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Australian Open 2012 Embraces Social Media

January 18, 2012 by 4 Comments

Do you miss the days of Evonne Goolagong and wooden rackets? Do you have no idea what the first sentence meant but like watching tennis and regret that the Australian Open is half a world away and so difficult to catch much of the action live?

Well the 2012 edition of the famed tournament has stepped up in the digital and social media space and presents a number of methods in which a fan can either catch live action or at least get a steady stream of comments and updates, easily and from a desktop or a mobile device.

As noted in Mashable this could be the most advanced use of social media in a tournament and that there is a wide variety of tournament sponsored avenues in which fans can follow the action, as well as comment on the action as it occurs. This has been a growing tradition at the tournament and one that others sports events can learn from as a tool to heighten fan engagement.

The official site has a range of tools that can meet fans needs on a variety of levels. Want to see video replays of highlights, player interviews or of the most popular players in action? They have that. Want to listen on the radio; there is a feature for that when the matches are being broadcast live.

There is a core feature called Fan Central that brings input from fans into the game. It contains what is called a ‘Social Leaderboard’ that contains a pool of 40 players that were selected due to their popularity. Fans can tweet about one of them using a hashtag that relates to their name, or ‘like’ content on australianopen.com that includes them and with every tweet or like they get points to rise in a leaderboard. You are not limited to just following these 40 as the site enables you to follow any player, popular or not.

The most active tweeters will have the opportunity to become ‘Fanbassadors’ that will be recognized on the tournaments official web site.

But it is not just fan twitters that are available. The tournament has staffed @AustralianOpen, a 24 Twitter feed. For the less serious, or more I guess, there is a feature for predicting outcomes as well as one that enables you to put captions onto photos. You can even submit a short film about the ‘Tennis Essence’ with the winner being played at the tournament.

Of course you can follow on Facebook, but if that is too static there are mobile apps for both Apple iPhones and Android based smartphones. There will also be the more traditional information you would expect-draws, schedules, how to get tickets and an overall event guide.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Mashable, Smartphone, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Sunday Sermon: Dialing Back on Negative Tweets

January 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

It took me all of two weeks to break my New Year’s resolution of “being less negative” and I didn’t even realize that I was doing it — all I was doing was sending out a Tweet, taking an easy pot-shot at the second-tier announcing team from Fox for Saturday’s Niners-Saints game, the crew of Kenny Albert, Tony Siragusa and Daryl Johnston. They were distracting at best, with Johnston in particular talking about some idiotic concussion-phone system while the game was going on and then blowing a replay prediction that was pretty obvious to anyone watching. So I hit send on this:

This announcing team for the Niners-Saints is so bad it makes me wish for Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. OK not really. But they are bad.

January 14, 2012 3:01 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@paulkaps

paulkaps

After I posted it we had a momentary glitch in the Internet stream here at MSR HQ and as such I had to take an involuntary social-media break. That allowed me to look at my impromptu slam and wonder: Where did all the bile come from for guys who were just doing their job? Do I have the right to smack publicly on Tony Siragusa and Daryl Johnston just because they rub me the wrong way? What does that make me, other than JAOJ (just another online jerk)?

I mean, it’s not like the Fox crew was factually incorrect, or slurring their speech, or saying something morally reprehensible. Like many people I just don’t like the ha-ha attitude they take, the whole Moose-and-Goose show tenor of the announcing this crew puts out. But it must test positive for some percentage of viewership, otherwise (you hope) that Fox would find some other talent to replace them. From watching all the commercials during the playoff broadcasts this weekend, there’s apparently a lot on TV that I would never spend a minute watching, like “Glee,” “Two and a Half Men,” and “Alcatraz.” So I am probably not in the mainstream when it comes to offering programming commentary.

And then even if I was, look at that Tweet — if you are going to be critical, you should follow the Jim Rome rule of “have a take, don’t suck.” And that tweet has about a half a take or less. It just says the Fox crew is bad, not saying how or why — and then takes a sideways poke at Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, which is out of context since baseball season ended roughly 26 months ago and if I wanted to make a Joe Buck call it should have somehow involved Troy Aikman, his NFL broadcast partner. And I actually don’t mind Buck as much on NFL as on baseball.

So I would say looking back that my Tweet was the opposite of the Rome rule: It had no take, and it sucked. A good lesson in that negativity is usually the worst choice when it comes to commentary, one I will try to remember when engaged at the keyboard next time. That Twitter makes it easy to slam someone every second isn’t Twitter’s fault. It’s called operator error. And with any luck I’ll be doing it less as the year progresses.

