5 Ways Sports’ Social Media Are EngagingWith Fans During the Quarantine.
Summer 2020 has arrived, though feeling much different than years past. The absence of sports for America has left a large hole in our summer lives. End of spring typically brings the Stanley Cup Playoffs, NBA playoffs, MLB Opening Day and many more cherished sporting events. With the COVID-19 virus sweeping over the nation and forcing limitations on interpersonal interactions, it is understandable that all professional sports leagues have put a halt to all activities and their athletes’ seasons.
This has challenged media teams to engage with fans and bring entertainment in alternative forms. The whole world has gone digital for a few months and we are looking at new strategies being performed by various organizations in this hiatus to bring content to the fans.
1. Replay Streams
Many professional sports organizations are reliving great moments in their team’s history, including this Twitter post by @MLB showing a rebroadcast of a classic postseason game from 2013. With live sports on pause, many media teams polled fans on their social media accounts to vote for some of their favorite “greatest moments” that they wished to see full broadcasts of. Depending on the rebroadcast, media teams are able to include insights from the players who participated in the games. This brought a ‘new’ factor to the nostalgia for those fans who remember the games, and the opportunity for younger fans to enjoy these moments in real time.
2. At-Home Sports Challenges
When the stay-at-home period was repeatedly extended, sports organizations’ started to challenge fans to show how they are coping with the quarantine. These challenges allowed for more input from the fans and created new games and sports along the way. The National Hockey League challenged fans to submit videos using the tag #HockeyAtHome to show their creative solutions of passing time through the passion of hockey. Major League Baseball followed suit with their #OpeningDayAtHome challenge. These challenges created content for the sports organizations and kept the fans engaged while having a little bit of fun, something everyone needs at this time.
3. Fan Q+A Sessions with Players and Coaches
Similar to the previous strategy, social media profiles continued to take input from the fans to bring the entertainment through interactive question and answer sessions with the fan favorite coaches and players. The Colorado Eagles of the American Hockey League kept the fan engagement constant during the season suspension, including 4 different video interviews like the one above, as well as throwback family game nights every Friday that included giveaways and trivia.
4. Integration of ESports and Player Tournaments
Possibly the most intriguing strategy of content creation developed during the quarantine were the player organized tournaments integrated through the video game versions of their sport. The MLB: The Show 20 Players League highlighted the release of the new video game as well as provided the sports entertainment in a digital way. Some players from the National Hockey League also created a virtual tournament on NHL 20, and this included fan Q and A on top of live entertainment. For fans, each competition provided an insight to the knowledge of the sport that each player has, a perspective we don’t get from them on the field or court.
5. Current events
To close out this list, it would be ignorant to leave out the impact sports and sports media can have in current social issues. The fight to end injustices against people of color have taken the front page on all platforms. It is important for all to speak and understand what is going on, and sports social platforms have been the forefront for many to speak out, beginning with Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers and most recently well-known for his outspoken nature, Colin Kaepernick, a former NFL quarterback.
Organizations are being mindful of the events occurring in our nation and have been actively speaking for their players, fans, and coaches. At this time, sports are not a focus of our attention, and these pages have adjusted accordingly to interact with their fanbase while maintaining the engagement and trust among all people. During times like this, communications strategies are very important and sports organizations are not the only profiles to be using their large platforms to speak out. I have yet to find a social media page of any professional sports team or league that has not made multiple statements regarding racial injustices. It is important to realize that humanity comes first, and all other things like live sports are less important to unite communities.
