Sports Marketing 2.0 | Pat Coyle

A year ago a lot of people (our own management included) were asking us, “why would we want to build a social net?”

For the record, when I say social media, or social platforms, I’m talking about Facebook for sports teams (like the one we’ve built, mycolts. I’m talking about online communities where fans can create profiles, blog, upload photos, join forums, etc.

Today as we get ready to face the Saints in the 2007 NFL kickoff matchup, and our Colts social net is nearing 10,000 members, nobody’s asking “why” but many people are asking “how”, as in “how can a sports team best leverage social media?”

I would answer that question with another question: “what is your primary objective”?

For most sports teams, and most companies for that matter, the primary objective of all “marketing” endeavors is to make money. If this is ALL that matters to you or your team, then I might recommend to you that social media is not the first thing you should pursue; but if you insist, I would strongly advise that you determine in advance “how” you expect to make money BEFORE you invest in technology.

It’s easy to uncover your team’s real motives. Just go ask your boss for budget to build a social net. If he or she asks you “what is a social net” then your doomed. If he or she asks you “why would we want one” and you say “to build customer loyalty”, then your boss says “how will you measure that?” then you’re doomed again. If your boss asks “how much money will we make?” and you say “I don’t know” then you’re dead in the water.

Be careful not to add social media to your existing Website just because it’s cheap. If you don’t have time and energy to invest in the development of your online community, then it will never reach its full potential. These babies need considerable care and feeding.

Certainly the team will benefit from any endeavor, offline or online, that brings fans together in community and gives them a positive EXPERIENCE. Particpating fans will probably remain fans longer as a result of the community experience and they’ll influence more of their friends to become fans too. I cannot prove these assertions, but I believe them to be true.

Problems is, you can’t “eat” loyalty. In other words, loyalty is a fairly loose concept in sports, especially when you’re talking about website visitors rather than season ticket buyers. Outside of online merchandise sales, online customer loyalty in this case doesn’t offer an obvious and direct economic benefit to a sports team. Most teams don’t make much from their websites let alone their social nets. The same is not true of big-brand marketers.

If we were a Proctor and Gamble brand and we got 10,000 customers into a community like MyColts, then we’d be rock stars. A top notch marketing organization like P & G would kill to have access to the thoughts, opinions and connections to its best customers. Look around inside mycolts and you’ll see 10,000 windows into the lives of our fans. It’s really quite amazing.

But most sports teams aren’t organized in such a way as to take advantage of this direct customer access. Historically, we haven’t wanted to get too close to one fan for fear it would set expectations too high, and all fans would want special treatment.

So teams have access to fans but aren’t set up to mine the relationships. Meanwhile, brands want access to fans but few brands have “cult” followings strong enough to generate viable communities. Hmmm. What if we put our chocolate together with our peanut butter??

Here’s the formula: Teams create communities. Sponsors buy access and participate directly with fans, and leverage this participation into new business. Ultimately, a three-way partnership forms between the team, its fans and its sponsors. All three make investments and all three earn profits. I believe this is the bottom line opportunity for sports marketing as it relates to social nets.

This will be slow going at first. Teams need to learn to build and present these opportunities to their fans and their sponsors. Sponsors need the courage to participate in these communities (i.e. let fans talk about the brand openly and be willing to take criticism). Meanwhile, fans can’t wait to get closer to the team!