In some parts of the world we are now seeing some sporting competitions returning. As a result we are also seeing sports fans who may not follow those sports tuning in, because they have missed live sporting action.
This in itself is an interesting situation, that people simply love live sport, and will tune in to almost any sport as long as it is live. Which is something that sporting bodies and television stations need to be aware of.
Obviously around the world when live sport stopped we have witnessed the various broadcasters adopt varying strategies to keep their fans tuning in. The big question is did it work?
Many simply resorted to replaying old matches. Some simply replayed the Finals of various competitions. This tended to indicate a lack of understanding on the part of the programming department as often the final is in a fact a vey dull affair. For example the long-running and much-watched FA Cup has failed to deliver a memorable final for a number of years. Of course fans of the winning team will beg to differ! The assumption must have been that with ‘big name clubs’ having won the last six Finals you are almost guaranteed an audience irrespective of the game.
What is an ongoing question is how many people will sit through a replay of a game that the know the result of for a second time?
If you know it was an absolute belter of a game you may well do. If you support one of the teams you probably would do. If you knew anyone involved in the match you may also possibly would. However would the average sports fan tune in again?
There is no doubt that some games you can watch time and again simply due to the majestic play that you are witnessing; but these matches are limited. That is what makes them so special and memorable.
Some of the television stations aired sporting documentaries, and this certainly appealed to many who were able to obtain an insight into a person, a team or a sport that they otherwise did not have. So should there be more sporting documentaries? Unfortunately many television station heads will tell you that they don’t rate with viewers. It would be interesting to see the figures from Netflix.
Unfortunately many sports found themselves at this time in emergency mode. The lockdown caught them by surprise, and it was a case of ensuring their own survival and that of their staff. Those two issues became their understandable focus.
Hindsight they say is perfect vision and one wonders how many will look back and view this time as a unique opportunity missed? Was this not the perfect opportunity to help the broadcasters out by giving them unseen footage that would promote their sport? Footage that could have potentially grown the viewership of their sport and made it more appealing to the broadcasters? Did any sport have that vision, see the opportunity and take advantage of it? Did this period reveal how strong the relationship was between the sport and the broadcaster and whether there really was a relationship?
Sure, many created new content on their social media platforms, some good, some downright awful in terms of it’s poor quality. Some unfortunately probably did more harm than good.
There is no doubt that all sports felt the need to keep their fans engaged. However the question that has to be asked is did any of that content pull in new fans, and how much was the content simply just promoting to the converted?
Many will say that they did not have the budget to produce such content. Which on face value would appear to be the case. However with staff not able to carry out their normal tasks there were clearly people who were still being paid who were available to help out had any opted to go down this path. Which could have brought down costs. Equally many in the media space were out of work with no sport being played or broadcast, so may have been available at a greatly reduced cost.
There is no doubt it is great to see live sport back on our screens. Hopefully in the future many sports will now plan for a worst case scenario in which if something similar happens again they have some reserves set aside.
We will see which sports have learned from this experience should it ever happen again, and whether they see a similar situation as an opportunity to win over more fans and grow the interest in their sport or team.
