Morocco's Football Triumph in the 2022 FIFA World Cup: A Data-Driven Analysis of Sociocultural Impact Using Big Data Analytics

In the 2022 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, Morocco's National Football Team achieved a historic fourth-place finish, garnering global attention on platforms like Reddit, X, Facebook, and Instagram. This study presents an advanced descriptive analytics framework, establishing a proprietary set of composite Morocco Indices - Country Index, World Cup Index, Jersey Index, YouTube Index, and Tourism Index - through alternative data and natural language processing. These Indices captured a surge in positive sentiment on topics related to Morocco, specifically a 400ii% average increase in global search volumes related to Morocco's cuisine, culture, and attractions during and after the World Cup. Notably, queries like “best time to visit Morocco”, “Visa to Morocco”, and “Morocco travel,” and other semantically-related posts saw drastic increases in search volume. This study's results exhibit the profound sociocultural impact of mega sporting events on developing nations, highlighting how such events are able to significantly alter international perception and cultural interest in a country. The devised framework that is specialized at monitoring public opinion and sentiment may offer invaluable insights to FIFA and other entities keen on reporting and strategizing future returns on investment through the avenue of sports.