This Saturday (Feb 20, 2010), the 15th edition of the Nissan Verbier Xtreme by Swatch (full name), the final stage of the Freeride World Tour, will take place in the eponymous internationally-renowned Swiss Alps resort. I plan to attend, as it is just an hour’s drive away from my place -- and is usually very spectacular. If you wonder what the fuss is all about, check out the video below.
As I was checking the event’s website (link above) and listening to radio ads promoting it, I asked myself how well the event organisers, sponsors and venue were leveraging social media.
So here’s my totally subjective “Social Media Scorecard” for the 2010 Verbier Xtreme.
Event’s website interactivity: auto-play videos + video gallery; decent image gallery; small “news” and “community” sections; no real visibility of/interactivity with sponsors >> 7/10
Facebook fan page: only for the Freeride World Tour (FWT); few fans, little activity; also Facebook group, only for the FWT; many more group members; frequent/interesting group posts; no customisation of design; little interactivity (discussions) >> 7/10
Dedicated YouTube channel: only for the FWT (FreerideWorldTourTV); customised channel design, comprehensive video footage, sizeable subscribers Nr>> 9/10
Dedicated Twitter account: only for the FWT; no custom design of Twitter profile; account only tweets out info.s, no interactivity>> 6/10
Title sponsor-specific promotions/buzz: production of a few sponsor-themed TV shows; otherwise just banner ads on website’s homepage + at the end of videos >> 5/10
Overall score: 6/10
What do you think? Which other criteria would you take into account? Shae your suggestions and impressions in the comments !
I just came back from an awesome 2-hour (road-)bike ride. Near-perfect spring conditions, dry roads, not too much traffic. Road biking (like running) mostly leaves your mind free to think – and I’m currently thinking quite a bit about sports (I have a triathlon and a marathon coming up in a few months), sports management (how I can contribute to make it better), and about this blog. So I did think during the bike ride. The result: this short post about what can be seen as 2 contradictory aspects of sports – the passion that it invariably generates, and sports as a business.
On the one hand, sports is clearly, undeniably, about passion, emotions. Joy. Tears. We’ve all been there – practicing it or simply as fans. It’s rewarding at times, frustrating or even painful at other times. I don’t know about you, but video footage of triumphing athletes often brings me to tears, literally. And you often want to share those emotions – you want other like-minded people to know about how you feel (and reinforce the community spirit).
On the other hand, sports is a business. Even when you simply exercise, when you want to feel or become better at what you do, you needs a system, a methodology, a vision, a plan. And you need money. So sports is also something that you manage, as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In my view, there is an enabler that (when used properly) bridges the gap between these two dimensions of sports: technology. Take the road bike I use (a Kuota Kharma, so light, smooth and responsive, I love it!). It is the result of ongoing technological innovation, which has had to be initiated and managed by the company which designs & produces it; the company has to be managed properly (leveraging leading-edge technological tools) for its great products to continue to be available for its customers; and it allows me to feel even more passionate about road cycling. Or take this blog. It is only a technological tool, a medium – through which I want to express my passion for sports, and for how well it can be managed.
If you’re passionate about sports, subscribe to this blog – I hope that through the upcoming posts (which I promise will be more regular than they have been so far), I’ll convince you that you can also become passionate about the technology you can leverage to manage sports properly.
As Lewis Howes, one of the most respected authorities in sports networking (don’t miss a post of his Sports Networker blog), likes to say at the end of his newsletters: stay passionate !
Jason Peck (if you haven’t done so yet, subscribe to his excellent blog, www.jasonfpeck.com) has put together an inspiring compendium on “Sports and Social Media Projections, 2010″, in which a dozen US-based contributors provide a brief summary of their perspective on how the sports sector will leverage social media in 2010.
