June 19, 2022
The relationship between fan and club has changed over the last decade to evolve into a complex ecosystem that has pushed organisations to engage with their supporters through more than just their stadium.
Sports clubs have started to become media brands. From Amazon’s All-or-Nothing’s series with Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, to extravagant sponsor collaborations and club-made documentaries, the need to engage fans has grown exponentially over the past few years, as fans become more displaced and decentralised. The majority of a club’s fans are no longer present in the stadium; instead they’re spreading their fandom on social media and engaging across a host of platforms. The ultimate subject remains the same however, the sport.
This evolution has contributed to a higher standard of content, where clubs look to leverage their assets to amplify their brand and capitalise on their image. The objective? Engage their fans with great creative content to forge a larger community while also benefiting both the club and their partners. Easier said than done. Storing assets is hard, and creating great content out of them even harder.
Generation Z and Alpha are different. Not to say bad, but they’re certainly on a different wavelength when it comes to fan engagement. This offers sports organisations the opportunity to innovate and find solutions for a generation where only 24% believe that watching live games is an important part of being a fan. The solution, although touted by many, does not lie in engaging fans through dedicated club apps as it overlooks the intrinsic aspect of fandom: rivalry.
In order to capture this, organisations must make use of the huge ecosystem at their disposal. Social media. It sounds so simple. It’s not. Socials allow clubs to engage with their fans, that’s the ‘what’. What about the ‘how’?
Three pillars drive engagement on social media. Timing, quality and format. The ability to combine all three, knowing when to post that quality content on the right channel, will drive engagement. Moreover, targeting your fans where they already are, is the best way to engage them. We created a link-in-bio so clubs can collect content directly from their fans and hold contests to engage. Easy as U G C.
Trust the source eh? The final aspect to consider is the source of the content. The club will always be trusted but fans idolise players more than anyone. The rise of influencer marketing has seen players designated as the ultimate ambassadors for sports clubs, with certain signings driving a spike or drop in followers simply because a player has arrived (e.g., Youcef Belaïli with Stade Brestois) or left (e.g., Ronaldo with Juventus). A squad of players will almost always have an aggregated following larger than the club itself, such as Orlando City’s players’ following, which is nearly 15 times bigger (Instagram: 378K vs 5.8mill) than the club’s follower base. Optimising the process of providing these ambassadors with quality shareable media assets allows organisations to fulfil both the timing and quality pillars.
ScorePlay is the first media asset management platform dedicated to sport. The solution automatically centralises and classifies assets on a single AI-powered media workspace, making distribution automatic and content creation the primary focus. Organisations from around the world have chosen to join the media revolution to optimise their content workflows and have the tools to engage their fans better.
ScorePlay optimises processes so organisations can concentrate on the creative side of content creation to further engage their fans through different channels. Live mode allows assets to be processed directly from photographer’s cameras through FTP connection and the dedicated Player App makes it easy for the club’s best ambassadors to post immediately after games, without the hassle of Google Drive or Dropbox.
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