You can’t talk about the London Olympics without talking about the British Royal Family. One member, Zara Phillips, is part of Great Britain’s equestrian team, Princes William and Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge are all ambassadors for the games and Zara Phillips’ mother, Princess Anne competed in the 1976 games. (more…)

The Olympics is a heavily-sponsored event and one of the perks of being a sponsor is getting tickets to Olympic events. This weekend, the media and everyone else noticed the vast sprawl of empty seats at the diving and gymnastic events. Where were the sponsors? If the sponsors weren’t going to use their tickets, why weren’t they given to people who were willing to pay for them? All these questions were asked this weekend. The London Olympic committee said they would look into the situation and the sponsors have denied that they’re responsible for the empty seats.

So what’s the social sphere saying?

There was a lot of activity on all social platforms but Twitter was the dominant form. In the blogs, the sentiment was not favourable. People were angry at the perceived preference given to sponsors and the sense that the sponsors didn’t care about the actual games. The UK was the top country at almost 63 per cent. Commentary peaked on July 29.

Finally our BuzzGraph and WordCloud. Based on the BuzzGraph, it looks like Lord Sebastian Coe might have some explaining to do.

Information was gathered from MAP using the search terms “London Olympics” AND “Sponsors” AND “Empty seats.” 

If you’ve been following the news, you’ve heard that private security company G4S would not be able to provide enough trained staff in time. Despite that breach, chief executive Nick Buckles has said that G4S will be keeping the £57m ($90m CDN) fee.

London’s security issue hasn’t been helped by the report of lost buses , one carrying Americans and one carrying Australians. US hurdler Kerron Clement said on Twitter that his bus took four hours to go from Heathrow to the athletes’ village. (more…)