Blurred Lines: PR Takeaways From The Variety- Sports Illustrated Sports & Entertainment Summit

If asked to describe myself in 100 words, ‘sports fan’ would be two of the first words to make the cut. Growing up, I learned how to read and write by keeping score at Cardinals’ games, and spent several childhood vacations in Jupiter, Fla., to witness the Cardinals at Spring Training. Fast forward 20 some years later, my recent move to Los Angeles has altered my views of sports now that I have witnessed the interaction (and collision) between sports and entertainment on a daily basis.

With the lines between sports and entertainment becoming increasingly blurred, the effort to engage audiences has become a joint venture from both the entertainment and sport industries. The Variety- Sports Illustrated Sports & Entertainment Summit that took place in July gathered power players from both industries to discuss the future of the symbiotic relationship. Though there were many nuggets of wisdom presented, here are three key takeaways:

1. Find Deeper Connections For Fans

• From the future of virtual reality in sports to live sports telecasting, one message rang true from each panel discussion: fans are increasingly craving greater access. With the appetite for sports content rapidly increasing, the game itself is no longer enough. Media driven content like Hard Knocks coupled with league-led events, increasing social media presence and more work to facilitate a more genuine connection for fans to build relationships with athletes, brands and the sports themselves.

• “Increasingly, the game is the anchor for a broader experience,” said Jordan Levin, chief content officer, NFL Media. That broader experience is what happens before, at and after the game and who are you communicating with. It’s no longer a top-down model; it’s much more about engagement, relationship and community that gets extended across the different functionality of these various platforms and what the product can facilitate in terms of that deeper engagement.

2. Get Comfortable with Players Holding the Pen

• What’s more is that it’s not just the fans who are craving a deeper connection. Outlets like Players’ Tribune and Uninterrupted have given players themselves the opportunity to control their own message. “As athletes, we can now take the opinion out of your hand and put it in ours,” said Dwyane Wade in a keynote speech.
• As PR professionals, mitigating risk is our middle name, and relinquishing the power to control messages is often what nightmares are made of, but if we allow athletes to tell their own authentic stories, fans will connect on a deeper level and quench their desire for access. Whether we choose to hand over the pen or not, athletes are demanding a voice, so we may as well be their microphone.

3. New Risks, New Rewards

• With the increased demand for sports content, and a surge of athletes eager to tell their own stories, the possibilities for brands to enhance their sponsorship presence is now greater than ever - but it is not without risk. Speaking to today’s saturated sponsorship market, Kate Johnson; Vice President of Global Sponsorship Marketing, Visa, noted that “brands no longer want to just be a part of ‘Insert brand here’ partnerships anymore. They want to create access through content generation.”
• To brands looking to join the nearly $50 billion sports sponsorship market, choose your battles wisely. Working with an athlete to enhance your brand voice has the potential to tap the wildly passionate fan base of sports, but only if you are willing to allow your partners to tell their own story, in a way that feels genuine to fans. As NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath once said, “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?”

A lifelong sports fan now living just blocks away from the Hollywood sign, I find my worlds professionally colliding every day through my work at FleishmanHillard. I work daily to find symmetry between sports and entertainment, and am eager to implement my learnings from this educational and engaging summit.