The Sports Info Business

It is week six of the National Football League season and the 2010-11 season is sailing rather smoothly.

Great television ratings, strong competition and quality of the product make it seem like just another sunny day in the NFL world.

However, my suggestion to front office leaders of any team is to prepare for the possible storm that lies ahead.  Who knows if there will be a NFL work stoppage next year.

Here’s an example from the league office, first.  The NFL has set up a web site called NFL Labor News which includes a daily content of what is happening in the league.

Last night, two more teams punched their 2010 Major League Baseball playoff tickets and made news for different reasons.

First up is the the Cinncinati Reds, once a proud franchise, captured its first playoff spot in 15 years on Tuesday after defeating the Houston Astros 3-2.  After nine straight losing seasons, most casual fans will talk about Dusty Baker and speak about how he became the ninth manager to take three different franchises to the playoffs. I look at it a bit differently.  While I am happy for Dusty, I see scouting Director Terry Reynolds and former Seattle Mariner and Los Angeles Angel Billy Bavasi back in the post-season.  I am really happy for Guys like PR Director Rob Butcher, who I had a chance to chat with during this year’s All-Star game in Anaheim.

Sure I have fond memories of the 1970′s Big Red Machine with Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose and Davey Concepcion.  These days however, I root for friends in the business.  Guys who have put more than their fare share into working for an organization night and day, often waiting years for a chance to go or return to the playoffs.  In sports management, we do not control what happens on the field.  That is left to the players.  So management’s fortunes ride on the players and after all the hard work, a few executives get to enjoy working a bit longer.  Some may even be rewarded with a ring come the end of October.

Then there’s the Tampa Rays, who under former Angels coach Joe Madden have the best record in baseball as of tis morning.  The club is also one of eight teams working to win the world series, but not without a bit of controversy.

Earlier this week, Rays pitcher David Price used his Twitter account @DAVIDprice14 to express his frustration that the team has been playing to more empty seats than fans down the stretch.  He used the 140 characters to say “Had a chance to clinch a post season spot tonight with about 10,000 fans in the stands….embarrassing.”

He quickly learned the power of Twitter and that the medium is like a microphone as he was blasted from media and fans alike for the comment.  Within an hour, it seems someone for to him sin e the follow up message by Price read, “If I offended anyone I apologize I did not think it was gonna turn into this…”

He has not Tweeted since.

My take on this?  Mr Price is a passion athlete who is competitive and wants to win.  He certainly wants a home town crowd behind him.  However, I suggest Mr. Price open his eyes to the real world and maybe read this month’s news release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  It said, in part,

the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary
workers hired for the decennial census completed their work.

The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate
(9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the
jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent.

If that were not enough, this unemployment graph, dated through June delivers the message as well.

Hopefully enough said and lesson learned.

Meanwhile on the college circuit, there will be at least one less division I baseball program next year.  The University of California Golden Bears, that’s Berkeley to those of you from the East Coast and around the world, announced they are slashing baseball and a few other sports from their intercollegiate roster as the school (and the entire California University system) continues to deal with shortfalls in budgeting.

A quick check of Cal’s Athletics web site and the news release section did not list a thing, but I did find the story within the main college web site. Along with baseball, gymnastics will get the ax as will  in budgetary cuts that will reportedly save the University four million dollars.

The number of varsity sports at UC Berkeley will be reduced from 29 to 24 under the new plan.  A total of 163 student-athletes of the more than 800 currently participating are directly impacted by the decision – 38 in baseball, 19 in men’s gymnastics, 15 in women’s gymnastics, 30 in women’s lacrosse and 61 in men’s rugby – as well as 13 full-time coaches.

Loved the headline of the news release.  It began with:  University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau announced today (Tuesday, Sept. 28) a comprehensive plan for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics that will result in a broad-based yet sustainable program that continues to support the campus’s commitment to excellence.

Last time I checked commitment to excellence did not mean displacing college students as well as coaches.  The PR people could have done a better job with their messaging.  However, with the economic climate still dismal, especially on the West and East Coast, it is understandable.

This morning, I read a story on Forbes.com that chronicled the 20 best-ever social media campaigns.

You can click through all 20 companies but to save you time, here are the following top three campaigns.

1. Blair Witch Project

2. Blendtec

3. Old Spice

In a different but related report, two sports-themed videos made the list of  the top 10 viral videos for July 2010 according to video content distributor goviral.

