Minor Sports in Emerging Media
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FACULTE DES SCIENCES DU SPORT, UNIVERSITE DE POITIERS, FRANCE EXECUTIVE MASTERS IN SPORTS ORGANISATION MANAGEMENT MASTER EXECUTIF EN MANAGEMENT DES ORGANISATIONS SPORTIVES MEMOS XII Sept. 2008-Sept. 2009 Minor Sports in Emerging Media Strategy to Enhance Sports Exposure in Portugal João Querido Manha PROJECT TUTOR – Luc Vandeputte July 2009 © 2009, MEMOS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................ 3 2 – Methodology ............................................................................................................... 5 3 – Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 8 The Communication Process of Sport Information .................................................. 8 The Impact of Media and Technology ..................................................................... 8 Brand Equity ............................................................................................................. 9 Minor Sports ........................................................................................................... 11 The Long Tail Theory............................................................................................. 12 Niche Culture .......................................................................................................... 13 Communication in Sport – Media opportunities .................................................... 14 Social Networks ...................................................................................................... 16 Web 2.0 ................................................................................................................... 17 Social Media ........................................................................................................... 18 4 – Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 21 Mapping the Stakeholders ...................................................................................... 21 The Portuguese Sport – History & Tradition ......................................................... 22 The Portuguese Sport – Communication systems .................................................. 24 The Portuguese Media and Sports Coverage .......................................................... 28 Social Networks applications ................................................................................. 32 New Media Awareness ........................................................................................... 34 5 – Focus Group ............................................................................................................. 37 6 – Survey ....................................................................................................................... 40 Olympic Image in Portugal …………………………………………………… 42 7 – Strategy ..................................................................................................................... 44 Build a Personal Brand ........................................................................................... 44 Network Journalism ................................................................................................ 45 How to Implement Solid communication ............................................................... 46 8 – Action Plan ............................................................................................................... 47 Strategy - Short Term ……………………………………………………………. 48 Strategy- Long Term …………………………………………………………..… 48 Communication Model ..………………….……………………………………... 50 Model ……………………………………………………………………………. 50 Human Resources ……………………………………………………………….. 50 Budgeting ……………………………………………………………………….. 51 Enhancing Sports Exposure in Emerging Media ………………………………… 53 Appendices References 1 – Introduction During 30 years as a journalist, including a five year phase as Communications Manager on Portuguese Olympic Committee, frequently heard complains and remarks of athletes, coaches and officials from Olympic individual Sports regarding the lack of exposure on Media and the excessive attention given to Football clubs and players. The key argument was the technical comparison between Football and those so-called Minor Sports, which manage to obtain further better results and classifications on Major competitions, like World and European Championships or the Olympic Games. In the opening day of 2004 Athens Games, when rider Sergio Paulinho won the silver medal in the Road Race, two out of three national «sports newspapers» have dedicate more space and bigger headlines to a friendly pre-season match of top football club Benfica. The front page picture instead of gold medalist was a young player who scored one goal in that match. Five years later, his name is barely remembered and plays in a Minor League while Paulinho rides at Tour de France teaming Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador. This short story shows the gap that Minor Sports people had to fulfill willing to conquer some space in Media. The question is: how to do it? Technological advancements during the past two decades have made it easy to deliver larger audiences and great exposure to sports organizations and sport personalities. Technology has improved the speed of delivery as well as the range and may blur the lines distinguishing the traditional forms of the Media and to change the working relationship with sports organizations. In the book «Media, Sports and Society», Lawrence A. Wenner, professor of Mass Communication at the University of San Francisco, emphasizes the transactions between key elements of the exchanging process, alerting for the role of the sports organizations in order to exercise influence on the structure, popularity and character of sport, through the relationship with Media. Wenner sees A symbiotic relationship between Media industries and Sport Organizations, each one needing the other to create a large marketplace. Mass Media organizations profit with the distribution of contents and entertainment, and the Sports Organizations benefit from publicity and exposure. Newspapers power depended on the control of production tools, but in the last decade news started to pop-up in screens and not only on printed paper anymore. Suddenly, any person with a computer and an internet connection could have the same power of a big news company. 3 With the launching of personal pages and blogs became less and less clear the distinction between professional and amateur journalism – as in each self interest area the bloggers are better informed than journalists and quicker. In many cases, as in- participants, they have better access to information than reporters: think about an athlete blogging directly from the locker-room where reporters are not allowed. This possibility urged the International Olympic Committee to forbidden blogging from Beijing Olympic Village, where accredited journalists only could enter by invitation of Chef de Mission during day light, to protect sponsors rights and limit the possibilities of ambush marketing involving athletes of officials fueled by companies rivals of IOC official partners, but one year later IOC stepped back surrended to the power of social media and blogging. However, to Minor Sports this kind of divulgation means are crucial. Judge Professor Richard Posner expressed in a literary revue in New York Times that a blogger is able to reach a public segment much more exclusive than newspapers or television ever could think of and almost absolutely free. Social networks (like blogs) steel the readers one by one exactly for being a niche while traditional Media are mass. And despite the danger of mistakes and hoaxes, blogs and social networks are self correcting and have the ability of filter spam and abusers with much more efficiency and accuracy than traditional media, at electronic speed. Each person is a reporter and the whole network functions as a sole company, like a global news agency, with millions of reporters, specialized and costless. No conventional media can beat this, otherwise considering that the endless virtual and digital world may carry so much more information than any Media, like comedian Jerry Seinfeld once noted: «it’s amazing how a so huge quantity of events happening all over the world can all fit in daily newspaper». It can’t on a newspaper, but it can in the Web. 2 – Methodology The space for the answer to address to Minor Sports people who seek for more Media exposure was not totally blank when this study was proposed in September 2008. The solution was on Internet, but the final strategy was found on the deep research that revealed the growing potential of Web 2.0 and Social Media. The strategic and performance cycle from Analysis to Control was followed, passing through the Vision of the objectives and the Action Plan (Chapellet & Bayle, 2005). Internal and external analysis of the problem and of possible solutions made possible to draw clear goals within the Vision and the Mission for an improving service of new Media tools. They can provide fair coverage and exposure for Minor sports athletes and organizations. The Literature Review led to the Analysis GRAPHIC 1: Strategic and of Sport Communication theories, Sports Performance Management Cycle and Media Relations, the impact of Media and Technologies, the development of Marketing and Media promotion