At the end of the Digital Panel at the recent World Yacht Racing Forum, Jim O’Toole - CEO of the World Match Racing Tour asked those on stage to give a suggestion for one thing that rights holders could be doing to make the most of digital media.
At the time, I suggested making one of the sailors a “poster-child” for the series and promote them as a personality. The suggestion perhaps doesn’t work for the WMRT because each of the sailors are equal stakeholders in the series and promoting one over the other is politically difficult.
But the question has stayed with me, and so my new answer would be :
Equip the stars of the show (the sailors) with the skills to use social media for commercial success – to promote themselves, their sponsors and the event.
We have focused a lot on yacht racing brands that use Facebook, but Twitter is increasingly becoming a mouthpiece for athletes. Even Ben Ainslie is now on Twitter, but sailors have a long way to go to build their following to a fraction of stars of other sports.
For an athlete, especially an athlete with limited budget, social media provides a cheap mechanism for millions of people across the globe to feel closer than ever before to their heroes. There are also new opportunities in sponsorship – which are even more important in the World Match Racing Tour where sailors don’t have the ability to brand up their boats.
While sailing will never have the fan-base of football, the opportunity is huge. Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo has somewhere around 6.3 million followers, pro skateboarder (hardly a mainstream sport) Tony Hawk has about 2.8 millon while Golfer Rory McIlroy has about 795,000 followers
The stars of other sports understand, (perhaps because they have proper management) that their social media presence is a key part of their commercial programme because sponsors are starting to recognise the potential benefits of using an athlete’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
The sponsor benefit comes from an athlete having the potential to influence fans’ purchasing behaviour.
In some cases sponsorship contracts now include a social media clause. Such a clause obliges an athlete to promote the sponsor on their Twitter and/or Facebook pages and encourage fans to find out more about the products or services. In some cases, a sponsor may even structure payments to its athletes in a way that incentivises them to increase their social media presence.
Some believe that such social media clauses will become standard in sponsorship contracts in the next few years.
One sailor who is giving his sponsors a plug to his 816 followers is British Olympian Iain Percy. Here are his last 3 Tweets.
The line between engaging a fanbase and monetising them is a fine one. The content of the promotional messages should be subtle enough to ensure fans want to find out more about the sponsor and potentially buy their products or services, but if a sales pitch is too blatant, it will seem contrived and at best will be ignored or, at worst, will attract a negative response.
Giving athletes control of their utterances to the world without a PR filter can have its risks. While fans may love the insight into the personal lives and thoughts of their heroes – there is a higher chance of inappropriate comments being made.
Of course these risks can be dealt with using heavy handed regulation, like Article 60.1 of the America’s Cup protocol, or through good social media training.
How Rights Holders Should be Using Social Media.
So back to the question of what the World Match Racing Tour can be doing to make the most of digital media.
Much of the discussion above assumes that the athlete is pushing a product or service, but in the case of sailing, the athletes should also be promoting the sport. It seems like a wasted opportunity to have 8, 9 or 10, world class, literate sailors not building their brand on a platform like Twitter.
The Official Tour Twitter account has 2054 followers, but the stars of the WMRT are less active, engaging and followed. Torvar Mirsky’s MRT has 728 followers on Twitter, but the Australian sailor rarely Tweets. Current Tour Champion, Ian Williams has 259 followers, while several of the Skippers who held Tour Cards in 2011 have no Twitter account at all.
In November 2011, the World Match Racing Tour hinted that such a metric might be used to help allocate Tour Cards in the future. It said that the process would include:
… an analysis of the team’s ability to add value and consistency to the Tour as a Championship, sports property, media vehicle and as a business.
So here’s a left-field idea – instead of rules that makes sailors more reluctant to engage with the public, how about contracts that ‘oblige’ them to build an online following and promote the sport?