After dominating the top 10 lists for much of the first half of the year in 2010, sports-themed videos only snared three spots on goviral’s top 10 viral video list for June 2010. In July 2010, only two of the top 10 videos could be considered primarily sports-themed. Both videos, a promotion for the Coca-Cola energy drink Burn and a video of a wipeout by the owner of California Skateparks, focused on the sport of skateboarding.

Here’s the catch.  The sports themed videos are been driving by consumer products, not from a specific team or organization.  This is telling in that teams have a lot to learn in this area to drive buzz online.  Popular Twitter chatter has proven that specific sports events drive buzz.  For example, the Super Bowl, World Series or LeBron’s “Decision” have all generated a lot of interest. Specific social media videos for a team or sports organization however, are still missing.

Sounds like an opportunity to me.

According to Goviral, humor was the dominant theme in July. Videos of the “Old Spice guy” performing impossible feats, nerds engaging in a rap battle, a dimwitted redneck hunter, friendship among rival Pepsi and Coke delivery drivers, and a spoof of the “Old Spice Guy” with a studious star all relied on humor to get their message across.

The top 10 picks for July, with links to view on YouTube:

1. Old Spice – Questions (and Responses), agency: Wieden-Kennedy;
2. Levi’s – Walk Across America, agency: Conscious Minds;
3. Dentyne Pure: Epic Rap Battle, agency: Rhett & Link / Platinum Rye / PainePR;
4. Burn (Coca-Cola) – Ride, agency: Publicis Mojo;
5. Samsung – Redneck Hunter Goes to Jail, agency: Cheil Worldwide;
6. Domino’s Pizza – Domino’s Pulling the Cheese; agency: Crispin Porter & Bogusky;
7. PepsiMax – Diner 2PointZero, agency:TBWA/Chiat/Day;
8. California Skateparks – World’s Largest Skateboard Disaster, agency: N/A;
9. Harold B. Lee Library – New Spice/Study Like a Scholar, agency: N/A;
10. HP – Hit Print, agency: N/A

Celebrity endorsements have been around for as long as sports have been a part of popular culture.  The idea has been to match a well-known athlete with a company to help improve its image and more importantly, move sales of a particular product.

Some athlete endorsers have become closely associated with a particular product.  Here are a few examples:

If I said Joe Dimaggio, you might associate him with Mr. Coffee.

Joe Namath?  You’d probably throw out pantyhose, Noxema or even Susy Kobler (okay, the last one was not exactly an endorsement).

If I mention Peyton Manning, there would be too many commercials and associations to count.  My guess is you may remember the funny Sony spots with actor Justin Timberlake.  Each time a business decides to hire an athlete, they put their brand and reputation on the line.  Let’s not forget how fast brands fled Tiger Woods after he was caught cheating on his wife.

In most cases, the famous athlete is helping to drive the brand.

But if I mentioned the name Isiah Mustafa, would you be able to answer which professional teams he played for much less the brand he is associated with today?

Mustafa’s commercials have been a hot on TV and just as big on the internet.

According to a Wikipedia bio, Mustafa signed as a rookie with the Seattle Seahawks in 2000 and eventually played for the Tennessee Titans practice squad before playing in Barcelona of the NFL Europe.  While he has appeared in a few television shows (Ugly Betty, Days of Our Lives and NCIS), the Old Spice commercials have gone viral on the internet.  After completing the planned commercials for TV, Old Spice connected with online users by having him answer actual questions people mentioned via Twitter including helping with a wedding proposal.

This ingenious campaign has generated millions and millions of page views for a brand that not long ago was looked by consumers as old and crusty — your dad’s product.  Now, it is hip, young and online buzz worthy.  I am interested to see what it means for the product’s bottom line.

All of this by an athlete many of us did not even know.

If you want to see additional personal responses, here’s the link to the Old Spice YouTube channel

The Major League Baseball season has just about reached the All-Star break and with the top players and executives soon invading my space here in Orange County for the mid-summer classic at Anaheim Stadium, I thought it was time to revisit how teams were faring on the Facebook Fan front.

I have spent time tracking each Major League’s teams Facebook statistics and I compiled it into a data sheet within this blog (see below).  Here are some of the things I compiled:

♦ I totaled number of fans each team has on its official site as of this morning.

♦ The change in fans since I polled each team earlier in the season.

♦ The growth ranking for each team compared to the others in the National and American Leagues.

♦ I then added a column for wins.  Why?  I wanted to see if there was a correlations between total wins this season and the number of Facebook fans for each team.

A few Hits and Misses:

• 8.7 million Facebook users have now become a fan of a Major League team, up from 6.2 million earlier in the season.  The league average for fans is now 290,000+, a jump of nearly 100,000 people from earlier in the season.

