This week’s top news in the #SportsBiz includes Orlando City Soccer eyeing a spot in Major League Soccer. Other news includes Fox holding a Super Bowl ad contest, fantasy sports proving to be a viable business, Toyota and NASCAR holding a tweet race, and Manchester United cashing in on sponsorships. Read on. Sports Jobs Orlando…
Tag Archives | advertising
Madden 25 Finds Success In “The Bet” Campaign
With the recent release of Madden 25, EA sports was looking to better their marketing efforts. By utilizing Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson and the rivalry between their respective teams, the company has come up with some marketing gold. Wilson wins the “eyebrow shaving bet” in Madden 25 ad Everyone with a vested interest in football…
World Cup Has Great Cross Cultural Appeal To Sports Marketers
The World Cup is set to take place next year. For sports marketers, this may be a golden opportunity to reach multiple cultures at once. 3.2 billion people watched the 2010 World Cup around the world. In the U.S., over 24 million people saw the final between the Netherlands and Spain. Although Americans have yet to…
Build Partnerships, Not An Advertising Network
With the ever growing need for ROI validation when it comes to digital marketing efforts, sports teams need to remember that when trying to derive measurable results, that ones brand shouldn’t be pawned off to potential sponsors to make a profit. Rather, teams should focus on building a comprehensive strategy that will allow them to…
How to Get Super Bowl Famous Without Getting Your Ads Aired
Year after year, one of the regularly covered aspects of the Super Bowl is the high price of purchasing a 30-second commercial during the game. Reports state companies are paying about $2.8 million to briefly expose their brand to the estimated 100 million people who will watch this year’s Super Bowl. That is a slight…
Getting A Degree In Sports Marketing
Do you love sports, but have no athletic ability beyond memorizing stats and fielding a fantasy league? Perhaps you’re an athlete, but realize a professional career isn’t in your future. Maybe you’re preparing for the draft, but need to prepare for a career once your playing days end. If you enjoy sports, sales, meeting people,…
A Kid’s Guide to Sports Marketing
When you think of sports marketing, you probably think of adults writing adult-oriented campaigns, right? A creative sports marketer, however, realizes that they can and should target the juvenile demographic as well. Not only are kids receptive to sports marketing campaigns; they can also come up with their own, using their creative talents to raise…
Sports and Social Media in 2010
2010 was a big year in the world of sports and social media, as leagues, teams, individual athletes, and sports fans alike began to truly understand and harness the power of social platforms. For me, 2010 was the year when social media went mainstream in the world of sports. There were many highlights, too many…
Three Keys to Increasing Sponsorship ROI
(This is a guest post by Rana Akkaya) Sports sponsorship and event hospitality is a great platform to build business-impacting relationships through shared out-of-office experiences. Companies need to be confident that the dollars invested in sponsorships are being spent effectively and that every asset received is being maximized. As a result, Sponsorship ROI (Return of…
LeBron James Shares New Image Through Nike Ad
Before you read further, watch Nike’s latest commercial, “Rise,” featuring LeBron James.
The Background
Since most of you already know the story, I’ll make this as quick as I can. Feel free to skip through if you know the background. The last four or five months have been interesting for the King. After seven years in Cleveland and no championship rings, LeBron James decided it was time to leave.
In a prime time ESPN event called The Decision, LeBron announced to the world that he would be “taking [his] talents to South Beach” to play for the Miami Heat. Cavs fans were furious, their hometown hero (LBJ is from Akron, Ohio) was leaving them, having never delivered the championship he promised.
Basketball fans from all over were upset as well, mainly with how LeBron decided to handle the announcement. Even though the money raised during the show was then donated to the Boys & Girls Club of America, most thought it was a pretentious and selfish way to announce his decision.
Throughout the offseason, LeBron has come under a lot of fire. He’s been called out for quitting on his team in the playoffs, for leaving Cleveland, for The Decision. Dan Gilbert, the Cavs’ owner, publicized a nasty letter about LeBron.
Recently, LBJ came out and said he thought that all of the backlash from The Decision was partially a race issue, and that if he were of a different skin color, none of this would have been a big deal. Also, in the past few weeks, LeBron has retweeted several hateful and derogatory tweets, examples of messages he says he receives every day.
In the end, LeBron’s image has changed from a beloved NBA superstar, a hometown hero, and possibly the one-day greatest basketball player of all time to the biggest villain in the league (yes, above Kobe, he’s going to get booed everywhere he goes), a selfish superstar who betrayed his city for more money (smaller contract, bigger endorsements), more fame, and an easier championship ring.
Sports 2.0 and the Age of Social Media
Whenever I get a chance to watch my Buckeyes crush opponents on television these days, I always catch myself checking my Twitter stream or Facebook feed in between plays and during commercial breaks. I may catch a commercial here or there, but for the most part, I am too busy socializing online about the game to pay attention.
Social media has become a regular part in my sports-watching experience. For kids growing up now, it’s a whole new ballgame than the one we grew up where we had to bear through every single advertisement impatiently wondering if there will be another first down. The geniuses at Espresso’s Infiltrators capture this essence perfectly in the deck below. They go through the age of sports that us ‘old folks’ went through and compare it with the new age of social media: sports 2.0.
From Sports Team to Social Experience
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 post of this series I covered the importance of listening in social media. Today I’m going to cover how community can help your fan base grow.
Using social media to create an online community is a great way to bring your fans together, constantly keep them thinking about your team and also reach new fans. You can also use an online community as a way to add to your teams overall experience and create brand advocates.