Fanalytics Volume 2: The Single Sport Blog

So in my original fanalytics article, I detailed my attempt to determine sports popularity in different ways, and how to track the popularity of the various sports leagues. Multiple statistical metrics have established that the NFL is the most popular sporting league in the United States, but why, how, and what are they doing to to evolve is what spurred this on. Plus, as those who read me know, I’m interested in what the NHL specifically is doing to enhance its presence on the sports scene.

This volume will encompass the single sports blogs. I emailed a quick questionnaire to some of the single sport blogs that I frequent, and find out how they interact with the professional leagues. Special thanks goes out to the folks at Unprofessional Foul, Monday Morning Punter at Kissing Suzy Kolber (and With Leather, but this is focused on single sports dammit!), Dokta Kra at Lowposts, Hextall454 at Melt Your Face Off, and CW at Behind the Moat. They gave some great perspective to let me break down the coverage and see how the various sports are utilizing Web 2.0 techniques to grow their fanbase.

First off, it was interesting to get Punter’s perspective on the NFL, seeing as KSK is one of the most highly trafficked sports blogs out there. He frankly discussed the lack of support the NFL has given them. He said, “KSK gets almost no recognition from the NFL; the best we ever did was receiving a C & D from the league after posting an animated .gif of game footage. The big team sports ignore blogs, but from a business perspective, it’s typically in their best interests to do so.” I was surprised to hear about the teams ignoring blogs, but in retrospect it makes sense. The NFL’s popularity reduces their incentive to interact with a third party medium that owes them no loyalty.  Plus, the players and figures are doing it themselves  - “The League itself has not done much with new media, but its people–players, agents, reporters, and even league executives–are jumping onto twitter and instantly passing along information that we’d otherwise have to wait hours, or even days, to consume.”

Unprofessional Foul has had the same types of issues with the major European Soccer leagues. “We have had occasion to talk with the leagues, but we do not have an open line of communication with them.  UF admits that its focus has not been on MLS, which would be the most likely league for us to have communication with because (1) we are all located in the US and (2) the European leagues are so heavily covered by traditional media that blogs in the US are not high on their priority list,” they said, elaborating, “Further, the upper crust European leagues tend to be very much against new media.  While we can understand wanting to protect your brand, we do not understand refusing to promote said brand with new media.” This marked in contrast with their views on MLS, which has made an effort to reach out into the underground, for lack of better terms. They discussed several teams, specifically the Red Bull and Sounders, that use Web 2.0 to reach out. They also provide interactive content on their website and Youtube channel that is readily available to the younger set and bloggers to use.

Both Hextall and Kra had positive responses to their respective sports attempts to use the internet and various Web 2.0 techniques to broaden the fan base.

“Holy crap, it’s the one thing that the NHL does right.  The league’s website is heads above the other major sports when it comes to online content.  Video highlights that we can embed free of charge, and blogs are actually featured on their page.  SBNation, which is James Mirtle’s collection of team-specific blogs, have the league’s full endorsement.  On a team level, certain franchises are known for their access.  Washington owner Ted Leonsis regularly blogs and has been known to invite bloggers into his owner’s box.  (thankyouverymuch).” – Hextall454

Kra, with regards to the NBA despite a focus on team PR blogs, “That being said, from my personal experience, when I’ve reached out to the Kings’ writers and PR department, they’ve been refreshingly receptive to my questions and requests.  I think that as we mover forward, we’ll see more recognition as the league embraces the idea that bloggers can and do have a respected and knowledgeable voice.”

UF also singled out the NBA – “I think the basketball blogging community is the most mature of the sports.  There are very talented writers on these blogs.  Moreover, many of the basketball blogs are heavily statistics centered, which is how the league is moving now in its front offices and coaching ranks.  I think the NBA and the NBA bloggers are maturing in this area at the same time and gives the NBA a fair amount of respect for the bloggers.  Additionally, I see basketball bloggers with loads of access to team front offices, coaches, and traditional gameday media access.  The NBA fully understands how to use the new media to its advantage, something the NFL and MLB have not mostly because the former is protecting its monopoly and the latter is run by Bud Selig.”  -ZING!

What did surprise me was how plugged in the single sports blog community is with other blogs, despite a lack of traditional communication. “We don’t really talk much with other bloggers that solely deal with soccer.  We have 12 people writing for our site that are all on an email group so we have enough daily chatter between us that it is difficult to find time to talk to other bloggers.  However, we spend ample amounts of time on other soccer blogs to see what they are doing, what stories they are finding and what they are doing different.  The nice thing about blogging is that there are so many different angles to take that you’ll find everybody in the soccer blogging community has a different voice,” said UF; Punter echoed a similar sentiment,

“At KSK, we’re in regular communication; we trade 100 emails a day with each other or more. We’re constantly trading opinions on the NFL and keeping each other informed about what’s happening in the league. It helps that each of us roots for a different team. And each of us is plugged in to our own pockets of NFL fans (some more plugged in than others) which gives us a great perspective on things.”

Hextall, on the other side, pointed to a loyal, interactive blog community among hockey writers. “ For whatever

reason, the Washington Capitals have more blog coverage than any other team.  And since I share a town with them, I’ve met quite a few of them.  Yahoo’s Puck Daddy (Greg Wyshynski) lives here.  Team-spec blogs like Rock the Red and Japers are around these parts.  So a beer or six has been had in a hockey-related atmosphere.

Beyond our Nation’s Capital, we’ve developed a pretty strong network of bloggers from different teams.  Very often something will break in the hockey world, and these guys who follow their teams avidly will drop us a note – to see what we can do with the material comedically.  One such example is when Mats Sundin reitred from international hockey.  Sure a news-based blog wants to make sure they report it.  MYFO wants to produce the comedic angle.  Presto.”

To wrap it up, one thing that sports can do to increase their younger audience is grant intermediate access. In the United States, sports like soccer and hockey should be using these outlets to ‘get the word out’ about their professional leagues, and to a certain extent they are. Marketplace leaders like the NFL don’t have as much of a need, because frankly their fan base is huge already.

Interestingly enough, the model over at SB Nation, which Hextall pointed too, breaks down sports into team specific and general blogs, and have coverage of almost every team in every North American sports league, along with MMA and soccer blogs. They also host general sport-specific information blogs (especially one of my favorites “Behind the Net”) in one easy to search format.

One last point, which I’m not sure has much statistical relevance but is interesting nevertheless. Run a google search on the different sports I spoke about earlier. (Ok, you don’t have to because I did, and this is what you come up with) and see the number of website hits.

• Hockey Blog – 189,000 ; NHL blog 114,000
• Soccer Blog -321,000
• Basketball Blog -220,000 ; NBA blog – 170,000
• Football Blog – 1,100,000; NFL blog – 665,000
• Baseball Blog – 384,000;  MLB – 158,000

What I found surprising was the a) drop-off in baseball from general to MLB; and the LACK of a drop-off from Basketball to NBA. I expected  more college basketball blogs that would lower that hit count. Again, if anyone has any ideas how to further optimize this I’d love to hear them.

Thanks for reading Volume 2 ; Volume 3 will focus on general sports blogs ; Volume 4 on television. I’ll schedule more after that.

Tags: blog friends, competiting with major sports, essays, fanalytics, first derivative, google rankings, multiple sources, single sport blogs, thank you again to all our friends that participated, tl;dr
Categories: Daily Specials, Drunken Ramblings, Munchies, Non-Alcoholic

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Daily Specials, Drunken Ramblings, Munchies, Non-Alcoholic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.