Today ESPN officially launched their second regional sports website, ESPNBoston.com, timed perfectly with the first New England Patriots game of the year on Monday Night Football (another ESPN production). Their first regional effort, ESPNChicago.com, went online back in April and has already become a top site for Chicago sports fans, reaching over 700,000 visitors per month. The company has plans to release similar sites for New York, Dallas and Los Angeles over the next few months.

ESPN realized that even though they offer a tremendous amount of sports content on their primary ESPN.com platform, fans in these hotbeds of sports activity are constantly seeking out more in-depth content for the teams in their market. So why not leverage the power of their brand (arguably the most powerful and recognizable brand in sports) and dig deeper into these individual markets? Because of their global scale, they have more resources available to them than even the strongest regional content provider.  They’ve also attacked their regional expansion in a very logical manner, starting with cities where they already have an established core of writers and contributors that will generate immediate interest.

It will be interesting to see how the ESPN regional websites grow and what their total impact is on existing local content providers. In the past, ESPN has convinced many of the best local writers to join their national platform, and I’m sure they’ll pursue similar efforts to try and get the best content on these new platforms. This is also another hurdle for local newspapers to deal with. For some readers, local sports coverage is the only reason to still get the paper, but that reason is quickly fading away.

Last week, news came out about a new “Twitter policy” being implemented by ESPN.com. It started with a tweet from Ric Bucher, followed by lots of speculation, and then information on the actual guidelines was released on TheBigLead.com.

Last night, I had the chance to talk with Rob King, Editor-in-Chief of ESPN.com, about this policy and the relationship between ESPN.com and social media.  I wasn’t able to do a full podcast recording, but here are some notes and quotes from our conversation that I thought were really valuable:

On the new guidelines:

• The recent guidelines are meant to be a starting point for the company, because there was nothing in place with regard to how ESPN personalities were using Twitter, blogs and social media, and this seemed like the right time to put something in place.
• These channels are viewed as a “valuable opportunity to relate with our audiences” and it is regarded “as a form of important programming and publishing,” and as such, the focus on the guidelines is less on prohibiting content and more on how social media should be used.
• The desire is to disseminate news on ESPN platforms, but continue to converse with and engage with fans through other platforms such as Twitter.
• There is an additional challenge as a media company in balancing the opportunity to broadcast a personal message versus a company message, so “even in the instance of a 140 character message sent along through a cell phone, we’re in the position of representing something a lot larger” and they wanted to make sure everyone is aware of this.

On driving users to ESPN.com vs. reaching out to them in other locations:

• ESPN realizes that the conversations often occur outside of the ESPN.com platform, and still wants to engage users in those ways.  As such, there’s been an increased focus on using blogs, optimizing the site for search engines and a partnership with YouTube for video content.
• ESPN has also worked with a company called CoveritLive to integrate with live Twitter conversations, which was used in the WNBA All-Star Game and Sunday night’s game between the Yankees and Red Sox. This let users engage with ESPN through the website or Twitter, whichever they preferred to use. There are plans in place to use this again during ESPN’s coverage of the PGA Championship.

On the reaction to the new guidelines:

• Internally, there was a large follow-up call to review the policy, which helped clarify things and created a lot more understanding. Some questions might still come up as to what content is “breaking news” and where the content can or should be shared.
• There was an “appropriately passionate” initial response from the public. Rob received a lot of thoughtful feedback, and it showed how much people cared about ESPN and how passionate they are about their sports coverage.  Most of the negative public reaction died out in less than a day, once people saw the policy and learned more about it.
• “If there’s a great story here, its that people clearly expressed the notion that they enjoy connecting with our talent or our contributors in a way that was immediate, that was direct, and that was ongoing through the course of the day.”

I want to thank Rob for taking the time to talk with me.  You can follow Rob on Twitter at twitter.com/rfking.

I recently interviewed Dani Muccio (also know as @dani3boyz on Twitter) regarding all of the NHL Tweetup events (www.nhltweetup.com) that have been taking place throughout this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.

How did the idea for organized NHL Tweetups start and how did you get involved?

