It’s time to take your sports club online
COVID is here, live events are toast, and we’ve got to figure out how to engage fans online. No fans, no sponsors, no sales. Sadly, the harsh reality is fans won’t watch a 2hr livestream. So how do we live stream sports events? We must feed fans perfect slices through social media.
Most clubs can’t rely on lucrative media contracts with professional production teams to record their games. YouTube ads won’t net enough to cover costs. Paywalls will turn away existing viewers and limit growing your fan base.
If you don’t know what to do here, it’s ok - we are experiencing this transition together, clubs fans and athletes. We all know sports won’t be the same after this.
Time to go back to the basics. Sports clubs are marketing platforms and typically have 4 major revenue streams: sponsorships, merchandise, media rights and ticket sales.
These products all exist online, and there are tons of great tools with inexpensive pricing models. It’s now possible to start a merchandise warehouse a few clicks and no inventory investment. Ticket sales and sponsorships can be fully digital. You can also reach more fans online than in your stadium. It’s time to put the “e” in traditional Sports.
Which brings us to the most important point which will drive revenue across the board more than wins. It makes your star player look small.
Branding.
People follow quality brands.Your logo is your most valuable digital asset. It appears on all merchandise and media. Positive attributes and associations drive brand value.
If you’ve been meaning to rebrand, or don’t have your brand kit in high resolution, ready for black or white backgrounds and in portrait and landscape formats - now might be the time to fix it.
In this series about getting started online, we will start with logos and branding, dive deep on each revenue stream in a new media social context, and end with media production - all in time for fall sports.
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