Sport Hiatus? Let’s go idea-generation
Updated daily (list of case studies at the bottom)
I am starting an informal initiative amongst peers in the sports industry to see if we can contribute with some creative ideas to fill the gap in this weird moment. Let’s call it “SportPause” or “SportHiatus” more culturally savvy :).
What can we feed fans with now? Archive? Players' authentic stories and interaction? Talk about the future of the sport? Leverage the occasion and debate about how to change the sport? I imagine social will be king but O&O and OTT will have a pivotal role.
Whatever the case we need to respect the moment. Let the experts talk about it and do the one thing we are good at entertain people with sport.
- Archive content
- Fitness at home (with players, athletes, coaches)
- Gaming
- Special offers
- Authentic sports stories from players, athletes, coaches
- Anything that puts people together…
Contact me in private — cdm at deltatre.it — if you want to share ideas or just tell me how you are adapting to this.
Sports never stops. Fans never stop.
Strategic Findings
Here is what I have found talking to various people in the business:
- During this hiatus, live rights will not be as relevant as they were before
- Having built solid fan relationships is key
- Being creative and having a good understanding of fans is key
- Having content production capabilities or partnership is useful
- VOD is good to have but alone it’s not enough
What I expect happens is that those with what is needed now or capable to quickly adapt will dominate the conversation with fans and that social platforms will have an advantage as very often O&O web, apps OTT are less flexible (or content producers are less flexible on those platforms).
Meanwhile:
- No tickets will be sold, for physical events
- Sponsorship value will need to be delivered somehow with different content
- Broadcasters will have slots to fill in their sport programming, left blank from live events
- Esports will be an opportunity to engage fans with live content, but widespread adoption is yet to be seen
- Postponements will scramble calendars for when things get back to normal
The top 5 things sports and media are doing (March 20)
After a few days let’s see how the industry has reacted and how we are engaging fans during the Sport Hiatus?
What are the trends?
From what we have observed:
- Special Offers — many sports and media OTT/digital have created special offers or gone free to give access to available content (see 2)
- VOD/ Archive — Resurfacing archive content of great games or historic sports moments is at the core of the video offering in many cases. Adding some innovative elements may help — new commenting, watch together, data.
- Interactivity /Gamification— A variety of initiatives, on social mostly, letting fans vote, comment often gamified to keep the passion flowing.
- ESports — Various initiatives by Esports, media and even sports properties are focused on replacing real-life sport with games played (of the same sport). the challenge here is making ESports appealing for traditional sports fans and making it mass adopted. also, not all sports have an Esport.
- Fitness — All athletes and Players are facing the challenge to stay fit at home, as many fans, so showing how they do it is inspiring. Mostly on social. Mostly celebrity-based but can evolve.
Case studies
What I have found (constantly updated):
The Athletic
FIFA World Cup — #WorldCupAtHome
NFL Game Pass for Free
NBA League Pass
Juventus TV free month: https://pass.juventus.com/
A casa con la Juve
Tennis TV Archive: https://Tennistv.com
F1 gaming
Paolo Dybala fitness and cooking
TV in Italy eGaming with Players
Borussia Dortmund
Calciatori brutti a facebook page in Italy is trying to stream low level footbal games from South America just to have live football. Ingenious. Something for DAZN to think about?
ESPN
Esports
