A look at how the growth of digital platforms is changing the sporting experience for fans

1. SABM Sparks Session
18 October 2011
The Growth of Digital in Sports

3. In-home is (and always has been) – the
prime viewing spot

4. Digital and Social Platforms are
fundamentally changing the way
people watch sports

5. “I think the new way to
enjoy a game is to have
your TV on and have your
iPhone or smartphone in
your hand. You no longer
have to have a meet-up of
20 people. I watch a game
and I’m interacting with
thousands of people”
Matt Halfhill
Blogger

7. Fox Sports say that a fan might use
his phone 100 times on match day
to access sports related mobi-sites
Source: Nielsen wired

8. “We are rethinking the model of the
best available screen. Interaction goes
well beyond that biggest screen….but it’s
about the right content for the right
screen”
Rob Master, VP, Media, Unilever

9. But it’s not just in-home...
F.C Barcelona partners with Telefonica to provide the “finest access to
Social Networks”

10. How is all of this impacting the
discipline of sponsorship?

11. WC 2010
VS

12. Remember this?
“Sponsorship has ceased to be a conversational guarantee”
“the brand readiness factor” – that readiness to synthesise
“paid” and traditional media with “earned” and social
media and to feed the conversational frenzy surrounding
the beautiful game ahead of time.
Pete Blackshaw
VP Nielsen Digital Strategic Services

13. “Social Bowl XLC”
Social Media Remained a huge
contributing factor to the overall
experience

14. EEE

15. On Average only 11 minutes of football
in the average game!
The Wall St Journal

16. 2011 was no exception
Virtually all advertisers “stoked” the conversation
prior to match day by showing sneak peeks of
their ads, inviting consumers to vote for the ad
they wanted to see...even creating 3 minute films
they hoped would go viral

17. The following graphs show how sustained the online
conversation was even a full week before match-day

19. Remember this quote?
“Last year (2009), brands used Social Media marketing mostly to develop
content for and promote their Super Bowl ads (like Doritos who
‘crowdsourced’ their 30’ slots) - but this year Super Bowl ads are being
dedicated to the support of larger Social Media marketing strategies. The
servant has become the master”.
Augie Ray, Forresters Research
On the role of social media in the 2010 Super Bowl

20. So what did fans do during the game?
• 14% of the total audience -
about 12m viewers - accessed
the internet and used social
platforms during the broadcast
• The time spent on such
platforms increased from 23
minutes in 2010 to 29 minutes
in 2011
• Google and Facebook were the
top two sites visited – though
the average simultaneous time
spent on Facebook by viewers
was 19 minutes

21. The shape of things to come?

22. Budweiser screens an
FA Cup preliminary
round fixture between
Ascot United and
Wembley – on
Facebook!!

23. Video

24. The practice
4 Key developments and trends

25. #1
“Skipping the Stadium”
Providing the stadium experience in-
home

26. TNT’s Screen Mosaic

27. #2
Fantasy over Reality
Fantasy sports is a $4bn industry
The rise of the “Quant Jock”

28. #3
They’re just like me
Places average Joes on the field, in the lockeroom or
right in the middle of the everyday lives of their
favourite celebrity-athletes.
The whole concept of the FAN is changing rapidly from
being a person who follows a team to a person who
literally “stalks” individual sports stars

29. “The way we think about watching
sports is going through a rapid
transformation. Attendance is down
across most leagues but TV ratings
are up. Fans seem to be more
wrapped up in the sagas of
individual athletes than they are in
following their favourite teams”
Quoted in Mashable.com

30. A recent photo from the NY Giants
locker room post a major victory
received over 40 000 “likes” on
Facebook in 2 hours

31. #4
There’s an app for that

32. Now, more than ever, the App is becoming the most important lens into the online
world...this app for Wimbledon (iPhone and iPad) is your first and last stop when it
comes to following the tournament

33. Exhibit A
Heineken’s “Star Player”

34. Heineken realised that their status as Headline Sponsor was
no longer a conversational guarantee

35. The team also realised that “Be a
man of the world” had to be brought
alive in an extraordinary way
Heineken’s UEFA Mission
“To connect Heineken drinkers to football and give them
the best UEFA Champions League experience by
enforcing their “man of the world” status”

38. Video

39. How the NBA is building a Global
Audience using digital media

40. The NBA’s strategy
“Make a local sport global”

41. This year, the NBA finals will be
watched by fans on television,
online or mobile devices in more
than 215 countries

42. The NBA’s Digital Mantra
Provide fans the content they want, when they want it
– where they want it.
Always ask: “How will this enhance the fan’s
experience? What are their needs?

43. The big “tune in” tweet
• "#NBAFinals: Dwyane Wade is putting shots
up by himself on the floor right now. Game
2, 9pm/et ABC. http:// twitvid.com/MJQS5"
Shot entirely on the iPhone of a
NBA social media “scout” and
tweeted in real time as a reminder
for people to get ready to watch
the game...

44. NBA Game time application
A free mobile app available on iPad, Android, iPhone and Blackberry – 2.5m
downloaded this season

45. NBA.com
More than 2.5bn videos streamed this season – the sites video views have more than
doubled in a year . Fully integrated with the league’s social media channels and it
saw over 8million unique hits per day! (up 78% from 2010). Over half the site’s traffic
is international

46. Player stats
The new Stats Cube – allows fans to do direct statistical comparisons between players
– even down to how they perform in the last 5 minutes of a game. You can create and
test how your own imaginary line-ups might work – (shades of You be the coach?). It
also helps you play out a myriad of scenarios and make your own prediction for the
game

47. Mini-Moves presented by Kia
(this clip is too big to download but WELL worth the watch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e
RD1kCXL170&playnext=1&list=PL5D9
26C4EE1ED1291
Using motion picture techniques to
create a larger than life heroism about
the game

48. Tweets about Tweets
Nike’s EPIC family tracks how many tweets are going out about top NBA players...the
most tweeted ones rise to the top of the family

49. Social Media: The NBA Stats
compared to the Twitter Context
• On a normal day, Twitter users tweet 65 million
tweets or 2 billion tweets a month
• That translates to about 750 tweets per second
• Group stage of World Cup 2010 saw 2700 tweets
per second
• NBA finals game 7 in 2011 saw 3085 tweets per
second – more than 185 000 tweets per minute

50. Some of the guidelines the NBA
lives by

51. Some key principles which the NBA
Social Media team lives by.
1. Make fans feel like insiders
2. Don’t join the conversation , create the conversation
3. Know what your readers want, when they want it
4. Don’t overwhelm your followers
5. Plan ahead – not everyday has a big game