Here’s a short (highly subjective) list of my favorite quotes from the compendium:
“The keywords for 2010 will be adoption, convergence and usage. ” (Dan Beeman, Sponsorship Insights)
“If 2009 taught us anything, it’s that social media is not a fad, rather, it is an essential part of a marketing and communications strategy.” (Trevor Turnbull, Sport-Fan Connect)
“Sports and social media are a perfect match.” (Darren Heitner, Dynasyt Athlete Representation)
“Share… Stop self-promoting and start listening.” (Espree Devora, ZexSports)
“If those in sports are not continuing or starting to invest in social media by next year, they are missing out on opportunities to grow.” (Lewis Howes, Sports Networker)
“2010 could very well be the year in which we see some teams moving social media from the periphery to the centre of their marketing strategies.” (Pat Coyle, Sports Marketing 2.0)
“Controlling the message means active participation and some level of transparency to allow deeper, more sustainable audience engagement.” (Rob Katz, iAudience)
“Mobile is the future of social media and sports media consumption.” (Steve Cobb, Activ8Social)
Regardless of the accuracy of the predictions, Jason and his fellow contributors have made it very clear that sports cannot ignore social media – in Europe as much as in the US.
Have you read Jason’s compendium ? What do you think ? Share your comments with the readers of the Sports Management Blog !
A few days ago, I attended the annual symposium of the Swiss Association of Sports Managers (or ASMS, as it is known by its French acronym). It was an excellent opportunity to know more about what Switzerland is doing to be “at the forefront of sports technology” (the theme of this year’s symposimum) – see a summary here (in French).
One of the speakers, Olivier Volery, demonstrated how one Swiss company, for which he is Country Manager, is doing a fantastic job at representing Switzerland in the field of sports technology: Dartfish. I was so impressed by his demo that I felt compelled to encourage all of you to get to know Dartfish better.
Dartfish describes itself as a “video enhancement company, providing innovative solutions to train, educate, rehabilitate, interact and entertain.” In a nutshell, Dartfish’s products are designed to bring the power of digital video to sports, mostly to enable athletes and coaches to communicate much more effectively, but also to enhance sports’ fans experience. Advanced, customisable video-analysis, image-tagging, events-categorization and sharing functionalities allow Datrfish users (in individual as well as team sports) to effectively dissect athletes’ technical performance, even during a competition or a training session.
Its original claim to fame were surreal images (to TV viewers) in which the video sequence of 2 athletes performing exactly the same move were superimposed (see example here), cleverly demonstrating the subtle differences between the athletes’ trajectories. But Dartfish products clearly can do much more than that.
If you coach an athlete or manage a team, take a look at how Dartfish can make your (and your athlete’s) job much easier !
Have you ever used Dartfish? Do you know anyone who has or does? Share your experiences in the comments!
Over the last couple of weeks, several pieces of news (which most commentators have termed “scandals”) have rocked what is Europe’s most popular and best-funded sports franchise: football, or soccer for US readers.
On the field, France, one of world football’s historically strong nations (FIFA World Champion in 1998, runner-up in 2006), ended up qualifying in extremis for the final phase of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (to be held in South Africa in June 2010) thanks to a last-minute equalising goal in its last-chance qualifying match against Ireland. That goal was only made possible by a very clever technical move by Thierry Henry, an experienced French striker, to control the ball (twice) and pass it on to one of his teammates just a couple of meters away from the net, leaving him with an easy header. The only slight issue is that Henry’s ball-control prowess made abundant use of his left hand (see picture right) – and that the game’s referees seem to be the only ones not to have noticed it. To universal dismay, the goal was declared valid, Ireland’s pleas to replay the game fell on deaf ears, France got through, and the rest, as they say, is history. Only that this time, the foul was so blatantly obvious that even FIFA was forced to admit its existence. But it continued to hide behind the sacro-saint irrevocability of the referee’s decisions, and insisted that, unless France requested to replay the game (fat chance, since the French were all too happy to scrape through), it did not have the power to overrule the game’s result once it had been validated by the referee’s final whistle blow.
