Social Media's Influence On The Sports Industry

Sports marketing is a valuable business tool that primarily focuses promoting both the sporting event and teams involved as well as the products and services associated through the use of sponsorships in order to increase exposure amongst the public. As a result, popular companies such as Nike and Adidas work to sign star caliber athletes such as LeBron James or James Harden to long-term endorsement contracts in order to appeal to their fans through the use of commercials and signature sneaker lines as well as requiring them to wear their product during games in order to increase the overall awareness of their product. However, the connection between the sports franchises and fans have been strengthened due to the involvement of social media

The use of social media has allowed various organizations to essentially establish a personal relationship with their fan base through the use of twitter and Instagram accounts that provides a behind the scene perception to media and training sessions and posting highlight reels to encourage excitement. These social media accounts also work to encourage feedback for the arenas, spread awareness to various promotions such as “family night” as well as promoting the athletes through the acknowledgement of significant accomplishments or encouraging all-star voting. Due to the evident advancements made within technology, more fans are on their phones during the games which provides teams with the opportunity to reach them during the most exciting moments while live tweeting the games in order to encourage fan interaction. The incorporation of social media has allowed the industry to improve in a way that expands their overall reach to the fans in order to both spread awareness of the league and

During the past couple seasons, the NFL has attempted to increase their audience through the incorporation of Thursday night football games as well as playing international games in London in order to increase league revenue and fans. As a result, the league has attempted to market these changes by placing popular teams and rivalry games during the Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night time slots in order to generate hype through commercial advertisements. Due to the construction of the league schedules, various companies have paid these leagues to be a part of the event through sponsorships and advertisements in order to create brand awareness. For example, many companies have paid the leagues and networks millions of dollars to have commercial advertisements during popular sporting events such as the Super bowl and March Madness is resulting in billions of dollars in added revenue. The league schedules created prior to the upcoming seasons have ultimately allowed each league to increase its overall value due to their ability to market their product through the use of their strongest teams playing nationally televised games and the playoff implications associated with rivalry games which works to essentially build up the post