Sport & New Media – a new conference for a new world?

Now that the dust has settled and we go about our daily business after the first SportBusiness Group ‘Sport & New Media Conference’ in Manchester.  I have been staring at my notes from the day; lots of facts and figures taken down from presentations given by Ben Gallop from the BBC, Andrew Croker from Perform, Andy Smith from BUCS, Alastair Hill from comScore and Ben/Phil from Made By Fudge.

Others have already written about the specifics of the day, including panellist David Fuller who took part on the ‘Social Media & Sport: Threats and Opportunities’ discussion, with http://www.dmfreedom.com/2010/04/social-media-and-sport-%e2%80%93-threats-and-opportunities-part-2  and a BBC write up on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8643626.stm

I thought, “where do I start without it sounding like a statistics report?”  It made me think… is it actually about what the individual speakers were saying, who it was that was speaking or the event in a broader context?

Perhaps a more interesting angle is the move of social media and mobile technology into mainstream sport and sports events.  This was SportBusiness’s first step into a new field that has become too obvious to ignore as they add to their stable of events that include ‘Sport and Technology – the conference’, ‘The International Sports Tourism Conference’ and ‘Sports Marketing 360’.

I think one thing will change in 2011 will be the removal of the phrase ‘New Media’.  As one tweeter put it “…should be called sportdigital, I haven’t said the word newmedia since 2001!”.  A very generic phrase that attempted to bring both social media and mobile technology under the same umbrella, a hard task I’m sure you’ll agree.

A more important question will be, what exactly is the future of social media in sport?  Of this the general consensus is that no-one knows…. not the answer you were hoping for I know.  Ciaran Quinn from Deltatre stated during one of panel discussions that “there will not be a single platform for sport consumption”.  Key is to experiment with lots, quickly.

Two of the standout presentations of the day for me were for very different reasons.  First up we shall start on a positive note – Ben and Phil, who I had the pleasure of catching up with for a drink after the event, from Made By Fudge gave a great presentation on their work with Bank Fashion and England Squash.  Here is a quick summary of their presentation in their own words;

“For those of you who weren’t there, our presentation centred around the idea of online engagement being about conversations rather than campaigns.  We talked about some things we have learnt along the way:

1. You have to listen to your users if you are going to keep them engaged.

2. You need to offer something that adds value to their online experience- what are you doing to deserve five minutes of their time?

3. Be prepared to change. Where your audience are consuming content now isn’t necessarily where they’ll be consuming content in a year, or even six months.”

And they have kindly put their slides online – here is the link: http://benitaylor.posterous.com/our-talk-at-sport-and-new-media

The other presentation that caused great debate and interest was for entirely different reasons.  British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) gave us an insight into their engagement strategy utilising Facebook to bring together university sport, participants and teams.  They have developed some great Apps that allow video and picture content to be pulled into the site and for their partners to use this same technology to help teams interact with members and promote sport.

Great but their return of 6,000 fans on BUCS and other universities varying from a few hundred to a couple of thousand fans for what was described as investment with ‘seven zero’s on the end’ is staggering.  Many heads were shaking and the twitter stream was busy with comments – it proved to be a very marmite presentation.  How anyone can justify that type of expenditure for so little return I don’t know.  Would an agency or profit driven business been able to get away with that… I very much doubt it.  Not when Fudge can run their campaign for £15,000!

In summary, was the event a success?  It certainly proved there is an appetite to know more about social media/mobile and how it affect sport is certainly there (over 150 registered for the event).  For those coming along looking for specific answers they may have left disappointed but that was not the point of the day.  There was an interesting mixture of speakers and some great contacts to be made during the breaks.

In 2011 I hope we can look forward to a more specific topic, attempting to cover both vast topics in detail in a day was always going to be an impossible task.  Clubs, leagues, agencies and individuals are looking at both fields to find out how they are going to help them do their job better and aid them in achieving their goals.  If next year they can get the Twitter stream live at the event and overcome the potential of it being abused, maybe with a delayed feed, that would be ideal.   

Stat of the Day  –              IPhone has about 4% penetration in Europe. If you are building iPhone apps you are ignoring 96% of your market

Quote of the Day –          “Experiment, do it early, and make sure you are not limited to just one platform going forward,”

About author

Daniel McLaren
Daniel McLaren 820 posts

Dan is the Founder & CEO of Digital Sport. Can be found at sports industry events and heard every week on the Digital Sport Insider podcast. @DanielMcLaren

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