Liverpool Takes The Reality Plunge, Sort Of…

September 5, 2012 by

NBA commissioner David Stern has long said that live sports has always been reality TV…drama played out in front of the cameras for millions to see, packed with drama, excitement and of course now all the access that teams, brands and fans can muster. The digital world has brought us into the living rooms, bed rooms and locker rooms like never before, and we can’t seem to get enough of the insider information that fans diehard and casual crave.

In order to take the access even further, documentarians began bringing us inside the locker rooms of American sport, NFL Films, NBA Entertainment and MLB Productions brought us the sights and sounds, and the HBO came along and created their signature 24/7 series. Showtime followed with “The Franchise,”  and the weekly “insiders” program has become a must for every league or property looking to expose their brand to the highest, most intimate level. No the all-access shows are not for everyone, and all are not produced with the majesty of master story tellers and videographers. Some knock offs have been tried at smaller budgets and more contrived access and they don’t work. But when done right, like “Hard Knocks” or 24/7, the stories told leave an indelible imprint on the memory of the viewers.

However this type of access is still in its nascent stages outside of the U.S. Japanese baseball (even with the all access given to Bobby Valentine in the landmark film “The Zen of Bobby V” ) is largely hidden from view, with stories carefully crafted outside the locker room. Rugby, cricket, and soccer rarely let anyone into the inner circle in real time and while the season is going on. Yes the Olympics has always had the landmark works of the late Bud Greenspan, but even those films were done well after the fact to an audience enamored with the Olympic spirit. Inside Manchester United or Chelsea or Real Madrid? Thanks but no thanks. The fans didn’t ask, brands didn’t demand, and the clubs had little interest. A documentary or two along the way about the fans, sure. Those have been done around Man U and Chelsea, but inside the inner workings? No way. A fictional movie like “Goal: The Dream Begins”  tried to take fans inside the world of Newcastle United, but movies can only go so far, and there aren’t always happy endings in sport.

Perhaps that is why the documentary the Liverpool (under the ownership of John Henry and his Boston-based team) has done with Fox is being seen as so earth shattering everywhere but in the United States.

“Being Liverpool” will debut in the United States  on September 16 with a five part series, with a debut to follow on  Channel 5 in the UK rights. The show, which worked hand in hand with the club, gave Fox all unfettered access through the end of last season and captured much of the drama of wins, losses, coach firings and hirings and all the pageantry and fan following that AMERICAN audiences are used to. Fans have never been this far inside the makings of the storied club, and the series will expose player’s lives to the cameras like Barclays Premier League soccer has never seen before.

Now it is not “Hard Knocks.” The shows are taped and edited well in advance, it is not done in season so the immediacy of the drama will be felt to some extent but not to what we see with HBO for their NFL or their Winter Classic work, or for Showtime with The Franchise (cut short by the Miami Marlins this year). It is more a string and dramatic look back. What is more important is that it is yet another step to expose high level European club football, its brands and its players to an American audience in a way that Americans enjoy experiencing their own athletes. Like the uber successful friendlies this summer, “Being Liverpool” will be another massive brand extension for the club into the growing soccer-savvy market of the United States, hoping to capture more of the market for future sales, tours, web traffic and maybe somewhere down the line, in-season games with thousands of die-hard supporters.

Will it work here? If it has the drama look and feel, it has a great chance. Will it work in the UK? It will be a culture change for sure, and for sure traditional followers of the club may be reticent to watch or enjoy a show about a season past, telling them more about their club, good and bad, than maybe they want to know. However if brands engage, fans enjoy and possibilities exist, the expansion of the series into a regular in-season EPL global show ala “Hard Knocks,” with Manchester City, Chelsea and others lining up, won’t be that far off.

It is a new version of reality TV for those outside the States, a genre which the world is now mimicking on a nightly basis. As Commissioner Stern said, sport is the greatest reality TV, so why not meshing both worlds for fans to engage in. It has worked in the States, now the concept goes global.

Tune in and find out more.  

Filed Under: FIFA, Fox, Fox Sports.com, MLS, NFL, NHL, Olympics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is All “Luck” Good For Racing?

February 7, 2012 by

The sport of horse racing has tried to right itself in the past year, and reverse the overall downward spiral that has befallen a once thriving industry. With solid turnouts, ratings and storylines for the Triple Crown, a renewed interest in the Breeder’s Cup, and a strong focus by the NTRA and The Jockey Club to find and implement more forward-thinking, technologically savvy and fan friendly programs, horse racing as started to enter back a bit into the consciousness of the casual fan. It will be a slow turn, but the recognition of change along with greater outreach and cohesive management, is a next, and hopefully great step.

