that can point to this discrepancy in attendance is that the A's did have more negative reviews than the Dodgers. This can be for many reasons, but Oakland's stadium seemed more love it or hate. It is clear that the attendance was a problem for Oakland and the MLB and that the stadium was labeled as a reason, as just recently in November 2023, the MLB approved the relocation of the A's to a new stadium in Las Vegas for the 2028 season. It will of course then be much more clear how much of an impact their stadium made on their attendance.