There are so many new leagues popping up I am beginning to lose count. Soccer and lacrosse, rugby and volleyball and volleyball and volleyball. Table tennis and women’s baseball. Yet another crack at Indoor football. Another women’s basketball league. Winter sports. Golf. Track and Field.
The beat goes on, and personally I hope they all work, find a way to make money and use the resources that exist well to tell the great stories to fans both casual and diehard.
I have been talking, learning, and watching many from time to time, just to see what is working, what is not, and how lessons from startups can be applied to other businesses both new and with a legacy.
Part of that learning is obviously asking questions. Sometimes the questions surprise people, sometimes they are taken in the context that they are meant to be…just simple ones from someone trying to listen…sometimes they aren’t answered in the flow of the day. For the most part I have zero stake in any of these, just wanting to look in the window and browse and learn a bit.
One of those instances came this week, when I asked a relatively new league a pretty simple question. “Why don’t all your teams have statistics on their home pages?” After all we are in a data driven world where people, I thought, want to learn more and more and data, sometimes to a fault, seems to drive interest. For casual fans, and this is a pretty established sport, one of the easiest entry points are numbers we understand from any aspect of sport. It’s one of the reasons we watch, right? What’s the score? Who won?
The answer I received was a little startling. It came not from a communications person, but from a data analyst working on the social side.
“In looking at our web traffic we noticed that only 14% of our clicks look at stats so we are evaluating the value of having those numbers for each team.”
Ok Then.
As someone who deeply, I think, understands the value of social engagement to drive interest, and the need for quick video highlights to make sure a younger, video driven audience is engaged and following as fans, I get it. Written, old school “notes’ and deep dives into personalities that don’t involve sharing on TikTok may not work, but stats are not a priority as a gateway for fans, especially when a good amount of money is being spent to harvest and make sure there is legitimacy in data collection?
Maybe wins and losses for some startups aren’t as important as cooking videos or viral dances, and that’s the way success is being judged, but no formal requirement to tell your athlete stories through numbers? Hmmm…
I thought about it for quite some time, and while it’s not my place to explain any more, it served as a lesson learned to keep looking forward…BUT…let’s not forget the core business of sport is still about storytelling to every level of fan, even those who might want to read and learn and even may be interested in what the numbers tell us. The use of AI as a tool can make printed word storytelling even easier these days as long as it is curated, and AI can also help drive some great data from the numbers if applied well. That work does not distract from the work of driving and creating social content.
On the contrary, it may enhance it.
All of this should serve as a lesson learned if those at the hands of the entity tools want to learn and make sure they are looking both in the rear view mirror…what has historically worked and should be required to run a business like a league or a team…and what is coming in the windshield ahead…the use of short form video and social to drive wider engagement.
They shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
Call me old fashioned, I guess. The reality is I’m not, really.
Just trying to learn. The numbers don’t lie, but they also help to tell the story for each team, it’s not just about the likes. If it was, then why keep score at all?
If you have both elements, everybody wins.
Onward.