The top five baseball teams ranked in order of Facebook fans as of this morning:  1) New York Yankees 2) Boston Red Sox 3) Chicago Cubs 4) Philadelphia Phillies 5) St. Louis Cardinals

• Tope five teams in terms of growth since the last survey earlier this year:  1. Yankees (+405,334 fans) 2. Red Sox (+279,364) 3. Phillies (+212,344) 4. Cubs (+165,386) 5. Minnesota Twins (+116,863)

• I added a column of total team wins.  The Cubs defy the odds by tanking third in total fans but have just 36 wins this year.  The team begins play today in fourth place, 10 games out of first place.  The Milwaukee Brewers (13th) are also in the top half of the 30 teams yet only have 37 wins.  Conversely, the San Diego Padres, first in the NL West with 49 wins, rank 26th, the Blue Jays with 41 wins are 24th on the Facebook Fan list and the Angels with 46 wins rank 23rd.

• The bottom five teams in terms of total Facebook fans are from the National League:  26. San Diego Padres 27. Florida Marlins 28. Pittsburgh Pirates 29. Arizona Diamondbacks 30. Washington Nationals

Here is the chart…. For my conclusions, read below the chart.

Conclusions:

It would be easy to say that winning naturally breeds new Facebook Fans.  The Yankees, with the most wins in baseball this morning, also have the most Facebook Fans with more than 1.5 million while the Orioles rank last in wins and 25th on this fan chart.

However, there is much more to it than fans hopping aboard the bandwagon.  Just look at the Washington Nationals.  The team becently became a hot ticket on select days, specifically when rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg pitches.  However, this enthusiasm at the gate has not translated into more interest about the team on facebook.  The organization ranks last with 48,634 Facebook Fans and grew 9,085 folks since he last polled the teams.

I think you could see spikes by specific teams down the home stretch and into the playoffs,  That’s when the bandwagon theory works.  Until then teams need to do the following:

* Continue to build original traditions at the ball park and make the fan expereince second to none.

* Provide unique content within social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  If you are not adding value and just telling me who is pitching tonight or what the promotion of the week is, you will probably be ignored.  More than 400 million people have signed up for facebook and 50% check their accounts every day. Can you say growth potential?

* Create a digital marketing department within each team’s hierarchy and give it the flexibility to listen, engage and educate fans.  I know there’s Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) on a national level, but this organization cannot impact the fan experience like a local club rep can.  It is about touching people’s lives and delivering an experience that an adult or child will remember forever.

* Do not give your social media platform to junior staff or interns.  Do not hand the brand over to those that are not ready to guard it, and promote it.

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If you like these and other posts I hope you will consider using the tools at the top of the blog to repost it on YOUR Facebook, YOUR Twitter account or event via DIGG.  Thanks for your continued interest in this blog.

Leave it to Gatorade to make a great video showcasing their social media platform.

Called Gatorade Mission Control, the one minute video in my opinion aims to do a few things:

1) Tell consumers Gatorade is listening to what is being said about the brand online

2) Actively engage the online community in a new way.

3) Use the video to show consumers, investors and even employees it is applying the latest and most popular technology  tools to keep the brand relevant.

During the segment, the video asks an important question   — “How do you monitor the pulse of the Gatorade Brand?”  Here is the video.

If you look at the picture below, you can read Gatorade did a fine job communicating the following points of why this medium is so important.  There is watch is written over each TV screen:

1) Monitor online discussions

2) Proactive Social Media Outreach (aka engaging current and future customers)

3) Track Brand Attributes

4) Monitor Sports Landscape

5) Track Media Performance (measurement)

6) Track Sports Trends and Buzz

Sports Executives listen up.  This is the future of the business yet most properties are stlll busy trying to manage basic Facebook and Twitter accounts with mundane promotional message and  junior staff.

Twitter showed the real impact, passion and fan connection with this social media tool (which I illustrated in the “fact blog” last week).  The Lakers and Celtics, according to the LA Times story set a record with more than 3,000 posts PER SECOND near the end of game 7.  3,000 online comments by fans per second.  Who wouldn’t want to listen, measure and engage with those people?

Did the NBA capture and measure what was said by basketball watching fans?  Dunno.  They naturally had other things on their mind at the time.  However, was it a lost opportunity?  My suggestion is to take Gatorade’s words to heart and begin to lead in this area.  It takes people, ideas, money and passion.  So much to do.  I only hope the old guard is not thinking like “old school” much longer.  The times are a changin’.