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Case Studies
Social Listening: Greece men’s national basketball team at EuroBasket 2025
From August 27 to September 16, 2025, we analyzed more than 138,000 posts and comments on social media (X, Facebook, forums) regarding the participation of Greece men’s national basketball team in EuroBasket 2025, based exclusively on data from the Brandwatch platform, a global leader in social listening.
Objective: To understand how the team’s journey was reflected on social media, what the dominant sentiment was, and how the discussion transcended the boundaries of sports, touching on politics, national identity, and the overall image of Greek basketball.
Top Buzz Peaks
Comments and posts on social media recorded a huge increase on September 7 (VS Israel), on September 12 (VS Turkey), and on September 14 (VS Finland):
September 7 (VS Israel): Greece advanced to the quarter-finals after a thrilling victory with a score of 84-79, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo (37 points). The match generated huge buzz on social media as it combined athletic excellence and political tension. On social networks, expressions of national pride dominated on one hand, while politically charged hashtags (#freepalestine) were prominent on the other, linked to the developments in Gaza. A significant part of the discussion focused on the demand of Greek opposition political party SYRIZA to cancel the match. Despite the political tension, the victory became a point of unity and joy for the fans.
Indicative X posts with a significant number of RTs:
September 12 (VS Turkey): Greece lost with a score of 68-94 in the semi-final, in a match where they made 22 mistakes and never found their rhythm. The Turks, with Osman and Sengun as key players, completely dominated. There was widespread disappointment and intense criticism on Greek social media regarding the team’s and the coach’s choices, but also supportive comments.
Indicative X posts with a significant number of RTs:
Sengun’s post on social media after the game sparked reactions on Greek social media, as it seemed to reference the 1922 Asia Minor developments. The Turkish Federation also caused strong reactions with a post showing a Turkish player dunking in front of Antetokounmpo with the caption “No mercy.” This image led to an official complaint from the Hellenic Basketball Federation to FIBA and was eventually withdrawn. The tension on social media was twofold: sporting (criticism of the team) and political, intensifying the atmosphere of confrontation between Greece and Turkey.
Indicative X posts with a significant number of RTs:
September 14 (VS Finland): Greece won the bronze medal after 16 years, beating their opponent 92-89, with the last 5 minutes causing a stir on social media. The match was characterized by passion and teamwork, with Greece showing character and regaining their spirit after the loss in the semi-final. Emotional moments were recorded and commented on social media: Antetokounmpo, with the Greek flag on his back, was in tears, stating that “this is the greatest achievement of his career,” and team captain Kostas Papanikolaou expressed emotion and commitment for the future of the team. The discussion focused on the meaning of returning to the podium, national pride, and the new era that is opening up for Greek basketball.
Indicative X posts with a significant number of RTs: 
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis on social media shows a mainly positive image. The progress of Greece men’s national basketball team created emotional identification, with the positive tone prevailing in discussions about winning the medal.
- 54,64% positive (celebrations, national pride, exaltation of players and the coach)
- 35,97% neutral (descriptive posts, journalistic reports)
- 9,39% negative (criticism for the defeat against Turkey, political reactions to the match with Israel).
Sources Benchmarking
From September 7 (match against Israel) onwards, X took off with almost 100k mentions (+557% compared to the corresponding previous period). Public comments on Facebook saw a more moderate increase (+34%). Forums had a limited presence, but also saw a significant increase (+62%), showing that qualifying for the quarter-finals and the subsequent matches generated intense activity across all channels examined.
Notable peaks for Facebook and forums:
On Facebook, hundreds of public comments were gathered in the following posts, among others:
Related comments in forums recorded an increase on September 13 in threads with titles:
- “The thread of the official favourite – National basketball team” (on insomnia.gr)
- “Eurobasket 2025 and the end of an era” (on adslgr.com))
Countries & Key Players
Greece accounted for 72.4% of the total discussion, while the countries most frequently mentioned by Greek users on social media were Turkey (9.54%) and Israel (4.94%):
This shows that the discussion was strongly national in nature, but at the same time, specific countries were key points of reference as the discussions expanded to political issues.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was at the center of the discussion with 57% of mentions, as the undisputed leader on the court. He was followed by coach Vassilis Spanoulis (21.9%), Kostas Sloukas (11.2%), and team captain Kostas Papanikolaou (9.8%):
The Greek Freak’s leadership, both on the court (37 points against Israel, decisive moments in the bronze medal match) and symbolically (statements about the medal as ‘the greatest achievement of his life’), strengthened the team’s image and gave a new dimension to the discussion about identity and national pride.
Hashtags, Phrases & Emojis
The topics cloud highlights how the discussion combines sports, national identity and politics:
- Dominant hashtags: #eurobasket, #eurobasket2025, #grefin, #gretur, #greisr
- Phrases: “bronze medal”, “Greek national team”, “Congratulations”
- Emojis: 🏀👏🇬🇷❤️, expressing enthusiasm and national pride
At the same time, the discussion about the match against Israel was linked to hashtags such as #freepalestine, showing how political dynamics have penetrated the sporting dialogue.
Why Social Listening is Valuable
The analysis of Greece’s participation in EuroBasket 2025 clearly highlights the power of social listening:
- Identification of discussion peaks related to matches, results and critical events.
- Understanding the sentiment and how social media users experience the Greek national team’s progress.
