We caught up with him this week to talk sports digital now and in the future.
As a young veteran in the sports digital space, what is the biggest change you have seen from when you started until today?
I would say the biggest change has definitely been the growing focus on digital video and social media as the place for content — not only by the audience, but by rights holders as well. Though it may feel like another lifetime, it was really only 5-6 years ago when the consuming of content (especially video) on mobile devices and tablets became more commonplace. Back then most TV networks didn’t have OTT offerings, while platforms such as Snapchat and Vine were just in their infancy. Even YouTube didn’t create its own App for iOS until late 2012.
What do brands want most when developing content for the consumer these days?
I believe brands, ultimately seek to develop content that will come across as authentic in its story, to the point where the viewer may not even recognize that the piece is selling them a particular product or service. The best branded content leaves the viewer thinking the brand’s association feels organic. It doesn’t have to include a direct call to action to buy; hopefully the piece is so good that the viewer will naturally develop a positive association with the content and, as a result, will want to share it with their community of friends on social and digital. Sports brands are particularly suited to deliver engaging content because sports are by nature activity based, and top athletes produce countless awe-inspiring moments just in the normal course of business.
There is so much talk about consumers being totally unplugged, do you see that as realistic or we will always have a combination of traditional broadcast and digital?
Though a growing percentage of the consumer base may want to ‘unplug’ entirely, I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future, especially for those users who crave live sports content. As long as traditional broadcasters continue to have the best content and hold the purse strings — and they will for many years, as many top leagues and properties are locked into deals that don’t come up for renewal until the 2020s — fans won’t be able to fully unplug because the crown jewels will likely still be kept linear.
In your time at YouTube, which leagues did the best with engagement on the platform and why?
At YouTube we often held up the NBA as the best example of a league using YouTube effectively. They were one of the first leagues to establish an official presence on YouTube (in 2007), and since then have been very progressive in their approach to using YouTube as a vehicle to grown their fanbase and engage their community. The NBA produces amazing game clips and shoulder content, while also leveraging all the YouTube partner tools and features to have a conversation with their 6 million plus fans. The NBA has also been willing to experiment with new products and features, such as YouTube’s live player (with NBA D-League games) and the Google Search Onebox during the NBA playoffs. Approaching YouTube as a self-funding fan building tool underpins all their activities on the platform.
Who are some of the athletes or personalities that have done the best with digital engagement with the consumer?
From a scale perspective you can’t deny that athletes such as Ronaldo, Kobe, and Messi have done a great job with their digital and social presences — I think Ronaldo has something on the order of 150M followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But beyond the numbers, it is the way that these athletes leverage each platform deferentially to create a truly rich experience for their fans that can’t be had by simply watching a TV broadcast — impromptu Q&As on Twitter, behind the scenes photos on Instagram, sharing social causes on Facebook, hangouts on Google+, the list goes on. As important is also their acknowledgement of the global nature of their followings; these athletes often post in multiple languages.
Are there brands in the sports space that you think have done a great job with creative digital engagement?
I’ve been a big fan of what Pepsi Max and Under Armour have been doing. Pepsi Max’s ‘Uncle Drew’ series with Kyrie Irving and ‘Test Drive’ spots with Jeff Gordon have gotten the most press (and rightfully so; those are great pieces of content), but I also appreciated last year’s Pepsi Max Challenge / #LiveForNow campaigns where they found regular folks with amazing skills and provided them with the opportunity to showcase their talents. In the case of Under Armour, I loved they’re willingness to showcase the strength of women with their campaigns starring ballerina Misty Copeland and supermodel Gisele Bundchen — that’s how you start a unique digital conversation. I’m also interested to see how their digital acquisitions of MyFitnessPal and Endomondo play out in the Fitness space.
On a global scale, why is it that teams European football or Indian cricket seem to be far ahead of US teams in terms of mobile engagement to date, and will that change?
I think part of it is what I referenced above in terms of where the money is coming from and where the rights currently sit in each market, but for some sports it is also the case that the audience they are catering towards is mobile-first as a result of economics or the infrastructure (or lack thereof) that is available in certain countries. In your example of cricket in India, whether a function of income or ease of access to mobiles devices (relative to TVs), India and indeed many APAC countries are overwhelmingly mobile-first. As a content distributor you have to go where the eyeballs are and develop your programming and content with that format in mind. When it comes to the US, we are seeing continued shifts to mobile as well, and I think the fact that more and more content distributors in this market are rolling out OTT and digital-only offerings will only help to spurn that movement.
Which properties are you looking at to emerge in the space in the coming year, especially as we head toward Rio 2016?
I suspect all the Olympic sporting federations and NGBs will get their usual bump in awareness and engagement in the leadup to Rio 2016, but I’m more interested to see how brands will evolve in how they activate around the Games. It’s no longer enough to run commercials and put up billboards with your logo next to the rings — how do you build true association? How do you bring your support of an athlete or national team to life? Today’s fans want to know more about the journey and want to feel like they are truly part of the Olympic experience, whether they are in the stadium or watching at home.
