The line between sports and entertainment has been blurred significantly during the past decade. Being a fan of an athlete no longer means simply following his or her on-the-field accomplishments, but knowing as much as possible about the athlete's personal life as well.
Traditional media has fueled this thirst with coverage beyond just reporting the scores. It is not uncommon to see some athletes spending as much time in a newspaper's lifestyle section as they do in the sports pages.
Television sports programmers have launched an entire genre inside this niche with content centered on player biographies and reality shows that follow a player's day-to-day life.
But few, if any, lifestyle features have graced the pages of online sports Web sites. At least, until now.
Recognizing this trend and the revenue potential of attracting new site visitors and non-traditional sports advertisers, the Ladies Professional Golf Association recently launched an entertainment section on its Web site.
The section grew out of the popularity of the association's "Get Real" section and player photo gallery features that were among the most-visited pages of the LPGA site over the past year. These pages were one of the leading reasons that in 2002 lpga.com page views grew 51 percent, average monthly visitors were up 38 percent and registered users increased more than 200 percent.
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| Few lifestyle features graced the pages of online sports sites before lpga.com’s entertainment section. |
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The entertainment section aims to capitalize on the celebrity status of LPGA players by providing visitors with a glimpse into the private lives of professional women golfers.
While the link to the entertainment section will be placed on the LPGA home page among such traditional Web links as tournaments and statistics, visitors will notice a distinctive look to the entertainment section.
The section features a series of offerings that cater equally to the golf fan and the celebrity watcher. Included among the sub-pages are in-depth player features, photo galleries and profiles of off-the-course activities.
Fans can visit interactive areas that allow them to discuss on- and off-the-course topics with golfers as well as to view a diverse collection of snapshots of celebrity faces, trendy events and fun quotes and tidbits from around the LPGA.
Since the LPGA creates the content and controls admittance to its events, it is able to capitalize on its control of access that separates the content makers from outside online media sites that simply report.
Associations and properties like the LPGA that control the content on their Web sites can not only guarantee a distribution channel for their non-performance stories but also virtually create an exclusive section that ensures that the off-the-course story is told.
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| LPGA.com’s personality-driven features have helped the site register more users. |
"Having a Web site means that we do not have to leave the control of content up to another entity to decide if there is a story to tell," said Kathy Milthorpe, senior vice president and chief financial officer for the LPGA. "We have a lot of attractive players with cool stories, and our fans have told us that they want more content that focuses on the human element of our players."The immediate feedback from fans and players alike has exceeded Mil-thorpe's expectations. The section has quickly emerged as one of the site's most visited areas in the short time it has been live. Milthorpe said the LPGA won't release figures for the section until officials have a six-month look at it.
Milthorpe was quick to point out that the LPGA's large number of female fans has helped to increase the section's popularity.
"Studies of our fan base show that female sports fans especially look for things other than performance to follow," Milthorpe said. "And we're just trying to feed that appetite."
And much as they do with any other area of the Web, advertisers will follow eyeballs. As the number of consumer hits on the entertainment section of the site continues to grow, the potential to attract non-traditional sports advertisers with non-traditional sports content will only increase.
Because the section is still new and the LPGA is in the process of collecting data on visits to the page, sponsorship executives have not solicited advertising for the entertainment section yet. However, the potential to attract women's clothing companies, entertainment companies and other advertisers that might normally grace the pages of Vogue or People magazine will be a new revenue stream that will raise the financial prospects of the LPGA's site.
And that is a line that Milthorpe & Co. will not mind drawing on lpga.com's financial statements for the next decade.
Dan Migala (dmigala@sportsbusinessjournal.com) is the author of "Interactive Sports Strategies."
