ESPN's Omar Raja believes gaming content, especially with athletes, will be the “thing to watch” in social media next year. Raja, speaking during SBJ and Leaders' Media Innovators virtual series, said the “lifestyle aspect” inherent to videogame streaming makes athletes more relatable and engaging to fans. Raja said when seeing sports stars like Browns WR Odell Beckham Jr. live stream themselves playing "Call of Duty" or "NBA 2K" on platforms like Twitch, fans “think, 'Oh wow, they're just like us' ... and they share those clips like crazy.” He added that gaming-related content is likely to pick up even more with new consoles coming out this week. “Companies are now geared up for streaming more than they ever have," Raja said. "So, that'll be something that I'm watching pretty much every day.” As for what he’s working on with ESPN since joining the net in January after leaving House of Highlights, Raja said TikTok is “probably the platform I'm addicted to most these days,” and he noted that ESPN’s channel has added over 10 million followers in his first year (12.2 million total). Raja: "It just shows you how different TikTok is and the growth that that platform is having right now.”
Quick Hits:
*On making the jump to ESPN: “When you post the highlights of the account and you kind of do kind of my spin to it, the amount of engagement we were getting, the amount of likes and followers was all crazy. So, within the first few months, I knew … the decision was right.”
*On utilizing ESPN’s different brand accounts on social media: “I would view ESPN as kind of news and broader information and quotes from athletes and kind of a game-recap ball. SportsCenter is more user-generated content. … Highlights, personality driven, it's more clip-oriented as well compared to photos.”
*On choosing which user-submitted posts to use for SportsCenter: “We literally go through every single one and it takes all day, but for the most part, your content just needs to be good. The video needs to be good.”
*On plans for next year: “I'm really big on trying to give back the sense of, ‘Hey, we're partners with EA, let's try to do a Madden giveaway.’ ‘Hey, we have all this SportsCenter gear, ESPN gear, is there any way that we can send it to our fans?’ And that's something that we're working on right now.”
*On how he got started in social media: “I had to find out at 12 years old how to make the extra $300 (so he could buy the new PlayStation 3). And I started a website called unrealgamers.net. It was like a gaming forum and I started a YouTube account. … It taught me if you get an audience, you can make money; you can make a business; you can start a page.”