- Highlighting the political and social dimensions that influence the image of a sporting event.
- Mapping key players and how they reinforce or influence public discourse.
For communications, marketing and PR professionals, the ability to monitor social media conversations in real time offers a strategic advantage:
- Enhancing positive publicity.
- Preparing for crises.
- Leveraging insights to improve products or services, content marketing, sponsorships and partnerships.
Try out the possibilities of social listening for your own industry, utilizing real-time data. Identify critical trends, valuable insights and opportunities that will give you a competitive edge.
Analysis Identity
Social Listening Tool: Brandwatch
Date Range: 27/08/25 – 16/09/25
Sources: Social Media*
Keywording/Analysis: Clip News
*The analysis is based solely on publicly available data from social media channels in Greece. The search was limited to the keywords “Eurobasket” and “National Basketball Team” in all possible variations (English, Greek, Greeklish, with or without accents, etc.) and to the hashtags of our National Team’s games (e.g., #grefin, #gretur, #greisr).
Search Limitations: The Brandwatch platform collects data from websites, blogs, forums, social media (X, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, etc.) with the restrictions defined by each channel. For example, discussions in closed forums and Facebook private groups, or Instagram Stories, are not collected. The above analysis provides an indicative approach, taking into account that varying sources and date range may produce different insights.
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Drone Show by Adidas: Digital Listening Analysis
How did an Adidas drone show near the Acropolis of Athens cause thousands of reactions in only a couple of hours? Clip News’ team uses the Brandwatch platform to present a digital listening analysis. From top hashtags to total sentiment, the following case study shows how new-generation monitoring is turned into a communication strategy tool.
Public outcry for the Drone Show
The recent Adidas drone show that took place at Zappeion Hall caused public outcry. The spectacular show, which included the hologram of a huge Adidas shoe with the Acropolis monument in the background, raised serious questions about whether commercial advertisements near historical locations are proper.
Politicians and supporters of Greece’s cultural heritage denounced the Adidas drone show as a blatant commercialization of the Greek cultural identity. At the same time, reactions flooded social media. Some users mocked the situation, while other expressed serious concerns over the impact of Acropolis’ commercial exploitation. The dispute led to an investigation by the Athens First Instance Prosecutor’s Office and to lawsuits by the Greek Ministry of Culture against any other person liable. On their side, the organizers of the event claim that all legal procedures were followed.
Key Takeaways
Clip News analysts studied 13,090 publicity references from Websites, Blogs and various Social Media channels over the period 15-19 May 2025. Public discussion focused on the commercialization of cultural heritage, with 4,994 unique authors expressing intense opinions, from condemnation to humorous comments.
The trending topics include phrases like “Adidas over the Acropolis” and “Adidas ad at Acropolis”. Online news was dominated by the statements of the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, and articles of cultural and political content..
Volume over Time
Publicity skyrocketed on 16 May 2025, one day after the drone show. Volume exceeded 600 references per hour and buzz stayed quite high until 18 May, proof of the intensity and duration of the reaction in the digital environment.
Keywords, Hashtags & Emojis
The word cloud flooded with phrases like “lawsuits against any other person liable”, “prosecutor intervention”, “explanations in writing”, “Adidas shoe”. Top hashtags were #adidas, #acropolis και #mendoni. The emojis used were of particular interest. The dominant one was 🤡, suggesting irony, criticism and the surge of user emotions.
Media Sources
Out of the publicity sources selected for analysis, 76% of references came from X (formerly Twitter), 21% came from news websites, 2% from Facebook, 1% from Reddit and less than 1% from blogs. As far as the X references are concerned, 55% of the users were men and 45% of the users were women, a sign of broad demographic participation in the discussion.
Sentiment Analysis
Some 48% of the references were negative and 52% of the references were neutral. No positive references were recorded, which proves that the entire situation mostly raised concerns.
Top Sites and Top X Posters
The websites with the biggest influence, based on the Impact* index, were “protothema.gr”, “iefimerida.gr”, “news247.gr”. In terms of X accounts, “grok” and “skaigr”, as well as journalists “NChatzinikolaou” and “KostasVaxevanis”, had the biggest impact, based on their numbers of followers.
*Impact: It is a metric the potential impact of an author, site or mention. It is a logarithmic scale between 0-100 and depicts how “important” something is.
Why Digital Listening matters
The Adidas Drone Show case highlights the importance of digital listening and real-time monitoring. Through advanced social media monitoring and internet monitoring tools, like Brandwatch, brands from every sector, culture and communication officials in this particular case, are able to:
- locate trends and crises at their onset
- analyze sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) and the origin of the discussion
- evaluate data for strategic reactions and repositioning.
For organizations that handle reputation or brand image issues, real-time media monitoring and the analysis of publicity data from different sources are necessary tools in contemporary communication strategy.
Analysis identity
Digital Listening Tool: Brandwatch
Date Range: 15-19/05/2025
Sources: websites, blogs, forums, social media (subject to the limitations of each channel)
Keywording/Analysis: Clip News
Search Restrictions
The Brandwatch platform collects data from websites, blogs, forums, social media (X, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, etc.) with the restrictions defined by each channel. For example, discussions in closed forums or Facebook private groups are not collected.
The above analysis provides an indicative approach, taking into account that varying the publicity data sample and time range may produce different insights.