So into the mix this winter comes “Luck,” a new HBO series created by David Milch and starring Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina and a cast of others. The series is built around Hoffman’s character, Chester “Ace” Bernstein, a paroled and profitable organized crime figure, and the trials and tribulations of all those around Santa Anita race Track. Milch’s wildly popular success with “Deadwood” could bring back another solid audience to the new series, and with it maybe help lift the profile of racing even more going into the spring. The only problem is that “Luck,” in the vein of popular series like “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire,” appears to be all about the more seamy side of the characters and their lives, and thus far has portrayed the sport as what many perceive it to be…filled with down on their luck individuals showing up to sparsely filled racetracks amidst a backdrop of gambling, violence and unsavory behavior. “Seabiscuit” and “Secretariat” it is not. What is even more curious is that Santa Anita, a beautiful track, allowed its name to be used in the show tied to such dark themes. The thought is probably that all publicity and exposure, especially with such stars, is a good thing. However it runs counter to the philosophy that many major entities in professional sport have taken in recent years, forgoing brand exposure for brand protection.

The NFL passed on involvement with the ESPN series “Playmakers,” and Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday.” The NHL never came close to supporting the upcoming film “Goon” or the wildly popular “Slapshot.” MLB is careful to defend its marks. Even the UFC, with its careful brand protection, chose not to support the Oscar-nominated “Warrior,” despite its very positive reaction from the MMA community. Arenas like Madison Square Garden and Fenway Park constantly turn away scripts which may portray the venerable buildings in a negative light. However Santa Anita went ahead to have its name used in “Luck.” Great for the series, not so sure for the sport of the track.

Now all is not lost for the efforts with “Luck.” Last week the NTRA and the Jockey Club announced a series of education programs to combat the negative stereotypes put forth by “Luck,” including a series of online chats each Monday at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific with the hashtag #LuckChat. The purpose is to create an interactive forum where “Luck” viewers who are unfamiliar with horse racing can better understand the jargon and various racing activities featured in the show and hopefully supplant some of the negative sterotypes portrayed. The show will also get loads of free exposure for the track and hopefully will bring some of the positive stories (and the beauty of racing) to the forefront as the series evolves. It may also bring even more curiosity and exposure to racing, and create enough casual interest to combat the negative and bring more folks out to the track. All of that is TBD.

What is positive for horse racing is the renewed efforts of leadership to stem the tide with more aggressive and forward thinking campaigns designed to reach a new audience. Whether “Luck” helps that effort remains to be seen, and will probably be based more on the success of the show than anything the industry can do either way. The series will draw attention, and attention for a sport that is trying to rally is a good thing. Whether the attention is positive or negative will play out over time, and if it is negative it can hopefully be offset bu another solid spring and other tracks across the country.

And off we go.

Filed Under: ESPN, Gaming, Horse Racing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Horse Racing, Boxing Share A Day And The Same Crossroads…Again.

May 7, 2011 by

They are sports driven by gambling dollars and the big event, and they have spent years trying to reconnect with the heyday of the past. Saturday boxing, in the form of Manny Pacquaio and Shane Mosley’s title bout, and horse racing, with the Kentucky Derby, will again take center stage in sports and try and use these elite events to resurrect their businesses. Can they?

Well the good news is that despite the alphabet soup of governance, the fractured leadership, and the migration to other sports by the casual fan, both sports remain on the edge of the public eye, and both have tremendous untold stories, especially in the markets that are growing fastest in this country, Hispanic and African American. They also both have the looming issue of gambling, both positive and negative, that can draw both ire and interest from the public and the media. Tainted sports? Yes. An upside for brands looking to engage or leadership willing to consolidate? Absolutely. Now boxing seems to be making the biggest strides towards resurrection. Promoters like Top Rank and Golden Boy have looked to professionalize their business sides, taking chances on new marketing partnerships (Top Rank’s cross promotion of the fight tonight with CBS is a great example, chronicled by the Sports Business Journal this week) and non-traditional ways to promote in an effort to use the big fight to lift the overall business. The sport’s violence and the athleticism of its elite fighters always draws a crowd and buzz, and the upsurge in interest in the UFC has actually helped pull boxing back into the brand discussions, which is counter to what many thought would happen with the rise of MMA.

