Enhancing the Sports Fan Experience
As news and public relations moves inexorably towards the Web 2.0 experience, so does, and will, the enjoyment of sports – at least from the fan’s perspective. I mean, it’s hard to play a good football game solely in a virtual world. But for the fan, social networking and user generated content can really enhance the experience.
Bill Sobel’s New York Media Information and Exchange Group brought together a great panel for today’s breakfast seminar: “Enhancing the Sports Fan Experience using Virtual Environments, Social Networking and User Generated Content.”
The moderator: Lou Borelli, the CEO of NEP Broadcasting, which the news release describes as the leading international provider of outsourced teleproduction services critical to the delivery of live sports and entertainment events.
Also on the panel:
Glenn Adamo, VP Media Operations for the NFL;
Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps;
Tom Buffalano, VP and GM of Digital Media, CSTV;
And Bill Rasmussen, Founder, Collegefanz.com.
(In the photo, left to right: Alex Blum, Glenn Adamo, Tom Buffalano, Bill Rasmussen, Lou Borelli)
As always, Bill Sobel is arranging to get the whole event up online in a few days – check out the NY:MIEG site – but here are some brief notes on some of the discussion:
Lou Borelli: Key question is whether the technology can be built into a viable business that will survive.
Alex Blum: It’s not all about technology, it’s about people coming together over a shared interest. Sports is a natural fit for social networking. It’s more about having a conversation with the person next to you about the Yankees and how they did last night.
Glenn Adamo: How do you slice and dice your assets to maximize reach, exposure, at some point monetize it. We have feeds of games, output them to various places. When you look at the NFL on Sunday, the game is to own the day, ditto Monday, then beginning on Tuesday, begin planning to own the next week. We figure out what’s the biggest reach. Basic premise is to take that one carrot and make fifteen dishes out of it.
Tom Buffalano: From a digital perspective for us in college sports, the schools produce 95% of the content. We provide a platform that lets the school make the decision about what audience they want to reach, what they want to program. We stream more than 10,000 live events each year, more on demand. Each school programs to its specific audience. Video is the source for what we’re terming here as social networking.
Bill Rasmussen: Sports cuts across any conceivable demographic anyone can imagine. It is probably the single most pervasive thing we can all think about. CollegeFanz has been created to let the sports fan have his say. It’s about fans talking about what they want to talk about. Why CollegeFanz, not just SportsFanz? Focus. We have to pick a segment of the audience, and we have picked the college students.
Lou Borelli: How do you balance TV and online?
Tom Buffalano: It’s more about the content, rather than the platforms. It’s really about cross-promotion, that we want an audience to think of CSTV and what we provide them, not just as a TV channel and online business, but as a destination to fulfill their passion for college sports.
Alex Blum: In addition to professionally produced content, there is now user generated content, and that is a big factor in wrapping this together. It’s still about the innate need to facilitate self-expression. Mingling professional and UGC appears to be the winning formula.
Lou Borelli: So you almost have to make the technology invisible?
Alex Blum: Absolutely. It has to be so easy that we open it up to everyone.
Lou Borelli to Glenn Adamo: In my mind, NFL Films has to be the largest warehouse of high-quality “stuff.” From a content perspective, when the NFL looks at opportunities, what role does the archiving and the ability for people to enjoy what may have been their “glory years,” fit in?
Glenn Adamo: Archiving is absolutely critical. What we do is content collection. And we then use the NFL network for syndicating. We use all this material to make really super programs.
Lou Borelli: Can you see the day when someone pays an extra fee where they get to select the cameras they watch, hear the coaches they want, listen to the referees? Why aren’t we doing that?
Glenn Adamo: A couple of reasons, neither having to do with money. You have to keep the game on an even playing field – you can’t advantage one team over the other. I don’t think you can ever make all of this available. The other thing is cursing and language on the field. Overall, we have to be looking out for the game, and I think we do that pretty well. We don’t advantage anybody and we don’t put language on the air that’s going to embarrass the teams.
Lou Borelli: How about after the fact – maybe get through the summer by allowing fans to hear everything that went on in a particular game?
Glenn Adamo: I think there’s a place – I think the execution will be really critical.
Lou Borelli to Bill Rasmussen: Where do you see your role as managing editor or content czar?
Bill Rasmussen: Definitely need someone to oversee the thing. It’s one that everyone in the social networking space has to address.
Lou Borelli: Where’s the line that gets drawn between “this is creating great buzz” and “this is getting out control.”
Bill Rasmussen: Sometimes that happens in the stands at Yankee Stadium.
Tom Buffalano: Within a social network, there’s a lot of self-policing that goes on. People in message boards will take different roles in terms of keeping things under control. If we’re monitoring, we’ll pull them aside or take them off the boards, but generally the other people in a forum will self-police and take care of would-be bullies or somebody who’s out of line – the group will shun them and report them to get them out of the system.
This was followed by audience Q&A. A sampling:
Q about whether it’s possible to allow fans to interact with players, particularly at the college level.
Tom Buffalano: There are limits to what the NCAA and other bodies allow, and the individual schools and players. I don’t foresee that happening in college sports.
Alex Blum: What I’ve seen is that athletes in almost all situations have a kind of “media handler” to intercede and help focus the conversations.
Bill Rasmussen: We have a lot of schools that just don’t want their players getting involved with message boards and such.
Q: What about Second Life – viable? [Interesting to note that most of the panel appeared to have no idea what the questioner was talking about… -:Ed]
Alex Blum: Not so sure that virtual worlds will be the thing that resonates in sports.
Q: What are potentials for mobile technologies and building buzz with mobile audiences – and how do you get video content on tiny screens?
Lou Borelli: It’s more a question of how you handle the material. Bits are bits. Questions about aspect ratio are probably more important than technology. A screen is a screen.
Tom Buffalano: It’s a matter of keeping it in context, what is a person consuming.