Filed Under: Awful Announcing, Fox Sports, Twitter Tagged With: ,

Urban Meyer: No Twitter for Ohio State Players (Update: Or Maybe Not?)

January 3, 2012 by 5 Comments

DOUBLE SECRET UPDATE: So was USA Today incorrect? Several media outlets (and one observant commenter, below) have now chimed in saying the Twitter ban never happened. Can we get some real reporters in Ohio please?

Our guess — Meyer probably said something like “no Twittering during this meeting.” How is it possible that nobody on the scene ever actually asked Meyer or OSU if there was an official Twitter ban? Guess it is offseason for more than just the players.

In a move sure to clinch the Big Ten championship, new head coach Urban Meyer has banned players at Ohio State from using Twitter. According to USA Today, Meyer made the announcement as part of his formal I’m-here press conference. While the effect of the ban may never fully be understood, without a doubt this is just the first in what Mobile Sports Report expects to be a year full of interesting actions involving players and social media.

The ban was confirmed, ironically, on Twitter by a Buckeyes player, Reid Fragel:

New staff new rules. No more twitter, not a big deal and probably for the better. Love our fans, love this place. Go Bucks #2012

January 3, 2012 10:05 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@Fragel88

Reid Fragel

The big question seems to be, who owns the online persona of a player or team employee — the actual human, or the entity who writes the paycheck (or supplies the scholarship)? In the Ohio State case it may just be that Meyer wants to batten down the media hatches but if you extend this kind of thinking further out to the professional realm (where some stars are already reaping extra income from their tweets) it’s probably not too long before we start hearing of contract terms or broadcast rights that include players’ Twitter posts.

Wonder if our friends at places like Public Knowledge have a take on whether or not such a move violates free-speech rights. We’re reasonably sure that the folks at Twitter are not amused. Our guess is that this battle is just starting.

UPDATE: Jason McIntyre over at Big Lead Sports supports Meyer’s move, in part by reasoning that college kids aren’t ready to handle new media. Not sure I agree, but here is his take and the money quote:

I applaud the move by Meyer. College kids who are 18-21 years old are going to make mistakes online. Not all of them can be as bright and articulate and witty as Jared Sullinger (also, it’s significantly easier to keep tabs on 13 college basketball players as opposed to 85 football players).

Hundreds of writers will follow the OSU football players, and anything remotely controversial will blow up into a story. Why deal with those headaches? What, exactly, can the program possibly gain from letting these kids use twitter? If they want to learn how to use social media, do it without all the eyeballs … after leaving school. Then the players’ screw-ups online aren’t OSU/Urban Meyer problems.

At this juncture I would say I disagree — I think hearing about the life from the player’s point of view is interesting, and adults aren’t any smarter about using Twitter than 18-year-olds. If that makes life harder for Meyer, so be it. That’s what the big bucks are for.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, NCAA Football, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Are Athlete Online ‘Chats’ Worth Fans’ Time?

December 22, 2011 by 1 Comment

After reading that the NBA is going to host an online Town Hall on Facebook tonight I wondered: Are these Internet interactions really valuable from a fan’s point of view? Or are they not really worth the time or bandwidth?

I mean, if you are a big fan of the player involved it’s cool to have a chance you might not ever get in real life, to interact directly with the star. Even though it’s through a virtual channel there is some pleasure in seeing your question asked in public and then having it answered. It’s the same kind of gratification that keeps people on hold for hours on radio talk shows, just on the slim chance of hearing their voice out loud.

But after participating in a few Twitter chats sponsored by Verizon Wireless and its NFL Mobile app, I am fairly underwhelmed by the experience. The biggest problem is one of flow — given the asynchronous nature of mediums like Twitter and Facebook, it’s extremely easy to lose the stream of questioning. On Twitter in fact it’s almost impossible and unless you asked the question you often have no context as to what the answer is about. Somewhere here I smell an opportunity for an app that automatically collates questions with answers and then displays them. Until then we’re all stuck with trying to click on the usernames to see what the hell they just asked the athlete who just answered.

