Jul

12

Why care about sports blogs?

Filed Under Blogging 

Why should you care about sports blogs as a sports PR professional? Hopefully you will find that this post answers that very question. The answer varies from team to team or organization to organization, but every single sports PR pro should be reading the bloggers covering the team as they would the reporters on their beat. Yes, even if your team has no shortage of media coverage and a full press box night in and night out.

1. Your fans read blogs.

I don’t have specific statistics about sports fans to back up the above statement, but 48.5% of U.S. Internet users read blogs and that number is expected to increase to 58% by 2013 according to eMarketer.com. Based on personal experience, all of my friends into sports go online to read about their teams whether it’s a blog or online edition of the paper. Fans of your team who live out of its geographic region will also likely turn to the Internet for info because their local media will not provide content on the team.

You should care about sports blogs because your fans — the ones buying tickets and merchandise — read them and it may help form their opinion about your organization. If the blog covers your team in praise, that’s great publicity for you. But if the blogger criticizes your organization at every move, you’ll have their readers (and likely your fans) thinking negatively about you.

Teams want to know how their fans, particularly season ticket holders, view their organization. That’s why they’ll survey ticket holders, asking for their opinions on everything from ticket prices to in-game entertainment. I would never suggest to remove these surveys, but think of sports blogs (and yes, even message boards) as a way to view opinions of your team’s die-hard fans. Bloggers and message board users are certainly just one subset of your market, but they are very passionate about your team and eager to share their opinions. Plus, it won’t cost you anything to extract these opinions but time.

2. Sports blogs can spread rumors & share incorrect information.

I think many sports PR professionals think of bloggers as losers working in his PJs from the basement of his mom’s house. It’s not true as this 2007 Ballhype survey of sports bloggers shows (note: I did participate in that survey). Not every blogger is out to bad-mouth the team nor does every blog talk about rumors. Please also note that sports blogs are not the same as message boards so please do not think of them as one and the same.

However, a lot of the popular sports blogs do deal with rumors. Fans love the bantering back and forth of who this team could or could not sign and it shows in popularity of these blogs. BallHype ranks MLBTradeRumors.com (No. 4) and ProFootballTalk.com (No. 15) among the top sports blogs online today. Those two websites specialize in rumors of signings, trades, and other moves. Some of the other top-ranked sports blogs will discuss these rumors, but do not focus on just rumors.

A rumor can easily gain traction online, spreading from one blog to the next and generating discussions on message boards. It’s important to remember that fans are not the only people reading these blogs and websites. I talked to a director of media relations for an NFL team and he told me that he has to monitor these rumor sites to prepare his coaching staff and management. He found that other individuals throughout the league as well as beat reporters read these blogs and would follow up on the rumors. If he didn’t prepare his guys by telling them what people were speculating, they could be blindsided at a press conference or in a media scrum.

Not only do you need to prepare your colleagues, but you also need to prevent false information from spreading. Let’s say a blogger misunderstood a quote or fact and that incorrect information was getting around. You may need to address the situation and correct the error.

3. Sports blogs may be the primary media covering your team.

If your team is in a market that watched a newspaper disappear (e.g. Seattle or Denver) or saw your only beat reporter taken off your beat, sports blogs may outnumber the media outlets covering your team. Obviously not every team will have this problem, but some NHL teams have seen problems arise here as well as minor sports leagues and college sports. As a result, a rising number of organizations are even credentialing bloggers to cover events and games.

Whether it’s due to the economic climate at the local newspaper or the fact that your team sits toward the bottom of the league, your team may not have a lot of people producing daily content about your product. Fans will always want information on their team. So if they can’t find it in their local newspaper, they’ll go online and likely stumble across a blog or two covering their team.

Comments

One Response to “Why care about sports blogs?”

  1. Sports Blogging 101 Series | Sports PR Blog on July 14th, 2009 4:19 pm

    [...] Why care about sports blogs? [...]

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