It all started with a single tweet. Even in that first tweet, I tagged it #NHLtweetup. After getting my first taste of networking outside of Twitter’s 140 character limit at a tweetup in my area, I thought it would be great to try and gather some of our “Hockey Tweeps” for a gathering in a central location (NYC). Getting like-minded people together is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing through my volunteer work in my community. The idea really took off and quickly evolved into an international event with 23 locations planning events for the first playoff games  The experience of coordinating these events on an international level, revolving around a sport that I love, has really been incredible. The best explanation of what happened after that first tweet was put together by Angela Robson (@goaliegirl) in her blog post which can be found here. I have continued to be the contact person/coordinator for NHLtweetup events. I monitor Twitter for mentions of NHLtweetup and reach out to people who are interested in hosting an event in their area. I supply them the info they need to get started and gather information I need from them in order to help them promote their event via nhltweetup.com and @nhltweetup. Angela Robson created and hosts nhltweetup.com and continues to serve as the site’s administrator.

What has the attendance been like at the various locations?

Attendance varied greatly from location to location. The smallest was in Belfast, Ireland which was dubbed “The Littlest NHLtweetup” with two very enthusiastic attendees. The largest were the first round events  in NYC at the NHL Store and in Nashville, which topped off at about 100 people. All over the US and Canada you could find events that had anywhere from 10-30 attendees.

Have the events grown in popularity as the playoffs progress?

Yes, they have been extremely successful in getting hockey fans together and have gotten quite a bit of media attention. The most exciting, was a mention in USA Today. A quick Google News search of NHLtweetup brings up pages and pages of articles. Each write up touts NHL fans as the most tech-savvy of any major league sport with these events as an example of how social media is being used to connect with and extend its fan fan base.
 
Some locations, such as Washington DC, have had 5 or more events since the inaugural night. Other locations like NYC, Pittsburgh, Denver and Chicago just to name a few, went for Round 2 and Round 3 tweetups and are already discussing a NHLtweetup for the final. Currently, there are two more events that I’m directly involved in that I will attend – one in Farmingdale Long Island on 5/27 and another (maybe two) in Montreal for the draft during the weekend of June 26th. Other events in Seattle, Denver and Cincinnati will take place this week. As soon as the final schedules are released, the planning will start for those games as well.

Are there any plans to organize events like this next season?

Absolutely. I’ve been told as soon as the 2009-10 schedule comes out, I better hold onto my BlackBerry very tightly because a number of cities are going to want to have NHLtweetups during their team’s first away game. I expect the beginning of the season to be pretty big. I’m looking forward to it. This is something that I’ve enjoyed doing and will continue to do so as long as the demand is there.

What have you learned from NHL Tweetups that other teams/leagues could benefit from?

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that hockey isn’t “celebrated” the same way in all markets. Whereas some areas, such as NY and NJ, have “social hockey fans” that will get together to watch just about any team play, other areas such as San Jose, Detroit, and most of the Canadian market, are team loyal and are mostly interested in their local teams and not the NHL overall. Identifying these differences and marketing appropriately would be beneficial to the fans as well as the teams and league.

Also, the league and teams should not dismiss social media outlets such as Twitter, or the fans that utilize it. NHLtweetup is proof that this is a powerful tool for for connecting with the fans and bringing them together. These outlets are also a valuable tool in drawing attention to the sport and raising interest in the more passive fans or creating new ones altogether. The events that were supported by the NHL and/or their local teams had the best turnout and were more likely to have follow up events.

If you want more info, you can visit:

• http://delicious.com/angela/nhltweetup (List of links that contain mentions of NHLtweetup)
• http://www.blogtalkradio.com/PredsOnTheGlass/2009/04/28/PredsOnTheGlass-Radio- (A podcast with Dani and Buddy Oakes from PredsOnTheGlass)

One of my goals for this blog is to be a valuable resource for my readers, providing you with valuable, informative content on the business side of sports.  There are many other sports business resources out there as well, and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I wasn’t sharing these other sides and project with you.  So today, I want to highlight a couple of outside websites and projects that I think you’ll enjoy.

