Signify data insights

Women’s sport is thriving. With stadium sell-outs, attendance records repeatedly being broken, and 46.7 million fans watching women’s sport in 2023 – the visibility of women’s sport has never been higher. But Online Abuse is on a parralel track - how do we deal with that? Signify’s Georgia Relf explores the issue on International Women’s Day 2024

The ITF, WTA, AELTC and USTA have announced the launch of a Threat Matrix powered proactive monitoring initiative to protect athletes from online abuse and threats. Tennis players are subject to significant levels of social media abuse and other inappropriate online contact, which poses risks to preparation, performance and mental health. The service will begin on 1 January 2024.

The NCAA has announced an innovative engagement with Signify Group to provide its Threat Matrix artificial intelligence service to support the Association in studying and responding to online abuse and threats directed at NCAA Championship participants including student-athletes, coaches, officials and committee members.

Loughborough University and Signify Group have announced a strategic partnership that will see them collaborate on academic research and innovative data studies to explore and better understand the phenomenon of online abuse in sport.

Signify Group partnered with German Insurance provider ARAG to conduct a first-of-its-kind initiative, using AI to analyse online toxicity in Esports.  Working with over 5.5m comments on streams and posts from 250 e-sports talents over a 3 month period the study illuminates the true picture of online abuse in Esports.

World Rugby has selected Signify Group and our AI-driven Threat Matrix service to put an online protective shield around all tournament match officials, players and coaches at the Rugby World Cup 2023.

Signify have launched a new Sports Division, appointing Jake Marsh as Head of Signify Sport. The news reflects the huge success Signify has experienced over the last two years, in particular around its AI-driven service, Threat Matrix, which helps sports leagues, international federations, clubs and major events protect athletes and officials from online abuse.

Signify celebrates the UN International Day for Countering Hate Speech by reflecting on FIFA’s recent work at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ - where their Social Media Protection Service proactively protected players, officials and fans from online abuse at scale.

Arsenal Football Club have announced the banning of 18 fans identified by Signify's Threat Matrix service. As part of an ongoing drive by the club to tackle online abuse and discrimination, Threat Matrix has been activated by the club, who have also requested a three year extension to the service.

Former England international and Man Utd captain Rio Ferdinand has released a ground-breaking documentary series examining racism, homophobia and mental health issues in football. The documentary - Tipping Point - features powerful research from Signify’s Threat Matrix team as part of a year-long analysis of online racist targeting of professional footballers..

FIFA’s report exploring the issues around Online Abuse is one of many Signify have produced for world governing bodies and sports organisations. What can sports clubs learn and what action can they take? This article looks at the issues highlighted by these studies and the actions Signify’s work is facilitating across world sport.

FIFPRO, NBPA and WNBPA have teamed up with Signify to publish a unique study covering online abuse targeting stars of world football and basketball. This first-of-its-kind study reveals the disturbing levels of online abuse targeting the stars of global football and basketball. The study covers 160 players across 15 leagues in the world’s two most popular team sports.

World Athletics have partnered with Signify Group to publish findings of a study conducted during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The World governing body for athletics used Signify’s specialist Threat Matrix methodology to identify and address targeted, discriminatory, abusive and threatening messages sent to athletes via social media.

English Premier League club Arsenal FC have selected Threat Matrix, Signify’s Proactive Monitoring service to support the club’s work in protecting players, officials and fans of the club from online hate and discriminatory abuse.

Signify have partnered with global leaders in Sports data - Stats Perform to scale access to Threat Matrix, Signify’s proprietary service that detects and evidences online abuse on social media.

Following the disgraceful online abuse sent to England’s Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after the Euro 2020 Final, Signify CEO, Jonathan Hirshler and Quest Director, Sir Mark Rowley appeared on CNN’s Connect the World and BBC Radio 4’s PM programme to talk about what can be done to improve the situation.

Ahead of the Olympic games in Tokyo, we look at which sports have managed to spike and maintain public interest during the year-long delay to the games in Japan.

Signify have developed a powerful AI-driven response to online abuse - Threat Matrix. We explore the capabilities, why they’ve been developed and what we hope to achieve in the long-term.

President Trump’s Alt-Right media base drove over a billion social media interactions during the second half of 2020 and had a huge influence on public opinion and mainstream media. In the final part of our Trumpland series, we analyse these and look at the legacy they have left for US politics.

Gym closures and reduced access to exercise, brought the UK out in defiance during lockdown. Signify’s ShareScore looked at what caught the attention of the UK public in relation to gyms/leisure centres in 2020.