Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit and Some Thoughts

Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York, which was organized by Pat Coyle of the Indianapolis Colts and sponsored by by UserPlane, ExactTarget, Powered and Cantaloupe.tv. The event was a collection of bright minds from professional sports teams, leagues, sponsors, agencies and consultants who came together to discuss web 2.0 opportunities and challenges. Basically, with the increasing popularity of blogs, user-generated content, video, widgets, chat, etc...how can sponsors, teams, and others take advantage and drive fan engagement and revenue?

The event kicked off with an introduction from Daniel Aronson of IBM. There were four panel discussions focused on measurement, engagement, communication and socializing. Panelists included representatives from Rotoworld, Pringo, Federated Media, Infield Parking, ESPN Sports Poll, Clearspring and more.

Please see below for a few notes I took from the summit. This certainly is not meant to be a full recap of what everyone said, just a few things I found interesting from each segment. You can discuss the summit and more over at the Sports Marketing 2.0 Community.

Intro by Daniel Aronson

Daniel spoke about the some key things to think about when dealing with social networking/web 2.0--content, control, measurement, etc. The two things I took away were:

  1. "What is rewarding gets done"
  • It's rewarding to be a sports fan so giving sports fans an opportunity to express themselves and connect with each other online is a way to tap into the natural passion/community that exists within sports
  1. "What is measured gets proved (and improved)"
  • We know that social media elements (user generated content, videos, blogs, etc) lead to increased engagement with websites (time spent, number of visitors, number of visits, etc) but we need to be able to measure how these factors affect business--and not just in the short term. I think measurement is crucial, as brands are sure to make mistakes in this space, but the ones who have measured their actions will be in the best position to learn from mistakes and provide more value to fans.

Panel 1 - Measurement - Measuring sports fans online: How many are there and why do we care?

Robert Fox (TNS Sport/ESPN Sports Poll) - It's important to keep things in perspective. Of all sports fans, only 50% go online for sports news and content. Robert also mentioned that the number of people who view sports content online isn't rising as fast as you might think it is, because people have more and more choices.

A few other interesting measurement-related thoughts were discussed later:

  • Difficulty in getting big brands to notice team sites, even though they may have fans who are much more engaged than the average sports site. Obviously engaged/passionate fans are more valuable, but how much more?
  • To what extent should we care about the number of fans vs. how passionate they are?

Panel 2 - Engagement - Engaging with sports fans online: how do we attract and engage sports fans?

Rick Wolf (Rotoworld, NBC Sports) - Rick said that breaking news and results drives engagement on Rotoworld.

Gene Mauro (Bunchball) - Gene mentioned that it's important to create a daily habit for users so they will want to come back.

Andrew Gregory (Exponentia) - "People want to belong." If you give them this opportunity they will want to come back.

The group generally agreed that rewards and recognition are key factors in engagement. People want to be seen. One panelist pointed out that research showed that when people write a review they check back an average of three times in 24 hours to see if anyone has responded to it.

Panel 3 - Communication - Communicating with sports fans online: which applications are the stickiest?

Hooman Radfar (Clearspring) defined a widget as "a portable application a user can place on websites, blogs, profiles, etc." He said that widgets are essentially a way of publishing content and help brands/teams increase their reach.

Scott Dorsey (Exact Target) - Email still plays a key role in reaching people online and isn't going away any time soon. Scott mentioned that social networks often rely on email (ex: LinkedIn emails you when you have a new friend request). Email should also be a part of any CRM strategy.

Another way to reach fans is through phone calls and voicemail. The Memphis Grizzlies used a pre-recorded message from Rudy Gay to generate an extra 1,500 tickets sold for one game.

Panel 4 - Socializing - Socializing with sports fans online: how can sponsors join the community?

Sponsoring video competitions may be a good way for brands to integrate themselves into these communities, as evidenced by P&G's succes with a cheerleading competition on a high school sports social network.

Chad Bockius (BazaarVoice) - Customer reviews drive revenue. 80% of all consumers seek reviews before purchasing something online, and people who write these reviews are likely to be brand advocates.

So we should definitely look for ways to encourage reviews, since this is a natural way of getting brands involved in the conversation.

Buck Krawczyk (Powered) - Brands can create online learning centers (how-to guides, wikis, etc) and their research has shown that people who interact with these learning centers are more likely to purchase products.

Shawn Gold (Social Approach and former MySpace marketing chief) - "Sponsors buy social networks for what they get for free." -the sharing aspect.


Like I said, those are just a few of my thoughts. If I misquoted anyone or misrepresented any thoughts, let me know and I'll fix it. I don't think any of us have it all figured out exactly, but it was definitely valuable getting everyone together to discuss these things. Thanks for organizing, Pat.

If you'd like to discuss any of these things, head over to Sports Marketing 2.0 and join the conversation. Also, check out PaidContent's coverage of the fourth panel.