Effective Social Media Communication in the Sports World

            A couple of months ago I was talking to a "Major Player" at a "Major Hollywood Entertainment Company" who is involved in sports only because his company has a tangential relationship with some sports properties.  In trying to carve out his space, he was seeking my expertise by asking where there are opportunities to create new revenue streams in sports.  I told him that I felt the broadest opportunities are in engagement and social media.

            “Really?” he asked.  “Don’t you think most people are there already?”

            And I had to tell him no, because while virtually all sports businesses and sports stars understand that the marketplace of consumers has moved from the newspaper and the television to the laptop and the smart phone, very few sports businesses really understand what they are trying to accomplish in that space.  The model has fundamentally shifted:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/youtube-the-future-of-entertainment-is-on-the-web/2012/01/12/gIQADpdBuP_story.html.  

            Unlike business in general, the landscape in sports business has the additional challenge of competition as a core element.   That is, not only does a sports business compete for a dollar, but when that business is inefficient with its dollars, it directly affects its ability to win on the field of play.  So when new business models begin to infiltrate the industry, the risk for established businesses to change is very high.  Fortunately, so is the reward.  Nonetheless, it is scary for these businesses to try to take that risk into new creative spaces, because the cost of being wrong affects the organization in so many ways.

            When it comes to social media enterprises like Facebook and Pinterest and Groupon among others, many smart companies and teams have done a terrific job of accumulating followers while they begin to figure out this landscape.   Their first move has been to position their fans for the next big revolution even as those companies and teams try to figure out what that revolution is attempting to accomplish.  The Orlando Magic, for example, have done a masterful job of plowing into the social media space well out of proportion for the size of their media market and their lack of a national fan base http://www.adamsherk.com/social-media/most-popular-nba-teams-twitter-facebook/.  The Magic got out in front of the game and have stayed there.

            But other teams have done an equally good job of understanding what it means to be in that space and been very bold in creating some new ideas that complete that vision.  The New Jersey Devils:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/01/09/Franchises/Devils.aspx 

and the Pittsburgh Penguins:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/10/24/Franchises/Penguins.aspx 

seem to understand that it isn’t enough just to be in social media or web spaces, but that the conversation has to be a two-way conversation.  These businesses, and others, understand it isn’t just that the business speaks to the consumer in a new location, but that the structure of the conversation itself has changed.  If the business is in position to have a conversation where there is give and take, where it listens as well as speaks to the consumer, the business is more likely to make a sale.