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I apologize for the lack of activity here lately. I’ve been pretty busy with client work and I recently got involved with a startup web business (Scavenja) with 7 other people. Scavenja is a photo-based scavenger hunt that connects offline and online activities and integrates sponsors in a variety of ways, providing a unique and memorable brand experience for players. We started the company last weekend (July 11-13)  at RTP Startup Weekend. Scavenja is still in private, invite-only beta so we can get feedback and continue adding features, but we’re pretty excited about it.

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about today was the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball camp that came to Raleigh’s Athens Drive High School. The camp’s official name is the Pledge to be a S.T.A.R (sportsmanship, teamwork, attitude, respect) Summer Camp. The goal of this event was for the NBA to teach about 250 boys and girls ages 9-13 basketball fundamentals, while emphasizing important values like listening, teamwork, etc.

I went out to the event this morning to check it out and meet up with a friend who works with the NBA in community relations. Olympians Katrina McClain and Teresa Edwards were there helping teach the kids and build enthusiasm, and Charlotte Bobcats player Sean May was scheduled to arrive later. The energy in the gym was great, and the staff had all the kids clapping, smiling and having fun. I tried to put together a quick video to show some of things that were going on (awesome editing skillz, i know). At the end the kids are screaming, “Teach me, coach! I wanna learn!”

The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball Camp is a great example of grassroots marketing and integrating a league sponsorship at a local level. Raleigh is not an NBA market (closest team is 2.5 hours away in Charlotte) so this was a good chance for the league to connect with people who may not be as likely to be fans. The NBA  will conduct 12 of these camps this summer in similar markets, but typically runs more than 100 grassroots events each year.

From a sponsorship standpoint, this was also a unique opportunity to reach an engaged audience. The event was sponsored by Singulair (an asthma medicine), which is made by Merck, an official league partner. Singulair was integrated into the event via banners and a nice brochure, which was created to help parents understand asthma and sports and how asthma controllers like Singulair can help.

Overall I’d say the JR. NBA/Jr. WNBA Basketball Camp and other events like it are great. The league reaches a new audience, sponsors are integrated at a local level, and most importantly, kids have fun and learn about basketball.

I recently enjoyed reading Jeremiah Owyang’s post about the five questions companies ask about social media. This inspired me to put my own spin on this and apply it to the world of sports. While Jeremiah discussed the questions from his experience about what companies actually ask him, I decided to write the questions that I think teams should be asking about social media.

What is Social Media?

Common Craft does a great job at explaining complex things in simple ways. Here’s there video about social media that makes it pretty easy to understand, in my opinion. Obviously there is a lot more to it than this but the video makes it easy to grasp the basic concept of social media and why it is so powerful.

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Why Does It Matter?

Social media and related tools allow people to easily connect around common interests, form close bonds and make their opinions heard. Sports generates a huge amount of passion in people, and social media has made it easier for people to display and share their passion for their favorite players, teams and sports. People are now consuming information about your team in new ways, instead of just reading about you in the newspaper or watching ESPN. Fans write their own news and can reach a large amount of people through simple blogging and social media tools. If you’re winning, people are talking about you. If you’re losing, people are talking about you. Just know that even if you choose not to get involved, the conversation is still happening. You might as well monitor it and participate, don’t you think?

What Does It Mean For Fans?

Sports fans love talking. If you give them an opportunity to react to stories and videos, share them and submit their own stories, you’re providing a way for them to become even more engaged with your team. Instead of having the conversation take place only on outside message boards because your team website isn’t relevant, why not open the site up for conversations, or start a new site (ex: MyColts.net) to provide an outlet for fans to connect and communicate?

Another part of this is that social media tools have given fans who don’t live in your team’s city a way to keep up with what’s going on and connect with other like-minded fans.

What Does It Mean For Sponsors?

Building a team community website and/or participating in other social media sites gives sponsors a way to extend their connection to the team and provide relevant content or exclusives to fans online. Sponsors can get more impressions and have the opportunity to engage fans in new ways through content, communities, blogs, groups and widgets.

How Can Social Media Help Generate Revenue?

