In the wake of the unprecedented cancellation of almost all sporting events worldwide, millions of people have found themselves with a hole to fill in their lives as the COVID-19 pandemic forced billions indoors. March is unequivocally one of, if not the single best months of the entire sports calendar. March Madness tips off and roars on throughout the month, a new baseball season is born, and the NHL and NBA progress towards the conclusions of their regular seasons.
Instead of wire to wire action this month, sports junkies have nothing. There are no live sporting events. Even the Kentucky Derby and the Olympics are now rescheduled for later dates. American and global mainstays and historical traditions will not occur at their regularly scheduled times due to COVID-19.
Obviously, what is happening in this alternate universe known as 2020 is completely unprecedented and historical, and not just in the sports world. But as sports so often do with many things in life, here they provide a fantastic lens to view the pandemic’s widespread effects. I believe that sports are one of the great unifying forces in the world, and as billions of people are spending hours upon hours on social media, the sports world is remaining strong.
Every professional sports team is approaching interacting with their fans during the quarantine differently, but the teams that stand out to me are taking a friendly, nonprofessional and very interactive angle. Responding to fans throughout the day and night is going a long way for teams.
One awesome example of the sports world using social media during this difficult time has been the Twitter conversations between fans, teams, leagues, athletes, analysts; you name it. Everyone is coming together to rank their favorite players of all time, debating the greatest of all time, posting clips of their favorite moments, uploading pictures of the best events they have attended - the list goes on. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing famous athletes jump in on the conversations too. Even logos have been updated to promote social distancing.
Major League Baseball’s Opening Day was scheduled for March 26, and instead of taking a somber tone they ran with the #OpeningDayAtHome campaign. All throughout the day the league’s page and the 30 teams were tweeting back and forth with fans wearing jerseys, posting their pictures, trying to fill the void in our lives. They posted messages from players and promoted local baseball leagues as well. Classic games aired on MLB Network and MLB.com all day long.
The Red Sox kept with the March Madness theme and posted a bracket about their best playoff moments, sparking massive dialogue amongst fans and simply giving people something to do. They have also been promoting player’s Twitch streams, keeping the fanbase involved with the players.
All of the strategies that teams are taking to keep their fanbases engaged in a period of heightened social media usage despite nothing happening in the sports world are great ways of bringing people together. The ongoing conversations I’ve seen about the most random sports topics on Twitter are what bring a smile to my face. Whether it is reliving an epic home run or simply naming the most random player you can think of, just talking about sports in their absence feels good.
The next month is only going to get tougher for people as cabin fever builds mental pressure on everyone. It’s the little things, like a team liking your tweet or reposting your photo that will get us all through this. Social media is bringing sports fans together, just as the games themselves so often do.
The absence of March Madness from my life is one that I have yet to cope with, it is my favorite sporting event in the world, even if Syracuse is in it or gets knocked out early. Obviously college sports have a degree of limited capacity to do something like what the pros are doing during this time. College athletes don't have the same fan base and in some cases, their responsibilities to help with promotional campaigns are fairly limited to basic photo shoots, video shorts and such. The pro sports teams though are putting their full resources to work and I have loved the engagement that has come out of it between the players and fans. My favorite NFL t…
I found a lot of similarities between our blog posts this week, but I really enjoyed the ways that the posts differed as well. Focusing on the positives of social media to highlight the power that both sports and social networks can having during a time like this was a really smart choice. Like you, getting ready to take on this year without live sports contests is going to be a great challenge for me, but there is certainly value to be had in all of these discussions that are going on via Twitter. Twitter is definitely the social media platform that I use the most and it has been incredibly entertaining to see all of the new ways users…