The Social Media and Sport Marriage

Social media has become an important tool for distributing contents and attracting new readers, as well as creating more participation. The social media tools have impacted the sports from many different ways, such as communications and sports marketing. Social Media can be the catalyst for success by empowering people and fueling ideas. We have all seen the good and the bad that can come from Social Media. But regardless if you are a casual user, have your mobile device attached to the hip so you or don't use social media at all, there is no denying the impact that Social Media has had on both our culture and on industries around the world. Especially the sport industry. There is something unique about the relationship sport and social media, it has its major ups, and its major downs, but overall it has had a lot of growth overall.

Obviously, social media is one of the most important tools for sports, the fans and the athletes. First, the population of social media users has increased dramatically over the past several years. People can engage in the sports, follow their favorite athletes and teams, and get the most updated sports content instantaneously(i.e. Scores). Second, for sport organizations, the advantages of using social media is that it can help sport organizations build a relationship with the public, to reduce their marketing costs and to increase sales. Organizations can use social media to promote two-way conversations with the public and build a community under their mission. Third, social media has got attraction as an essential tool for connecting with sports fans. For individual sports fans, social media is a very important tool for them to interact and share information with other individuals, to engage in two-way communication with sports organizations. Finally, athletes can benefit from using social media to connect with their fans, to build a personal brand and to promote themselves.

Despite of the many benefits, there are still some negatives of social media in sports. For example, bad contents can be spread more quickly than ever before! Athletes may have no idea of how to use social media appropriately; negative comments from fans could affect the performance of the athletes or the team, etc. There are lots of cases indicating that the use of social media among athletes need to be trained and one bad post can dramatically influence the athletes as well as the sports organizations. We have definitely seen plenty of examples of this before on the college level, professional level and even the Olympic level.

Almost every team, league and sports association has a social media profile on Twitter. From the pros to the minors and from the high school athlete to the retired athlete, social media has been a force in the sports industry landscape. According to Navigate Research, sports fans are 67 percent more likely to use Twitter to enhance their viewing experience compared to non-sports fans.  Essentially, Twitter is the virtual sports bar that fans flock to before, during and after the games. So the behavior of a team or an athlete on Social Media can directly influence a fan's perception of that team or athlete. During 2013 50% of Tweets regarding TV in the United Stated, a total of 492 million Tweets were about sports events. Sports events comprised 12 of the Top 20 Most-Tweeted-About TV broadcasts during the year, according to Nielson.

Let me provide you with a couple of example of sport social media popularity:

• NBA Free Agency, which will kick off this summer. Most of the trending topics leading up to and gaining momentum after it's official start has been NBA Free Agency. Throughout the day 3-4 of the Top 10 trending topics have been NBA-related and a simple search of the hashtag #NBAFreeAgency on Twitter will give you a perfect example of how popular the conversation is.

• Just like NFL Free Agency, Pro League Drafts, Trade Deadlines and Playoff & Championship games, these trends have staying power.

• The Stanley Cup Playoffs have been tagged with a popular #BecauseItstheCup hashtag the past few years and it has been almost a tradition for hockey fan discussion during the Playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final.

Almost every sports related show or event has a hashtag associated with it and it is displayed, on screen, during the event or show. It drives engagement and creates a relationship with the audience that had not been possible several years ago. Social Media is a powerful vehicle that drives sports talk today and the way fans interact with teams, players, personalities and fellow fans. It's a powerful source for getting news, engaging in topical discussions and empowering brands. Younger fans are moving away from traditional TV to social media – 64% prefer sports coverage on social media compared to traditional channels like TV, while 48% watch sports content on YouTube more than TV. These fans want to see the action as it happens and will sacrifice quality for speed. 57% would prefer to watch goals immediately rather than wait for broadcast quality coverage later. People love sports, and it is estimated that around 10% of all social media users share sports-related posts on their profiles, while the number of sports fans on Facebook is a little short of 700 million.

Big sports stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and LeBron James have hundreds of millions of followers on their social media profiles. Alongside giving announcements and advertising brands, they use these platforms to share personal stories, which a lot of fans find entertaining. Cristiano Ronaldo alone saw a $500 million return from Nike in 2016 for presenting the brand on social media. I mean just go look up certain athletes on Instagram and look at their metrics alone, and browse through their interactions! Its insane!! Then on top of that, looking at their posts when promoting products like Nike, Gatorade, Beats etc. and all of the interactions on that post. I will have to admit im jealous! I wish I was a famous athlete!

All in all, social media is still at its infancy and will continue to grow, and the engagement of social media in sports is one of the most significant issues in the sports industry. The sports fans and athletes, as well as sports organizations are embracing social media as the most important tools to promote, to communicate and to interact. Below I am attaching a graphic I found online(its lengthy) but it does more for this topic than I could ever explain.