The second problem is the sanitization factor — in that if you ask a tough, hard or uncomfortable question it is almost routinely ignored. As a professional interviewer I know that the hard questions are almost always the most interesting; and they are also the least liked by the subject. So during tonight’s NBA questioning you are probably not going to see someone asking the NBA players things like “do you think David Stern is a jerk?” because they will simply be removed from the question-stream. If the Verizon chats are any indication these things usually devolve into basic fan-worship stuff (“Who’s your biggest inspiration?”) or bland competitive questions (“Who’s the hardest guy to defend?”). It’s guaranteed to be not as interesting as simply following these guys on Twitter for the moments when they spout off without a PR filter around.

Again, if you are a devoted fan then by all means hang in there, log on and see if you can coax an answer out of the star you follow. But for most of us, I am guessing there are better ways to spend our time while we wait for more-engaging or more personal forms of social media interaction to evolve.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, Facebook, NBA, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Jerry Rice and Warren Sapp, Special Trending Units

December 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Since I was away from the Internet most of the day Wednesday I was surprised as lots of people who saw Jerry Rice and Warren Sapp trending on Twitter, for no apparent reason. Maybe it serves us right to be so uninformed, or maybe we’re just not following the right news breakers. Anyway, I was not alone in my confusion. Apparently there are plenty of folks out there now who look to see what’s “trending” before they go and consult some of that heavy-load Internet stuff, like Google.

why the heck is warren sapp trending? did i miss something?

December 7, 2011 10:16 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@ClevFanLinq

Spencer Linquist

Of course some people immediately assumed the worst:

Warren Sapp is trending. I hope he got arrested for something stupid.

December 7, 2011 8:54 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

And then there were some with more vivid imaginations:

Saw Warren Sapp and Jerry Rice trending at the sane time and I though Warren and done eat Jerry or something.

December 7, 2011 10:09 pm via Twitter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite
@_ScottieG_

Scottie Footpenis

Of course you could just go to Jerry Rice (@JerryRice) or Warren Sapp (@QBKILLA) on Twitter to find out what really was going on:

Make sure you catch me & Warren Sapp (@) TONIGHT on Law & Order SVU, at 10pm on NBC (@) #SVU

December 7, 2011 5:51 pm via FacebookReplyRetweetFavorite
@JerryRice

Jerry Rice

Yes Zirr. RT @: Ain’t QBKILLA on svu tonight

December 7, 2011 8:10 pm via UberSocial for BlackBerryReplyRetweetFavorite
@QBKILLA

Warren Sapp

So no, nobody ate nobody and nobody drove a slow Ford Bronco anywhere. We’re not big SVU fans but apparently enough of the world is to get the former players trending. Anyway.

And the the GOAT pulled the NFL Countdown catch phrase on a follower:

@ I had a small part on Law&Order!Com’On Man

December 6, 2011 10:56 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite
@JerryRice

Jerry Rice

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, NFL, Twitter Tagged With:

ESPN SportsCenter’s TebowTime programming goes No. 1 on Twitter

December 7, 2011 by 3 Comments

ESPN on Wednesday dedicated a full hour of SportsCenter to talk about Denver Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow, and the programming caused #SCTebow to achieve the No. 1 trend ranking on Twitter.

TebowTime was the most successful effort to date by SportsCenter to tailor content to sports social media interaction, and could prove a template ESPN uses in the future to boost ratings during off-peak viewing times.

Here’s how ESPN promoted #SCTebow:

News + Highlights + Tebow RT @ Set your clocks: It’s #TebowTime at 2 p.m. ET on @ #ESPNFR http://t.co/eKNuGOBr

December 7, 2011 11:15 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@SportsCenter

SportsCenter

Billed as TebowTime, the SportsCenter programming aired between 2 pm and 3 pm EST.

TebowTime marked one of the first times SportsCenter dedicated the majority of its hour-long news format to a subject that wasn’t breaking news. On July 13, SportsCenter dedicated a large block of its format to the impact of Twitter on sports.

ESPN SportCenter enjoyed cross promotion for its TebowTime sports social media blitz, including this BroncoTalk.com report

TebowTime included highlights of Tebow’s Denver Bronco and Florida Gators comebacks, live reports from the Broncos facility, Skip Bayless debating about Tebow’s merits and reports on Tebow’s impact on Fantasy Football.

Broncotalk.net played SportsCenter’s Tebow Time on its home page, and ESPN’s Front Row blog included extensive coverage of ESPN’s decision.

TebowTime was the brainchild of SportsCenter segment producer Etan Harmelech and championed by coordinating producer Gus Ramsey, producer Tom DeCorte and senior coordinating producer Michael Shiffman.

 

 

 

Filed Under: ESPN, SportsCenter, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,
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