The PGA Tour is one of the leading rights-holders when it comes to offering the best fan engagement on digital platforms, according to a senior exec at Twitter. Laura Froelich, head of sports development and programming at Twitter, flagged up the U.S. golf tour as one of its partners that is “engaging with fans and doing it in fun ways.” Froelich, who was speaking at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London, said, “They [PGA Tour] really do a great job in training their players to understand the different social media platforms and how they should be engaging with fans and doing it in fun ways.” In particular, Froelich cited some of the PGA Tour’s video content featuring the players themselves broadcast via Twitter-owned Snappy TV, which helps rights holders share clips and other content across social media. She said, “The partnerships that do it best are the ones who listen to fans and see what is really exiting to them, and provide access to the teams and the players. Fan access to inside-the-ropes action is very key.”
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: Froelich was speaking on a panel with Amanda Vandervort, senior director of social media, Major League Soccer, Peter Rovers, marketing, media & commercial, PSV Eindhoven, and Federico Palomba, head of marketing, digital & fan relationship management, Juventus. Palomba said that Juventus was using digital fan engagement to establish a footprint in territories where the Turin club wants to grow. He said, “Sometimes fans know more about other [Juventus] fans than us." Juventus has 2.2 million followers on Twitter, a similar number to Bayern Munich, but much less than Real Madrid's 17.2 million, and Barcelona's 16 million. Juventus, though, is increasingly using novel ways to engage with fans via digital media. Palomba pointed to the example of this year’s Champions League final, in which Juventus lost to Barcelona. After the defeat, the club asked its fans to illustrate their support of the club via user-generated content, despite the defeat. Palomba said, “They did it immediately. They generated a lot of UGC (User Generated Content) to demonstrate they are proud of the team.”
John Reynolds is a writer in London.
