As New Year’s Day comes and goes the sports fan is reminded of an interesting truth – the home viewing experience of a sporting event is beginning to outweigh the experience of actually being there. From high definition to 3D to 80 inch screens, anyone can essentially bring the “at the game feel” to home without spending the money on tickets, souvenirs, food and beer. In fact, today the sports organizations are the ones who need to lure fans with gimmicks to draw them in.
FanCam technology is certainly no gimmick, and it is the next big reason why fans will get back to attending sporting events.
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Steve is a recent graduate of Penn State University with a degree in Sports Journalism from the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. He is currently working as a marketing and PR intern for Sports Networker.
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This interview is part of our Sports Jobs interview series where we talk to successful sports business professionals about their role in sports, how they got there, what a typical day looks like and advice they would give to sports business students looking to land their dream job in the sports industry.
Sports Jobs – Peter Stringer – Boston Celtics – Director, Interactive Media
Peter Stringer is the Director, Interactive Media for the Boston Celtics (NBA). Peter wears many hats in his role and has plenty of great advice for sports business students aspiring to work in the sports industry! Check out the interview below and if you have any questions for Peter, please leave a comment below.
And, we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d share this interview with your friends on Facebook & Twitter!
To connect with Peter online visit:
http://peterstringer.com
http://linkedin.com/in/peterstringer
http://twitter.com/peterstringer
On November 1, 2010 the San Francisco Giants defeated the Texas Rangers and were subsequently crowned “World Champs” by the media and the online world. On June 17, 2010 the Los Angeles Lakers celebrated a game seven victory over the Boston Celtics, adding another “World Champions” banner to the Staples Center rafters. On February 6, 2011, along with being the most watched TV program in his
history, the NFL celebrated new Superbowl Champions: The Green Bay Packers. I immediately drove to Green Bay to find the headline of the Green Bay Gazette display: “World Champs”. However, following their win over the Philadelphia Flyers on June 9, 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks raised a banner that read: “2010 Stanley Cup Champions”.
I’ve lived in three different countries, visited 13 in total and have attended many professional sports games – Which got me wondering – when should your favorite team call themselves World Champs and when should they simply enjoy being named the Champs of their perspective league?
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Reuven is a fourth year student at Marquette University, earning degrees in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He hopes to create sports marketing initiatives that drive value while focusing on charitable causes. Reuven lived in three countries and visited 13 total. He prides himself on being fluent in Hebrew, Russian, and English. People and idea lover. Connect with Reuven on Twitter @ReuvenFridmar
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It is the third week of the Overtime Post, and both Lewis and I are on the road this week. Ironically, he went from the east coast to the west, and I’m going from the west to the east. Twitter is great, but nothing beats real hi-fives, fist pumps, and sharing stories in person. If you’re in New York for the week, I’d love to meet you, just shoot me a mail, and don’t get left behind in the offline networking shift!
I took Virgin America for the first time and they have this neat feature of being able to chat with other passengers on the plane according to seat number. Much props to them for trying to make the flight experience more social. It could be a cool tool for networking in the future. I’m literally writing this on a plane so I’m going to keep it short.
This week’s posts:
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Sam is the community manager of Sports Networker and the Sports Executive Association. He is passionate in all things sports, mobile, and social media. His dream is for the Vancouver Canucks to win a Stanley Cup in his lifetime, although so far, its looking kind of bleak. In the past, he worked with BlackBerry and helped relaunch their Business-to-Business network. With his experience there, he can probably help you change your ringtone, maybe. When he finds time (never), he also writes infrequently at his personal blog. If you would like to talk sports, write a guest post for us, or argue about why iPhone > BlackBerry, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook or email.
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As Director of Interactive Media for the Boston Celtics, Peter Stringer (@PeterStringer) oversees the social media entities of one of the NBA’s most successful, storied and beloved franchises. I caught up with Stringer recently and asked him about social media, engagement, mobile apps and how job seekers can help their cause through social media.
What is your primary objective in representing the Celtics brand via social media?
We can only host so many fans in our arena throughout the season, but there’s seemingly no end to the amount of fans who want to experience the Celtics whether it’s in the arena, on TV, the radio or online. Our fans actively seek out Celtics content and we need to have a presence everywhere our fans are willing to engage with us. Social media platforms allow us to direct interact with those fans without the middle-man, and it’s a powerful tool for us, given the massive audience we’ve built on social media. Right now, at almost 1.9 million Facebook fans, we’re the third largest team sports brand in North America, and at 85,000 followers, the fourth largest (North American team sports) team on Twitter.
What is the biggest challenge facing an NBA team (or any pro sports team) when it comes to social media?
The biggest challenge is the pace of change. It’s constant, there’s always something new to learn, and the rules of engagement and technology change on a daily basis. Facebook loves to roll out new rules or features with little or no notice and as marketers, we have to be ready to adapt. And from a league standpoint, some of the rules that are in place hamper our ability to market to some of our most passionate fans. Leagues really need to rethink how teams are allowed to engage fans and leverage corporate partners, and not just inside their own marketing territory. There’s opportunities well outside a team’s DMA upon which they currently aren’t allowed to capitalize.
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Brendan Wilhide runs Sportsin140.com, a site that covers sports and social media. He is currently co-authoring a textbook on social media for the sports industry. Follow him on Twitter: @BrendanWilhide and @Sportsin140.
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This is part of a short blog series where we take a look at how social media can be utilized to grow a sports team’s fan base, regardless of whether the team already has a large following or is starting from the grassroots level. You can see the other posts here.
In the first two posts of this series I covered the importance of listening in social media and turning your sports team into a social experience. In last week’s post I briefly touched on the importance of content. Today’s post we’re going to take a deeper look into this subject.
You Have Great Content
Everyone has the ability to produce great content, whether you’re an amateur soccer team or an NBA franchise. Producing great content is not about glitz and glamour. If you’re making videos, it’s not the quality of the camera that makes the difference; with blogs it’s not the widgets and plug-ins that make it successful. It’s the content quality.
Think about what content people will want to see: fans, players, coaches, sponsors – what appeals to them? What will make them continue to pay an interest in you? And importantly when you’re looking to expand your fan base and reach new fans, what will they share? That is your great content. [click to continue…]
Ash is the co-founder of FundSport.com a grassroots sports community providing sports clubs and athletes from around the world with professional, easy-to-understand advice and articles on all aspects of grassroots sport including sponsorship, fundraising, the Internet, social media, club management, PR and marketing. As well as being passionate about the development of grassroots sport Ash also has a keen involvement in the sports social media industry. You can follow Ash on Twitter at @ashread14
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It’s no surprise that sports teams all over the world are realizing the power of 140 characters or less. Twitter allows organizations to keep their fan base updated on events, stories, and up to the minute scoring, which has resulted in a growth of the number of followers for certain teams. Teams in major sports markets have taken their exposure to the next level through Twitter, while teams in smaller markets are using this tool to propel themselves into the social media spotlight.
1. Los Angeles Lakers (NBA) 1,520,444 followers @Lakers
The Lakers know how to win basketball games— they’re in pursuit of back-to- back NBA championships. L.A. also knows how to take advantage of Twitter. It’s no surprise that the Lakers have such a massive following being one of the most popular NBA teams in one of the most populated cities in the world. They’ve maintained their followers by keeping fans entertained with postgame quotes from players and coaches. They also sustain followers through a constant flow of stories that will undoubtedly build an even larger following of Lakers fans on the Web.
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