Off the field, German investigators, after a long undercover operation supported by UEFA (European football’s governing body), have uncovered what looks like a “high-level match fixing” scheme involving more than 200 people. Many were arrested in Germany, Switzerland and other European countries, on suspicions of attempting to rig dozens of match results across 9 European football leagues (none of which is a top-flight league), by bribing players, coaches, referees and officials. The criminal gang is rumoured to have made millions by betting in Asian markets on those games.
Those 2 pretty extraordinary events have led FIFA President Sepp Blatter to call an Extraordinary GM of FIFA’s Executive Committee on December 2 (the EC in corpore is in South Africa anyway, to attend the draw of the 2010 World Cup’s final phase games).
Beyond the eye-catching headlines, which lessons can be drawn from those sad and disturbing news, in terms of sports management?
FIFA, in its capacity of football’s governing body, has been bizarrely reluctant to embrace technological change, at least as far as refereeing is concerned. While video-replay assistance has been successfully rolled out in tennis long ago, allowing line judges to avoid McEnroe-style outbursts, it has been on the backburner for years in football, despite the fact that extensive video coverage of football games has now become near-ubiquitous. Video assistance is a technology whose time has more than come in football, as the Henry incident sadly but vividly illustrates. A sport which is so well-funded, but above all in which such large sums are at stake, just cannot afford anymore to rely exclusively on the referees’ very human (i.e. fallible) appreciation of delicate situations. It should be ashamed not to leverage all of the technology it can (amply) afford. It is now a question of how and how quickly, rather than if. The same recommendation is made by Russel Scibetti in this excellent post (which I am only belatedly noticing), and logically extended to other sports.
There seems to be a real issue with football’s current revenue-generation and -sharing model. Attempts to rig match results in Europe (and on such a large, pervasive scale) are an indicator of a potentially destructive misallocation of available funds, and of their overabundance. Gangsters are tempted to take their stab at (illegally) grabbing a share of football’s gigantic revenues, because the sports’ financial interests are tragically not aligned with its strategic objectives: who cares if teams play a good and fair game for fans, as long as equipment manufacturers, sponsors and team managers are happy (and wealthy)? FIFA ought to seize the opportunity brought about by the latest European match-fixing affair to rethink the way it manages the sport’s finances.
Do you see see other sports-management lessons to be drawn from these 2 events? Let us know in the comments!
Gabriel Mangano defines himself (on Twitter) as an "entrepreneur, social-media fanatic, consultant, coach, sportsman, sports manager - all rolled into one."
Its original claim to fame were surreal images (to TV viewers) in which the video sequence of 2 athletes performing exactly the same move were superimposed (see example 
On the field, France, one of world football’s historically strong nations (FIFA World Champion in 1998, runner-up in 2006), ended up qualifying in extremis for the final phase of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (to be held in South Africa in June 2010) thanks to a last-minute equalising goal in its last-chance qualifying match against Ireland. That goal was only made possible by a very clever technical move by Thierry Henry, an experienced French striker, to control the ball (twice) and pass it on to one of his teammates just a couple of meters away from the net, leaving him with an easy header. The only slight issue is that Henry’s ball-control prowess made abundant use of his left hand (see picture right) – and that the game’s referees seem to be the only ones not to have noticed it. To universal dismay, the goal was declared valid, Ireland’s pleas to replay the game fell on deaf ears, France got through, and the rest, as they say, is history. Only that this time, the foul was so blatantly obvious that even FIFA was forced to admit its existence. But it continued to hide behind the sacro-saint irrevocability of the referee’s decisions, and insisted that, unless France requested to replay the game (fat chance, since the French were all too happy to scrape through), it did not have the power to overrule the game’s result once it had been validated by the referee’s final whistle blow.
Off the field, German investigators, after a long undercover operation supported by UEFA (European football’s governing body), have uncovered what looks like a “