The Sports Business Exchange:  A couple of weeks back, Joshua Duboff wrote a guest blog post about this project, and now, the first official issue of The Sports Business Exchange (TSBX) has been released.  From his website, “TSBX is a forum for intellectual articles on issues and concerns in the world of sport business. These articles are written strictly by young professionals in the sports business industry who often otherwise lack a platform for writing articles on current events.”  You can download the April 2009 issue here, and you can also sign up to be notified about future issues.

SportsIn140.com:  This website is entirely focused on the use of Twitter in sports.  In fact, Brendan has put a lot of time into creating a complete list of all the leagues, teams, and professional athletes that are on Twitter, as well as verifying whether these accounts are authentic and official.  He also offers regular tips on how to user Twitter, providing many good examples.

The Row Show:  The Row Show is an Internet video show created by Row27 Studios that talks about current topics in sports marketing with a special focus on media and technology.  They only have two episodes so far, but the content and video quality is excellent.  The episodes are a little on the long side (30-40 minutes each), so you might have to go through then in multiple sittings.  Even so, I think this will grow into another valuable education tool for the industry. I’ve included their first video below:

The Row Show 001: Twitter and Vanity Domain Names from Jonathan Dusing on Vimeo.

With the rapid increase in popularity of Twitter among sports organizations, I thought this was the appropriate time to document what I refer to as “The Four C’s of Twitter.” I believe that if you follow the basic concepts I’m going to review, that you can use Twitter to  your advantage:

The Four C’s of Twitter

1.  Content: Ultimately, all communication channels are only as good as the content that you provide. Twitter is no different. Just because you are using a micro-blogging system with a 140 character limit doesn’t mean that you can’t create interesting and engaging content for your readers. Twitter users are particularly interested in content that they might not get via other traditional channels, such as insider news, early access to information, behind-the-scenes access and unique perspectives that they cannot get elsewhere.

2.  Character: By character, I mean personality. Whether the Twitter account has a specific person’s name on it or not, followers want to know that there is a real person behind the account, and the way to do that it by letting your personality shine through.  The last thing that Twitter users want is “the company line” – they can get that anywhere. If you can put a personal touch on your content, the interest level will jump dramatically.

3.  Conversation: Twitter was designed on the concept of following other people’s updates and being able to respond back and engage with your Twitter friends. Simply pushing a message down to followers without conversing with them will quickly get tuned out. Hopefully if you post something interesting, you will get a few replies back. When that happens, reply back to those people and start a dialogue.  Others will see what is happening and join the conversation. Now your followers aren’t just reading about you, they are engaging with you. Also, if someone follows your account, follow them back. Even if you’re not actively reading their posts, they’ll appreciate the reciprocity and be more interested in looking for your updates.

4.  Community: When you succeed in the first three areas, the number of people that follow you (and you in turn follow back) will quickly increase.  Before you know it, you have hundreds and thousands of people that are looking for your tweets.  And if they decide they want to look for other fans of your team/league/sport, they’ll search through your list of followers to find others they can connect with.  In essence, you’ve created an entire new community on Twitter based around your brand.  More people will start conversations about your organization, even if you don’t post anything yourself.

These concepts can be applied to any Twitter account, whether you work with a team, league, consumer product, or you just want to start your own personal account.  If you follow all four ideas, your account will quickly become a success.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Dan Beeman, Founder of Sponsorship Insights Group.

Have you wondered about the value of social media – the return on investment of time?  With all of these weird-sounding names and new medium like blogging and micro-blogging, who has time for that and who cares?

In 2008, I decided to dive into this new media world to promote my news sponsorship agency and develop a position as a thought-leader.  Mind you, I am a 44 year old technophobe.  As the same time, I am widely regarded as the most powerful voice in social media when it comes to sponsorship insights.

My story is a good one and I owe it all to LinkedIn.  Last year, I started my sponsorship consulting company under the name of “Beeman Sponsorship Consulting.”  We provide sponsorship valuation, advisory and sales representation services.  A short while later, I started a LinkedIn Group for Sponsorship and Marketing professionals called Sponsorship Insights Group (SIG). 

