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Every Super Bowl brings record-breaking viewership, iconic commercials, and intense fan reactions. But alongside the excitement, another pattern has quietly emerged in recent years: escalating online hostility directed at game officials.
In the days surrounding this year’s Super Bowl, analysts observed a surge in online threats and hostile language aimed at referees. Using Liferaft’s open-source intelligence (OSINT) platform, our team examined close to 300 public posts referencing Super Bowl officials to better understand how sports-related discourse can cross the line from frustration into potential risk.
What we found offers an important window into how digital spectator culture is evolving, and why organizations need to take online threats seriously, even when they emerge from moments of entertainment.
A Spike in Emotion, Not Just Volume
One of the clearest findings was emotional intensity. Nearly 63% of analyzed posts carried negative sentiment, signaling that conversation around officiating skewed heavily toward anger, hostility, or aggression, rather than neutral commentary or debate.
This aligns with a broader OSINT trend. Sporting events increasingly act as emotional flashpoints online. Controversial calls, perceived bias, or high-stakes outcomes can trigger rapid, emotionally charged reactions, particularly on social media platforms, where anonymity and immediacy lower barriers to extreme expression.
Importantly, these reactions were event-driven, appearing in short bursts rather than as sustained campaigns. This suggests reactive behavior tied to specific moments in the game, rather than premeditated or coordinated harassment.
A Largely Domestic, Widely Distributed Response
Despite the Super Bowl’s global audience, the majority of threat-related posts originated closer to home. Approximately 59% of the posts were U.S.-based, indicating that the strongest reactions came from domestic viewers.
Even within the United States, however, the data showed no single geographic hotspot. No individual state accounted for more than about 10% of total threat-related activity, and when analysts zoomed in on high-population states like California, posts were spread across multiple cities rather than concentrated in one location.
This geographic dispersion reinforces an important point for risk teams that emotionally charged online threats often emerge broadly and spontaneously, rather than from a single organized group or region.
From Fan Frustration to Risk Signal
At first glance, angry posts about referees may seem like routine sports banter. But history shows that online hostility toward officials can sometimes escalate beyond words. Referees across professional and amateur sports have reported harassment, stalking, and threats often fueled by viral moments or perceived injustices.
What makes modern spectator discourse different is scale and speed. A single call can generate thousands of reactions within minutes, some of which may cross into threatening or violent language. While most posts represent venting rather than intent, a small subset can indicate elevated risk, especially when extreme sentiment, violent keywords, or fixation on individuals appear.
This is where Protective Intelligence becomes critical.
A Broader Lesson Beyond Sports
While this analysis focused on Super Bowl referees, the implications extend far beyond football. Any high-visibility role, such as that of public officials, corporate leaders, or frontline employees, can become a target during emotionally charged moments.
The rise in online spectator discourse is not inherently dangerous. But without visibility and context, organizations risk missing early indicators of real-world harm.
As digital conversations continue to blur the line between commentary and confrontation, Protective Intelligence and OSINT will remain essential tools for understanding not just what people are saying, but what it may mean.
This analysis was conducted using the Liferaft platform, which aggregates and analyzes open-source data to help organizations detect, assess, and respond to emerging risks.
Liferaft’s OSINT platform enabled analysts to:
- Monitor public discourse in near real time
- Assess sentiment and language severity
- Identify geographic patterns without over-attributing risk
- Surface high-risk outliers amid high-volume conversation