Happy Holidays…with a great deal of item. to get some credit for this week we wanted to take today to address a growing opportunity/phenominon/quandry for the media in the digital world…the ability for athletes/teams/brands to break legitimate news on their own websites, ala Roger Clemens in the past 48 hours. Now its not Osama Bin Laden controlling his message with a release to Al Jezerra, but media savvy athletes, reperesentatives and brands are increasingly taking advantage of the digital space to decide when and where they break news and release information, be it Roger Clemens on Rogerclemens.com, Stephon Marbury via text message to the New York Post, or Venus Williams’ injury update on her site earlier this year. The speed with which the practice is picking up is very noteworthy for those in the business. Less than three years ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs were vilified for releasing a coaching change on Maple Leafs.com, and Dan Snyder was critiqued because of his ability to provid.unique media content, with his message, on washingtonredskins.com.
Now mainstream media are not questioning the tactic as much and in most cases they are using these sites as legitimate news sources.This week we saw Clemens emerge with his first major statement only on his charity website (which still has images on top of him in an Astros uniform from two years ago) and also teasing his upcoming “60 Minutes” interview with Dan Rather for this Sunday.athlete picking a slow time to break news (Christmas week), mass distribute only his statement without media scrutiny (via YouTube) and drive traffic to a future controled space (60 Minutes).The lack of commercial involvemen.on the site, on the background, or in the YouTube video gives Clemens sincerity, but one would surmise in the future there will now be a commercial opportunity for the site and the charity now that media and fans know the site location.
Another great story worth a read on the increasing use of the digital space to spread interest and information was in this past week's Los Angeles Time.. (via Fang's Bites) looked not just at USC and UCLA's increasing broadbased streaming efforts, but at the mid-major Horizon League and its work to provide streaming free of charge in the hopes of drawing numbers and then advertisers. Unique digital content for a fee reains a difficult sell for all but the highest value properties…but providing content for free still is the best opportunity to partner and use the digital space to drive interest.the media providing free publicity for his site and his message was perfectly plaid this week..