The group membership took off with very little marketing and now stands at 3,000+.  It is the largest one for Sponsorship and Marketing professionals to network, share insights and find exclusive discounts on vendors goods and services.  My value proposition was simple to members – I would provide free quality content, a place to network and share information with others and a chance to learn more and find opportunities. 

On January 1, my New Year’s resolution was to blog every day and the following for my blog has also grown quickly.  More recently, I have also built a group on Facebook which replicates the LinkedIn Group and can be found on Twitter. I quickly realized that the social media practices that I put in place generated a significant amount of recognition for Sponsorship Insights Group.   Then, I realized there was more equity associated with SIG in the marketplace than BSC.  So, I changed the name of my business to that of my group. 

I now literally get inquiries for my services Every Day from properties and agencies throughout the world – they want to join my group, tap into our knowledge and seek our services.  If you look at my profile, you’ll see that LinkedIn is a tool that I use on a daily basis for business.

Time?  I’d say it was well-spent.  ROI? Absolutely!

For more information on Dan and all of his social-media related initiatives, check out the following links:

• Sponsorship Insights Group – My business website
• www.linkedin.com/in/danbeeman – My profile, recommendations, work examples and more
• Sponsorship Insights Blog – New content daily
• Join my LinkedIn Group on Sponsorship - Connect with thousands of sponsorship professionals
• twitter.com/danbeeman – My tweets for Twitter folks
• Sponsorship Insights Group on Facebook- A replication of our LinkedIn group for Facebook users

Twitter continues to grow in leaps and bounds, including in the sports community.  More teams and athletes have joined in the 140-character-long conversations, and the communication channel continues to gain popularity and credibility as a legitimate marketing outlet.  Along with the official sports accounts are the hundreds and thousands of other “unofficial” accounts run by fans and bloggers that write primarily about teams and leagues.  So, if a new sports fan joins Twitter, how should they navigate among all of these interesting sports accounts?  Who do they follow and how do they join the conversation?

The folks at Octagon recognized an opportunity in this area, so they created Twackle (the name is a little funny, but consistent with many Twitter-focused applications and websites).  The concept is simple – Twackle aggregates content from many different Twitter accounts and groups them by league, team and sport.  They refer to this as as virtual “Twitter sports bar,” filled with good sports conversations.  Now users don’t need to manually search through Twitter to find accounts related to their sport interests – they can just go to Twackle and find them all in one place.  They can also participate in the conversation through Twackle’s web interface, which they call the ”barstool.” 

The only drawback to the site right now is the dependence on a web interface.  One of the best features of Twitter is an open API, meaning that people can easily create applications to communicate with Twitter.  That’s why so many people use other applications on their computer or mobile device to access their Twitter account.  If Twackle can find an easy way to integrate with these applications, I think they’ll be in excellent shape for long-term success and adoption by sports fans.

Almost all teams and sports entities are trying to figure out the social media landscape.  What tools are out there?  What are people using?  Where do we need to participate, and how do we do it?  No one has all of the answers yet, and if you’re just entering this arena, it can be very overwhelming.

This is where the folks at Sports Media Challenge have stepped in to help.  They created a great resource called “Winning Fans with Social Media: A Dynamic Glossary for Tackling the Language of Social Media” (click on the link to download the PDF).  The guide reviews almost all of the common terms and concepts in social media, which can be a great help in exploring the different option available to you.  The guide has two sections, one on the basics for true novices and an intermediate section for those further along.  In addition, the guide provides “sideline tips” to go along with all of the terms and definitions.  Even if you think you know social media, you will find some useful tidbits by reading this paper.

If you have other questions about social media and sports, you can reach out to most of the Sports Media Challenge staff on Twitter (@KathleenHessert, @JakeRosen, @RyanStephens, @BrittanyLane, @mhannahp, @MatthewGarner, @LindaHutch, @JaneWeddington) or visit their website at www.SportsMediaChallenge.com.

