Chief marketing officers for several major pro leagues said at the '15 IMG World Congress of Sports that they are spending fast-increasing amounts of time on how to best leverage the power of digital platforms such as online, mobile, social, and over-the-top. As a result, the once-traditional lines between media content and marketing are blurring more than ever. "We know the majority of our fans don't attend games, but watch on TV," said NFL Exec VP & CMO Dawn Hudson. “And the majority of those fans have a digital device with them to further their engagement. And that's just the tip of the iceberg still to come.”
Hudson continued, “People aged 18-34 are avidly sports fans, but you see cracks in TV viewership and engagement because they're used to getting content digitally. Generation Z coming up behind them is not about two screens, but five screens. So it's incumbent upon us to figure out how to leverage all those screens. And we can't make the mistake that content delivery is marketing." MLS CMO Howard Handler added, "We'll create more than 600 hours of non-game programming during the course of the season. Content is the ultimate marketing vehicle as a league today.”
The event continues today with a featured interview with adidas Group North America President Mark King and panels on "The Changing Face of Media and Sports Media," "Turning Sports Properties and Events into Global Entities" and "Cracking the Code on Generation Y."
See more in THE DAILY, and follow the event on Twitter via the hashtag #SBJWCS.
