Sports teams and athletes are at an enormous advantage to corporate or consumer brands. They have a huge amount of content, they have an exisiting, passionate offline community who want their rpoduct. On top of that, sports fans are one of the most brand loyal groups of people I can think of and sport itself is inherently social. It brings people together around the game itself, in bars and pubs, in people’s homes…and online can help augment the game experience by bringing the fans into the inner workings of the clubs on a daily basis.
A sports team’s product isn’t just the game each week that the fans will pay to come and watch and broadcasters will pay to distribute. Fans want interaction with the team and players and not through the traditional methods of the press and staged TV interviews. In the UK, Football is going through a rough time financially and we may see more clubs going the same way Portsmouth and Crystal Palace have recently - into administration. I am not saying for a minute that a social media program will solve these structural problems, far from it, but it can keep the fans, from feeling like the clubs don’t care about them and keep them coming through the turnstyles or buying their favourite players shirt – wanting to stay loyal, wanting to be brand advocates. Long term, that’s surely the game.
A team’s ‘customers’ want to be as close as they possibly can to the club and the players…this is in stark contrast to consumer brands. If you sell mobile phones, insurance or detergent, do your customers really want to be your friend? They will take any freebies or decent offers but its no small ask to keep them engaged on a regular basis and enjoying every bit of content, they just aren’t that interested. Not so in sport.
So, what can a club or team do to harness this opportunity?
Make sure you have a ‘fan engagement’ strategy – This is different to an online marketing and PR strategy. It needs to provide an experience the fans can’t get through traditional channels.
Have at least one community where conversations can take place – An interactive area of the clubs website, An official Facebook fan page, a private social network. Be active and conversational here, don’t treat it as another PR vehicle.
Think what ‘exclusive’ content you can reward your fans or members with. There is boat loads of this! Exclusive footage from training, locker room interviews (within reason!), injury news from the physios, community projects….
Bring the fans into the fold. Consider empowering the fans, if you check your Facebook groups and forums I bet there are plenty of unofficial communities already thriving – harness that. Why not create Fan reporters, team tweeters, a fan zone that has some clout with the club. In Spain, Barcelona are ‘owned’ by the fans…other teams would do well to adopt a similar mindset.
Consider what Mobile can offer. Mobile is going to be big for entertainment – The devices are getting better and the teams already have a glut of content which can be distributed to people’s pockets. Think, what can we get to the fans via mobile? Arsenal and Chelsea both have iphone applications at around the £2.99 mark which is a good start. Sure they are the big fish, but the same will be true for clubs of all sizes, just on a different scale…the same principles apply.
Another key difference is that sports fans will pay for this type of content and level of interaction. Not huge amounts, as some fans will testify that it is expensive enough supporting their team but this is a question of value rather than pounds or dollars. Anything that provides a level of joy and touches the tribal part of our brains, a few quid here and there to make me feel it’s MY club is fine by me.
New Revenue
I think clubs have genuine untapped revenue streams here, not only through online advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales but in streaming and distributing their games and content to much, much bigger audience than they currently do through TV broadcasting contracts. For the clubs with international audiences (especially Asia and Africa who have a lot of growth in terms of intenet access ahead of them), if and when the devices and connectivity improve, they can have millions more people watch their games and additional content and pay micro payments for the privilege. We aren’t there yet but it is coming.
Youtube have begun streaming live sports events. We have seen England football matches being streamed live, admittedly not very well yet but that is to do with the devices and the connectivity, Virgin are trailing 100mb broadband, Conservatives have said they will make high speed connectivity priority if they win the election this year, smart phone penetration is on the up…and that is just for the games, what about news, updates, promoting community and charity work?
Players
For the athletes and players there is also the opportunity to build a huge amount of brand equity. This can be used a positive platform for a media career, raise awareness for good causes they are involved with, create a more authentic and trusted voice for the individual than old school press releases. Some are doing it well, (more in the US but we are seeing signs of it this side of the pond). Chad Ochocinco has his OCNN channel, Shaq has been a Twitter exponent for a few years now. Having the players active on these channels does come with its own set of potential pitfalls, but ignoring the new communication channels and opportunities isn’t going to make them go away. The clubs, agents and athlete’s representatives need to find a balance where the players can be treated like adults and decide the type of relationship they want with their fans…they may need them after they retire!
Organisations, brands and sports clubs are all in the same boat with needing to be more trusted and that takes time and comes with authenticity and engagement. Its all people to people communications, after all!
Update: A good example of exactly what I was talking about is Manchester City. Read this excellent post by Ash Read covering similar lines of thought.