The National Sports Forum started today with a bonus session on “Making Money from the Web,” led by Pat Coyle (www.sportsmarketing20.com and www.patcoyle.net).  Pat’s session has a lot of great presentations and panel discussions covering topics on:

• Digital media sponsorships
• Mobile sports marketing
• Ticket pricing and sales
• Digital market research
• Strategic partnerships
• The future of sports media

This bonus session was a great way to kick off this year’s Sports Forum, which I really think is one of the best sports business conferences out there.  Ron Seaver, the President of the Forum, really does a great job in lining up excellent speakers and exhibitors.  You can view the full conference agenda here.  Also, make sure to check out Sports Marketing 2.0, the online community created by Pat Coyle for people involved in digital marketing of sports.

Today’s post is an email interview I did with Christian Busch, Vice President of Marketing for Takkle.com, a social networking site geared around high-school football.

Christian, tell us a bit about yourself.

My background is actually quite far away from American High School Sports. I grew up in Germany and lived in London and Barcelona before moving to New York in 2002. Since then, I’ve really gotten into the American way of life and the Internet and decided to join Takkle after working in the Internet and mobile space at Bertelsmann and Lagardere for about 6 years. Takkle is at the forefront of social media and catering to the high school athlete community combines my passion for the Internet with my passion for sports.

It seems like all different teams, leagues, and sports companies are rushing to get their own social networking sites up and running.  Why do you think everyone is jumping into this arena now?

Social media is one of the biggest trends of this decade and everyone now wants to be a part of it. I believe that there’s a right way for every company/team/league to participate in the social media revolution but the approaches really have to take into account the individual situation of the company. There’s no “one size fits all” in social media.

One of the issues I have is that, just because you offer a social networking service that’s tied to sports doesn’t mean you are providing enough value to pull users away from traditional social networking sites.  If you do enter the social networking world, what can a company do to create a real value proposition?

You’re bringing up a great point. The time when you were able to just launch a plain-vanilla social network and hope for millions of users is definitely over. There are very few primary (Facebook and Myspace and to a lesser extent Hi5, Bebo, Tagged, Sonico et al.) social networks that have achieved critical mass. But there are plenty of opportunities for niche social media sites that can provide a combination of content and utility to audiences. That’s why we at Takkle launched Takkle Recruiting last month and will continue to provide value to our users by helping them reach their goals and entertain and educate them with relevant content.

OK, once you get users to believe in your service and commit to it, how can you monetize it, and does the strategy change if you are a team vs. a league vs. a company like Takkle?

The monetization strategy for us consists of several revenue streams such as advertising, lead generation, market research and down the line also charging users for certain services we are going to provide. The approach for a team or league might be much more based on expanding sponsorship opportunities, increasing sales of tickets and merchandise and promoting the team/league to new audiences.

What do you see as the next “big thing” for sports on the web?

To me, the next big thing (besides of course Takkle Recruiting for high school athletes) is going to be to take the interactive conversation about sports online and mobile to the next level. Imagine live-sharing of clips in a stadium during a game and discussing the replay with tens of thousands of fans while sitting in front of your HDTV.  For sports fans, mobile holds tremendous promise.

One last question – in two to three sentences, what is the purpose and mission of Takkle Recruiting?

The purpose of Takkle Recruiting is to help qualified high school athletes get discoveredby college coaches and help them to really make the most out of their athletic potential. We launched the first phase of Takkle Recruiting in December and very thrilled with the results: more than 5,000 RecruitMe sheets were created by athletes within the first few weeks! We’re already offering athletes the ability to create their free RecruitMe sheet and get into the Recruit-Match database of high school athletes maintained by our partner, the National Collegiate Scouting Association, that is accessed by more than 30,000 college coaches in the country on a regular basis.

Thanks again to Christian for taking the time to do this interview. Social networking is an important topic in sports marketing today, but just building a social networking platform and expecting people to join is not viable. Any site geared around social functions needs to have a well-defined strategy and a unique advantage that is unavailable through traditional social networking sites. Takkle may have found that unique advantage in combining their recruiting functions with a passionate, young customer base.