Less about sport and media; more about sport as media.
We all know about the power of digital media and social media - its power as a marketing tool, as an analytic tool in boosting companies and individuals. Sport is often regarded as separate to these aspects of life, but it is a business on its own. Sport has become a target for data collection in recent years, and has transformed into an amalgamation of the sports themselves, business, marketing, and all kinds of media.
In general, though, there is no denying the impact of media on our daily lives, as well as the evolution of media up until this point. Think about it: we were once active cool kids using MSN Messenger to talk to our crushes and to post song lyrics as statuses, and using animated glitterized wallpapers on our MySpace pages. Now, our lives on social media are encapsulated by personalised posts on Facebook and 140 characters on Twitter. Our personal brand online is almost just as important as who we are in real life.
In South Africa, there has been a staggering increase in the use of different social media platforms thanks to increased accessibility and affordability of various digital devices. According to WebAfrica, the period from 2015-2016 saw Facebook increase by 8%, from 12-million to 13-million users, Twitter by 12%, from 6,6-million to 7,4-million users, YouTube by 15%, from 7,2-million to 8,28-million users, and Instagram, with a whopping 133%, from 1,1-million to 2,68-million users.
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Anthony DiMoro is a Forbes.com contributor as well as active contributor to the internet marketing industry focusing on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media, Reputation Management, Internet Marketing and Creative Development. In his article , he includes information from Navigate Research stating that "sports fans are 67 percent more likely to use Twitter to enhance their viewing experience compared to non-sports fans."
The ways in which social and digital media incorporate the sports world vary, but these are the most recognisable ways:
- Most sports teams and athletes have a social media profile of some kind, and because of the widespread use of social media to interact with these teams and athletes (amongst other things), how they behave online is likely to directly impact and influence a fan's perception of them.
- Because most sports teams and athletes have social media accounts, they are able to interact with fans. This is likely to boost their image in the public realm and also helps create a relationship with the audience and fans.
- Hashtags on Twitter and Facebook can get conversations going and trending, bring more awareness to the team or athlete about whatever the topic is. It can either ruin their reputation, if the topic is negative, or significantly boost them, and so they have to be cautious.
Singaporean commentator Walter Lim says that social media and sport are ‘a match made in heaven’:
"The instantaneous, intimate and interactive nature of social and mobile technologies make them perfect platforms to fuel our sporting desires."
All in all, there is not a lot wrong with the convergence of sport and digital media. How we watch sport and interact with it is aided by the use of social media, enabling us to spark conversation and engage with our sporting heroes (you who is one out of three million fans, but it's good to dream). We live in a world where we would struggle to see ourselves without our digital devices and our instantaneous access to information, and the sporting world would struggle without it, too.
