Sports Marketing Trends That You Should Know and Use

The digital age demands everything from those responsible for marketing in sports industry. It is almost impossible for an individual to be perfectly familiar with all the facets of sports marketing. Daniel Macaulay, founder and managing director of the full-service sports marketing agency Brandwave, gives an overview of the ten biggest sports marketing industry trends and exciting examples.

Trends in sports marketing
Sports marketing has become more open, thanks to many trends that are shifting from one-way channels between brands and audiences to constant communication between brands, teams, players and fans. The emergence of new platforms and access to 24/7 sports updates on social media is not only increasing audiences and improving such communication, but also popularizing sports among a huge segment of the world’s population. The future of sports marketing is driven by the following trends, which are now gaining tremendous momentum.

OTT (Over the Top) Content
Netflix, Amazon Prime or Facebook are the classic examples of OTT offers. OTT stands for "Over the top" and means that the content can ultimately be received independently of the terminal device.

What's that got to do with sports? Platforms like Facebook or Amazon turn the sports rights market, as it has been known for decades, upside down. For example, the Primera Division, Spain's best professional soccer league, runs exclusively on Facebook in India. And even the short news service Twitter is involved in sports rights. "If you wanted to watch soccer before, you turned on the TV," explained Daniel Macaulay. "Now you can watch live sports anywhere, on any device."

Even former niche sports profit from the streaming possibilities. "Facebook has secured the rights to the World Surf League and will pay 30 million US dollars for two years," Macaulay said. Surfing fits perfectly to the digital target group.

The competition from the Internet is causing problems for traditional media companies. And the platforms have another big advantage: "They create profiles of their users, so they know exactly who sees their content and when - and can then play targeted advertising," said Macaulay.

This database takes sports marketing to a whole new level. According to Macaulay, a company has another decisive advantage: Amazon. "Amazon has what no one has: The largest online shop in the world. So any content can be capitalized directly."

AI
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Al is changing the world, there's no doubt about it. But three things are needed for this: Data, data and data. And of course a fast Internet connection.

Chatbots are an exciting form of artificial intelligence for sports marketing, reports Macaulay: "FC Arsenal has developed a chatbot called Robot Pires with the specialists from GameOn, which communicates with fans via Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack, Kik and Telegram".

And that's very entertaining. Robot Pires - the name is derived from Arsenal legend Robert Pires - provides users with results, statistics, news and partly exclusive videos of the Premier League Club in humorous and simple language.

The use of chatbots in sports marketing offers several advantages:

An entertaining and clever chatbot can reach new target groups and strengthen fan loyalty because it offers extraordinary content.
The sports company or the club present themselves as innovative thought leaders and thus also strengthen their brand in the B2B segment.
Chatbots collect data that can give important hints on fan or customer wishes.
Whether the investment in AI is worthwhile for sports marketing, however, is still questionable. And so the chatbot of FC Arsenal should be understood more as an experiment.

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality
The developments in VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality) are impressive, reported Daniel Macauly. "In the past, VR and AR were expensive and uncomfortable, but now the focus is on benefits," the sports marketing specialist said.

Online shops have to struggle with high CPAs (cost per acquisition) because the free delivery conditions have resulted in an unpleasant pattern of behavior: "Customers order each product in three different sizes and colors, try everything on at home and in the end - if at all - keep only one. The rest go back."

With the help of AR, for example, sports shoes can be tried on virtually beforehand. Through glasses or a smartphone, the customer can see what the shoe looks like on his own foot - and hopefully selects more precisely.

Wearables
The wearables market has emerged from its niche and has long since become one of the most important fields of the entire sports industry. Or as Daniel Macaulay put it, "wearables are mainstream."

According to a study, global wearables sales are expected to exceed 95 billion US dollars in 2021. With his self-lacing shoes Hyperadapt Nike has created an exciting example of a product from the future, Macaulay said.

But the sports marketing expert was also impressed by intelligent soles such as Digitsole presented at ISPO Munich 2019.

eSports
No sports marketer can afford not to take eSports seriously. Video games are becoming increasingly popular and more and more gamers are finding their way into the world of eSports. According to forecasts, the number of global sports enthusiasts is expected to rise to over 500 million by 2024. Daniel Macaulay sees huge potential here for sports marketers.

But the Brandwave CEO has noticed another development: "It's exciting that there are now also sports areas at tech conferences."