Social media tools can help teams reach more fans and deepen their connection with current fans. More engaged fans means more ticket sales, merchandise sales and increased revenues. Teams can also take advantage of social media tools to provide new ways for sponsors to activate. New activation ideas and more options for sponsors should help teams generate more revenue.

That’s all I’ve got for now. What else should teams be thinking about in the social media space? If you’ve had experience working with teams on their social media initiatives, what questions have they asked you?

American Express does a great job with its golf sponsorships, using them to obtain benefits for Cardmembers and reward them for paying an annual fee. Though they may not have Tiger Woods as a spokesperson anymore, I don’t think this has hurt them much due to the wide variety of valuable offers they have for golfers. Here are a couple things they have going right now.

Friend of a Cardmember program

• Book a lesson with a PGA professional and bring a friend free.

US Open Golf Tickets and Travel Packages (visit this site for more details)
2008 US Open

• Stay at a nice hotel for 3 nights and get 2 weekend grounds passes as well as access to the American Express Hospitality tent. $2,699 per couple

2009 US Open

• Presale now through June 15 for daily trophy club tickets, which are ONLY available to AmEx Cardmembers.

2009 PGA Championship

• Cardmembers have access to a presale (now through May 31) to purchase Wanamaker Club and Season tickets

As you can see, these are tangible, valuable benefits that American Express offers its Cardmembers. You can see more benefits at http://www.americanexpress.com/golf.

If you’re an avid golfer and have an American Express Card, are you taking advantage of these benefits?

This was a HUGE week for MMA. The UFC gained a blue-chip corporate sponsor in Anheuser-Busch, making Bud Light the league’s exclusive beer sponsor for 3 years. ProElite and CBS announced a multi-year partnership to put EliteXC events on broadcast TV (though it reportedly was a time buy and not a rights-fee based deal), a huge breakthrough for the sport.

Both of these developments signify that marketers are starting to see MMA as a legitimate sport and platform for promotion. I think we’ll definitely see more networks and sponsors get involved in the next year or so.

You can read more about the UFC-Bud Light deal here and the ProElite-CBS deal here.

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

2. “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.

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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.

By the numbers, sports sponsorship continues to grow, but by other indications (major teams failing to secure sponsorships, sponsors failing to justify their investments), the sponsorship industry needs improvement. This all boils down to poor sponsorship valuation.

There’s an interesting article in this month’s issue of SportBusiness International that discusses the fact that poor research and planning is keeping sports sponsorship from meeting its potential. The author discusses five key areas where research should be improved:

• Research the consumer – We often value sponsorships based on TV audience delivery, but sponsorship ideally should be platform neutral-we shouldn’t treat it like a media buy
• Brand Fit with the property – It’s not just about if the property fits the brand. The brand should also fit the property, so people will be more likely to accept this link as authentic
• ROI research – Tracking TV viewers is only a small part of the overall picture
• Measure Recognition – We often measure awareness, but consumers are bombarded by so many messages that this ignores the “recognition” factor that often triggers an emotional response and, if triggered, can leave a positive impression of the brand on the consumer
• Don’t attribute all successes (or failures) to sponsorship – Examine all aspects , including activation, media, communications, etc.

I would add another thing to think about before deciding to sponsor a property (as indicated by my horrible graphic): Besides the sponsorship fitting with the brand (and vice-versa), does the sponsorship fit with the current advertising and communications? For example a football sponsorship may fit with the brand (or the decision-makers may think so) but if the brand is currently running ads with ballet dancers, how does a football sponsorship fit into this mix? Either it doesn’t or the brand needs to get some updated creative.

On another note, due to the growth of the Sports Business Carnival and my original intentions to have this be something bigger than just a Take A Peck feature, I’ve decided that it’s time to start having other sports business blogs host the carnival. The November 19th edition will be housed at Sports Agent Blog. You can submit articles directly to Darren Heitner –heitner(at)gmail.com–or through the Blog Carnival main page. The goal is for this to be hosted by all the major sports business blogs. I’m sure the Carnival will return here again (and often), but I just wanted to let everyone know what the plans were.