Fade for Cade or Eyes on the Prize? - The Effect of Team Expectations On Post-Game Social Media Discourse
For this project, I have collected all the comments from the 2020-21 NBA season post-game threads posted on the r/nba Reddit subreddit pertaining to the Brooklyn Nets (the current #1 seed and one of this year's title contenders) and the Detroit Pistons (the current bottom seed and one of this year's contenders... for the #1 draft pick next season). My aim is to investigate what effect, if any, that team expectations have on post-game social media discourse, which is operationalized through these Reddit comments. My initial hunch tells me that fans of a tanking team will be less critical in comparison to fans of a contending team.