We’ve come a long way since Vince Lombardi led Green Bay over Kansas City 50 years ago, wearing plastic helmets, minimal padding, in front of 60,000 fans.  

Back then, we tallied the number of jerseys in the stands to measure fan support. Today it goes deeper. Much deeper. Emergence of social media is literally a game changer.

We’re using Nanocubes, AT&T Labs’ open source data visualization software, to analyze the social chatter ahead of the big game.

After the conference finals, Denver fans dominated, sharing tweets across the nation. But Carolina fans keep pounding to the end.  

As we head into the weekend, Carolina is now leading the social conversation on Twitter.

Will it be a blowout, or a nail-biter? Forget the sportscaster’s prediction. According to AT&T’s Nanocubes technology, fans say it’s going down to the wire.

Interestingly, big data has created new fans of the sport, regardless of football knowledge. Of course diehard fans have followed Denver since the 1960s in the American Football League. To others, they’re simply the orange team with horses on the helmet. Regardless, our software says fan support runs deep.

In short, Nanocubes gives a quick, clear view of big datasets. The open source software allows us to interact with billions of data points to gather insights. Figuring out public perception is now less of a guessing game; it’s a scientific process.

From goal line to goal line, it’s still 100 yards. That hasn’t changed in 50 years. However, calculating the spirit and strength of the fans has become much more precise.