Is On Line Viewing The Future? Some great proof of the growing marketplace.

July 23, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

This morning I had breakfast with Media Post’s Dave Goetzl and we were talking about the ongoing growth of online viewing, especially in the way a younger demo can now view more customized micro and indepth sites for very specialized events, ala ESPN360’s wall to wall coverage of events.  Although there is no real proof yet that most people will migrate to the small screen for consistent viewing of live major events, there is growing proof that the digital space as an alternative and enhancement to mainstream coverage is gaining steam.  A great summary of that coverage increase to date was posted on Fang’s Bites today, and is definitely worth a read.  Additionally, the use of social networking sites as a companion to real-time events continues to grow, with Z’s newsbits doing a piece on the social sites launched this week by Lenovo and Coke to compliment and aggregate fans during the upcoming Olympics.  Tack on NBC’s purchase of WCSN as complimentary live support, and an argument can be made that the live digital space is growing now to a place where it will become lucrative to business partners not just as an add-on, but as as prime buy in lieu of the big ticket TV buy.  As of now nothing can replace the hi-def big screen, but finding the niche for the digital play seems to be accelerating in growth, with the great examples provided above.  It remains to be seen how the college space especially can capitalize on the drive by the younger demo, but with broadband costs dropping the opportunity for growth among the lesser sports to drive some revenue seems to be on the horizon for the entrepreneurial programmer.

Good Use Of The Digital Space…Soccer, The Clippers, ARod, and Charley Hustle?

June 17, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

The optimization of the digital space by sports teams, athletes and brands to effectively communicate and build a return on the invested infrastructure remains a moving target.  For every success story like WCSN (which made a quantum leap forward Monday with their deal with NBC Sports) and mlb.com there are efforts that continue to fall short on expectations and return.  We all know the digital space needs to be a part of the overall strategy, but what part and at what investment is still in question, and will probably be driven by the demo that the entity is trying to reach.  Here are some best practices that are worth noting recently…on the social networking side, Media Post had a good piece on how the Los Angeles Clippers used the digital social partner Water Cooler to create a facebook platform that drove ticket sales, gave fans an incentive to recruit others and build casual talk around the team, while on the international side TechCrunch has a breakdown of the new soccer social networking site Footbo.com and how it’s simplified platform is ready to unite soccer club fans from around the world in one place.  Both are examples of keeping it simple and driving interest.  There is a lack of bells and whistles, but the appeal strikes directly to the group trying to be reached, which is the key to effective social networking.  Use the passion of the end user to go and find the other fans and bring them in to the community.  Also in the digital side comes Anthony McCarron’s New York Daily News piece on the text messaging relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Pete Rose .  Now it is in no way unusual for athletes to be texting each other…what makes the story intriguing is the crossgenerational link between the two baseball legends, and the revelation that ARod is getting some real advice via his text service from Rose, almost in real time…can easily see a campaign between some athletes coming out of this piece.  Lastly, for those who haven’t seen it, Time Magazine has a great list of various websites and their success and value…another good reference piece to bookmark.

The Cumulative News Site…Pulling The Little Pieces Together Can Make A Big Impact…

May 16, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

With newspapers cutting back on original content and many blogs tending to give opinion as opposed to breaking news, the niche news sites, ones which aggregate content, link to key sites and provide original news coverage, especially for second tier sports, are becoming more and more impactful, and should really be looked upon more by teams, brands and athletes as the place to communicate with the strong fan base as well as with the casual fan.  More importantly, these sites are where many members of the media new to the sport, the team or the brand will go on first look to get information and background, so not working with the sites, or treating them as insignificant while chasing the mainstream, can proove to be a mistake.  Examples of some of these solid sites are WCSN for Olympic sports, Five Ounces of Pain for Mixed Martial Arts, and in soccer, one to check out is Big Apple Soccer.  Even with sites like ESPN and Yahoo vastly increasing their second tier sports coverage, the ability for the cumulative sites to draw eyeballs and get brands, athletes and teams great exposure, and in turn push that news in macro to bigger sites, is growing in importance.  Perhaps just as important is the cultivation of young journalists through the sites.  Many times because the writers and videographers on these sites have both a passion and an expertise in the area that mainstream sites do not, the writing is more detailed, much cleaner and more interesting for those looking to get more indepth coverage.  So when building the media plan, look for the big hit, but dont forget the niche sites.  You never know where the next team of great writers will come from.

Telling The Story To Those Who Want To Hear It First…WCSN and others…

March 30, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

One of the biggest problems with promoting and branding sports and entertainment properties today is that everyone wants to be “Like Mike” (the old Nike slogan with regard to Michael Jordan).  The problem is that many emerging brands and properties try to grab that brass ring before they are ready, or don’t look to aggregate all the “smaller” opportunities to tell their story.  The growth of sports on the web has been both a blessing and a curse for emerging brands.  The opportunity is there to tell ones story to a mass audience, yet the emerging brands in many cases are more concerned with the big hit than the series of steady steps  to build to get to the big one.  Two examples of  groups doing their best to help those emerging brands find their market are World Championship Sports Network and the Horizon League.  WCSN is quickly emerging every day as THE place to go for Olympic sports (especially leading to Beijing) that the casual fan and the ardent follower can’t find in the mainstream every day.  The same with the Horizon League, which is one of the few “mid-major” league to effectively speak to its core audience of alumni, families and student athletes (and hopefully sponsors) with a steady flow of hard to get very targeted live and taped video pieces.  What do these emerging sources for information find?  Steady market share for their core audience, which in turn makes them the trend setters which hopefully leads to larger non-core audience which leads to sponsors which leads to outside media coverage and capital.  However by aggregating the core fan first, both groups are finding away to grow in the niche, and lead to the mainstream.  Fish where the fish are.  You have to tell the stories to those willing to listen and view first before you can go and get the others.  Both groups do that very well.