Digital Marketing effect on the Sports Industry
The sports industry, like almost any industry in the world, is undergoing a major positive transformation due to the adoption of digital marketing. From teams to athletes to leagues, digital marketing is allowing them to reach new audiences, engage with their fans in more meaningful ways, and even monetize their efforts.
One of the biggest changes brought about by digital marketing is the ability to reach a much larger audience than ever before. Through the use of social media, websites, and other digital platforms, teams, and athletes have been able to share content and engage with their followers. This has also enabled them to track and analyze data related to their audiences and campaigns to better understand their fans and tailor their marketing strategies accordingly.
In the next few chapters, you will see how Digital Marketing is transforming the Sports Industry based on different kinds of sports.
Basketball
Basketball is one of the most popular and widely viewed sports in the world. The world’s premier basketball league is NBA (National Basketball Association) which is being played in the United States and Canada. It is one of the most active sports leagues on social media, with league-wide and team accounts on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. The NBA has invested heavily in its social media presence, creating content that engages fans, creates conversations, and encourages fan involvement. Additionally, the NBA has also used its social media presence to promote its social justice initiatives and campaigns.
Data collected in 2021 has shown us that, the NBA was the most-viewed and most-engaged pro-sports-league account on social media, driving 24 billion views and 2.3 billion engagements across all platforms. Also, the NBA added 18 million followers across Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook combined last year — the most of any U.S. pro sports league. In 2021, “NBA” was the №1 trending Google search in the United States, beating out “Squid Game,” “Mega Millions” and “stimulus check” among other top searches. “NBA” also fared well globally, ranking as Google’s №4 trending search worldwide.
Before the NBA began to actively use social media, the league averaged around 15 million viewers per game. After the league began to increase its presence on social media, the average viewership for games increased to around 25 million viewers per game. Additionally, the NBA has seen a significant increase in engagement across all its social media platforms, with the total number of interactions (likes, comments, shares, etc.) increasing by over 200 percent since the league began to use social media.
Last season’s NBA game final expectations were that NBA will reach an even wider audience due to the increased presence on social media. According to reports, the NBA Finals in 2022 were projected to generate over 6.5 billion social media interactions. Additionally, the league was expected to reach over 900 million viewers across all platforms, with the majority of viewers coming from social media outlets.
Results? According to Front Office Sports
· Warriors-Celtics Game 1 highlights garnered 135 million views, the most ever for a Game 1
· Game 2 has a running count of 92 million video plays — a 48% increase from last year and an 83% spike from 2020
· Plus, the NBA’s Instagram account posted a “Fan POV” of Jordan Poole’s buzzer-beater, which hit 11.7 million views, quadrupling their average video plays on Instagram reels
To quote NBA commissioner Adam Silver: „Ninety-nine percent of our fans never get to attend a game live. So how do we use social to bring the game courtside and make them feel like they’re actually there? We feel like that’s a critical bridge between social and TV tune-in, creating those authentic relationships and providing the context for why this is such a big game or matchup. We use social to do that storytelling.”
After that quote, to show the audience that they really care and try to connect with fans who don’t have a chance to see a live game, they created special reels before the game for the return of one of the best NBA 3-point shooter — Klay Thompson.
Results? NBA’s Instagram generated 103 million views — the most-viewed regular-season day in the account’s history. Klay-specific content generated more than 110 million views across the NBA’s socials, making Thompson’s return the most-viewed regular-season moment ever. The video of Thompson’s pregame introduction received 22.3 million views, which is the NBA’s second-most-viewed Instagram video of all time. That game was also the most viewed regular season game since 2016.
And not to forget, the NBA has a strong connection to commercials and advertising. Many of the NBA’s top players, such as LeBron James (148.3 million social media followers), Stephen Curry (63.9 million social media followers), Kevin Durant (58.9 million social media followers), James Harden (52.6 million social media followers), and Klay Thompson (45.7 million social media followers) have endorsement deals with major brands, and the league has regularly featured players in its commercials. Additionally, the NBA often partners with brands to create exclusive content, such as special promotional videos or live streams. The league also partners with brands to produce exclusive merchandise, such as limited-edition jerseys and hats.
Football
Football, or as Americans called Soccer is the most watched sport in the world, with an estimated 3.5 billion people tuning in to watch international and club football matches each year.
The Champions League and FIFA World Cup are two of the biggest international tournaments in the world and they both have a strong digital marketing presence. The Champions League has a large social media presence, with multiple accounts across platforms, while FIFA has a dedicated website that they use to promote the World Cup and its teams. Both tournaments make use of video content, websites, and social media platforms to engage with their fans and promote their brand. They also use digital marketing tools such as email campaigns and pay-per-click advertising to reach a larger audience.
The Champions League has over 1 billion followers across its official social media accounts, making it one of the most followed sports leagues in the world. During the 2019–2020 season, the Champions League generated over 5.5 billion impressions on Twitter alone. The Champions League was also the most-watched tournament on YouTube during the same season, with over 320 million views. In addition, the Champions League had over 800 million views on its official website during the season. The Champions League has been a leader in the use of virtual reality and augmented reality technology. This technology has been used to create immersive experiences for fans, such as exclusive highlights of games, behind-the-scenes footage, and interactive experiences. The Champions League has also partnered with companies such as YouTube and Samsung to create virtual reality experiences for viewers. These experiences include 360-degree videos, virtual stadiums, and even virtual player appearances. These experiences have allowed fans to engage with the Champions League in a new and exciting way.
For the 2018 FIFA World Cup, digital marketing was a key part of the tournament’s overall strategy. The tournament generated over 1.7 billion interactions on social media, with a reach of 2.4 billion people. There were 500 million views of the World Cup’s YouTube channel, with over 800 million video views across all platforms. FIFA also received over 3.5 billion views on its official website and spent over $1 billion on digital advertising. The official World Cup hashtag was used over 4 million times, with over 3 million tweets sent during the tournament, and the website had over 6 million unique visitors and over 11 million page views.
The main sponsors of the FIFA World Cup are Adidas, Coca-Cola, and Visa. Each of these brands has a strong presence in digital marketing, using social media and other platforms to reach their target audiences. To promote its products and services during the World Cup Adidas has used campaigns such as #heretocreate and #allin to promote its brand to fans across the world, while Coca-Cola has used its #ShareACoke campaign to engage with consumers. Visa has used its #Everywhere campaign.
All in all, there is a bright future for these two partners and my opinion is that if any sport wants to succeed, they need to invest in marketing, especially digital because, without that, there will be no future for them.