Horse Racing is a different story, but one with solid potential. The horses, the jockeys, the owners, the tradition still remain largely untold outside of the Triple Crown and the Breeders Cup. Online gambling and an aging population has taken its toll on the tracks, and public funding in once profitable places like New Jersey has dried up a thriving business. There is little activation in the social media space and rumors of corruption always abound. Yet the sport thrives around the world, the excitement of the race and the pageantry of race day still exists, and the upside for thoroughbred racing to combine efforts to better educate fans and capture attention consistently still is very much in play. Maybe not at hundreds of tracks 365 days a year, as happened in years past, but certainly with a focused, consistent schedule that makes sense to the casual fan.

Brands will turn out Saturday for both events, as will casual fans on site and watching on TV. NBC’s consolidation of the Triple Crown makes great sense, and a younger, more savvy group of owners in horse racing can help drive change and consistency there as well. Both sports have opportunity…again…and at their core they are understood by the casual fan. What is needed is 21st century marketing and branding on a consistent level that uses the big event to drive the growth of the sport. Will it happen? Time will tell, as will leadership. Regardless it should be a great day of viewing.

Filed Under: Boxing, CBS, ESPN, ESPN/ABC, Horse Racing, Mixed Martial Arts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We Love Team Sports…But Not Every Sport Is For Teams…

April 24, 2011 by

This past week the Sports Business Journal had an extensive report of the financial failure of the World Boxing League, which limped home following its first season. The WBL launched last year with city by city team boxing, hoping to pit young stars trained in cities like Los Angeles and Miami against other global cities in an effort to build new stars for boxing and also build off the concept that fans will find an allegiance not just for individuals but for some civic or ethnic pride. The result, according to the piece, saw ticket sales of less than 50 in some cities like Memphis, and the concept, which was looking for multi-million dollar investments, never really caught on.

Why? A few reasons, little of which actually have to do with any of the larger scale issues that boxing has today. First, boxing first and foremost is an individual sport, and like many other individual sports before it, the “team concept” doesn’t really work. Mixed Martial Arts has tried the team of county by country and city by city with no luck, volleyball tried city by city with no interest, and while World Team Tennis has had staying power, even Davis and Fed Cup in tennis struggle to find an audience. Individual sports are just that…fans want to see individuals rise up and win, mano a mano. They are intrigued by those from their hometown and certainly enjoy rooting for one’s county, but if there aren’t more than two people on the field at the same time the concept of team is usually hard to explain. Also in most individual sports, the athletes are a vagabond lot, often traveling a circuit and rarely compete in a given “season” in one place. The money and often the media coverage (and the fans) are at the bigger events for individual purses, and that’s where the players are best known. Maybe that changes a bit in some sports for the Olympics, where pride of nationality may take precedence, but even at the Olympics a sport like boxing is much more about the individual than the team country.

Another reason. We have more than enough team sports already. This year we have again seen second tier leagues in a challenged economy struggle to find their way, and the fan, at least the casual one, seems happy with the large scale team sports we already have. Soccer, baseball, football, hoops and hockey appear to be enough, maybe with some lacrosse thrown in from time to time. There does not seem to be clamoring for more team sports to fill the landscape. We are also in an economy where lifestyle sports are becoming more important to the consumer struggling with health issues, and action sports have filled a void for many younger enthusiasts who may have been interested in yet another team sport in the past. Chuck Norris’ departed World Combat League even showed that emerging sports like karate and tae kwon do, may be good for one person, but no one cares about teams from Austin and Houston battling it out.

One more. Any new concept takes time, and time is not an ally of large scale sports launches these days. Having to explain who the new fighters were, what the team concept did, and how winners were going to be selected takes away from what fight fans want to see…a good battle of individuals. Those who would tune in went for the fights as a one off, not to see the standings of tams that in a start up had little to no relevance. Even recently launched team sports that made sense to the public like the UFL and WPS have struggled to find their place because it takes time…years…to build alliance and change viewing patterns. Brands, media partners, and unfortunately investors, are not willing to wait that long in a 24/7 world like today.

The fact still remains that boxing still can hold its own for splash and interest when there is a big fight. There may not be many heavyweights to capture the attention of the casual fan right now, but especially among a growing Hispanic audience, big names can draw attention and eyeballs as individuals and in certain geographic areas. They fight with pride for their country and for themselves, and to try and fold them into a team isn’t a good way to try and develop an individual sport. Now maybe the WBL was before it’s time, and it is the proper way to develop young boxing talent. Boxers do train as individuals in certain geographic areas and do fill local fight cards on every level. However unfortunately the early returns on the investment appear to show that the public, at least in the U.S., does not want or need another team sport concept yet, no matter how high the level of competition. Americans do love the team sport concept, that is true. They just don’t have to love it for every sport that is out there.

Filed Under: Boxing, ESPN, Olympics, Tennis Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
None :P None :P