The Daytona 500, NASCAR’s premiere event, was bumped to prime time for the first time after rain forced the first postponement of the race in its 54 years. The race finally began Monday night and was down to its final 43 laps when Juan Pablo Montoya’s car broke and wrecked into a truck carrying 200 gallons of jet fuel, causing a huge fire that postponed the race yet again. After the rain, fire, soap suds and fog cleared, Matt Kenseth won one of the most bizarre Daytona 500 in history.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around NASCAR and the Daytona 500 online.

NASCAR and Daytona 500 buzz (past 30 days)

Conversations around both NASCAR and the Daytona 500 spiked this week.

NASCAR vs. NBA vs. MLB vs. NFL vs. MLS

NASCAR appeared in more conversations online than NBA, NFL, MLB or MLS following Monday’s Daytona 500.

NASCAR and Daytona 500 buzz (past 4 years)

Despite the buzz surrounding the most recent race, overall chatter around both NASCAR and the Daytona 500 has steadily declined over the past four years. Will this week’s bizarre race give NASCAR buzz some momentum heading into the new season? What can NASCAR do to increase buzz online?

With the NCAA tournament wrapping up, MLB opening day in the books and NBA Playoffs about to begin, we thought it would be interesting to compare which of the major sports generated the most chatter.

Football vs Baseball vs Soccer vs Basketball vs Hockey (past year)

Football consistently generated the most chatter throughout the past year, even during the off-season.

Basketball sentiment

Soccer sentiment

Baseball sentiment

Hockey sentiment

Football sentiment

Interestingly, football had the lowest amount of positive conversations (80%) among the major sports, while basketball had the highest amount of positive conversations (86%).

As the Phillies, Giants, Rangers and Yankees compete in the MLB League Championship Series, the NFL in week 7 of its season is generating more than triple the amount of online conversation.

Interestingly, conversations around the MLB were more positive (79% positive) than conversations about the NFL (73% positive).

Hot topics of conversation for the NFL centered around the Brett Farve scandal, the trade deadline, the new dirty hit policy, and hot teams the Steelers, Jets and Cowboys.

Hot topics of conversation for the MLB centered around the Yankees, Rangers, Phillies and Giants.

Maybe the MLB needs more scandals and excitement fans can talk about?

The ratings tell a similar story. As sports writer Bill Simmons pointed out via Twitter, Monday night featured the “worst possible NFL game with 2 crap markets (7.2); best possible MLB playoff game with 2 huge markets (6.5).”

As the NBA season approaches, will the NFL continue to dominate the sports conversation in America?

The September 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during September 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during September 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

Twitter falls a bit, but still takes top spot. LG’s new BL20 Chocolate helped LG jump 11 spots. NFL rises again this month as the NFL season heats up. MTV jumps 13 spots due to buzz around the MTV Video Music awards. AT&T’s announcement of MMS support on the iPhone raised AT&T’s position up 5 spots.

View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

The June 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during June 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during May 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

Twitter held on to the top spot, though once again trending down this month. iPhone jumped two spots to #2 overall and Apple jumped three spots to #6 thanks to buzz around the iPhone 3G S release.

Firefox jumped 10 spots thanks to increased chatter leading up to its new Firefox 3.5 release, which was downloaded more than a million times within a few hours.

XBox jumped 5 spots to #11 overall after the Project Natal announcement at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Surprisingly, with both the Project Natal and Bing search engine announcements this month, overall Microsoft buzz only increased one spot to #9 overall.

CNN jumped 13 spots, due in large part to a steep surge surrouding the news of Michael Jackson’s death. MLB jumped eight spots as the baseball season heated up in the month of June.

Finally, HTC joined the Top 50 this month, with talk about its new widget-based HTC Hero Android smartphone announcement.

View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.