Twitter is the only social media platform I use. I use Twitter to follow mainly Australian rugby union teams the Wallabies and Australian Super Rugby teams the Waratahs, Queensland Reds, Brumbies and the former Western Force in the Super Rugby competition. I also use Twitter to follow the local Perth rugby union team Perth Spirit and the national rugby league team the Kangaroos during the Rugby League World Cup last year.
The quality of official Twitter sites and the way sporting teams share a range of information and engage with fans varies from team to team, game to game and the ability of the person doing the social media. Some games will include the regular score updates with photographs and gifs or short videos of highlights from the official broadcaster during the game or soon after they happen. Those gifs and videos are also included in news reports by the teams about the game soon after.
Super Rugby games are only seen on pay TV in Australia and more recently some Australian games are shown on channel 10 soon after, so a lot of fans depend on social media for updates. Every year the Wallabies Spring Tour and the telecast on free-to-air TV is left to the last minute. So there is definitely an opening there for Twitter to enter. As the article said there are other opportunities for sports that are not regularly telecast on free-to-air TV such as women's sport.
While it is true that sport's fans like to use Twitter and share and talk about highlights of the games we watch timing would be everything. It is during the game that fans share and talk about events the most, not a long time after the event has happened or when social media platforms like Twitter get around to loading information up for fans to view and buy. I have not seen any of the Australian sporting events using Twitter discussed in the article.
While Super Rugby union in Australia has remained on Pay TV, games can be found pirated on YouTube. Some of those pirated games have been done with the obvious blessing of the broadcaster as they contain advertising. Fans of teams and individual players remain at the mercy of the broadcaster and pirates on YouTube as to whether the content remains available. Highlights being available for purchase eliminates that uncertainty.
I have copied the article below as I am unable to circulate it on my Google + page. The article has been edited for copyright reasons. No copyright infringement intended.
Twitter making further forays into live sport by Nicole Jeffery on the 27 January, 2018.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/twitter-making-further-forays-into-live-sport/news-story/f89bfba3a737d16eaf9c08e7580d255c
Sports fans could be able to buy video of the key moment of a sports event for the cost of a song as Twitter expands its offering of live sports streaming and highlights packages.
A sports version of iTunes is just one of the options on the table as the social media giant pushes further into the realm of traditional television broadcasters.
Twitter’s global head of sports partnerships Laura Froelich has been in Melbourne this week for discussions with Tennis Australia and Australian Open broadcaster the Seven Network and said she could “neither confirm nor deny’’ whether a “micropayments’’ system for sports was in the works.
“I find (the concept) really interesting and it plays into our value proposition for Twitter, so it’s exciting to contemplate,’’ Froelich said.
Twitter has moved strongly into live streaming and sports packaging in the past five years and Froelich said the company was looking to expand its sports footprint over the coming years.
“About four or five years ago we said we have all these incredible conversations around sport and people come to see them in the moment, so what if we do all these conversations but we also do video highlights with them,’’ she said...
...It’s enriched the conversation for fans and the video enhances that because people want to replay and share moments.’’...
It has now live streamed some of Australia’s best-known events to a global audience, including last year’s Melbourne Cup, women’s rugby sevens tournaments and did video highlights of the women’s Ashes. Froelich said the list of events would grow as Twitter picks up events that fans were already tweeting about in large numbers.
"As we move forward we will use the conversations to inform our strategy. We go after content when we the conversation is on the platform already."
In combination with the Seven Network, Twitter has produced special content from the Australian Open, including regular highlights, a daily live show and an opportunity to subscribe to a pack of key moments from each round of the tornament.
Froelich said that instead of being in competition with the broadcast rights-holders of major events, Twitter had found its live streaming complemented and enhanced the TV broadcast.
“The audience is becoming more elusive,’’ she said. “When we live stream, the broadcasters are able to supplement their viewer reach with a young audience that’s becoming increasingly mobile. For whatever reason, they aren’t watching TV, but they will come to an event via other platforms.’’...
....Australian women’s sport is coming off a watershed year in which the professional sports and television rights-holders finally recognised that women’s leagues could be commercially successful.
Australian Sports Commission chief executive Kate Palmer last month said 2017 was the most important year in history for women’s sport and she named social media as one of the factors that led to the explosion of mainstream interest, because it gave sportswomen ready access to a free media platform.
Froelich says social media has given sportswomen new avenues to promote themselves.
“I definitely take great pride that we are able to shine a light on women’s sport that didn’t have the visibility it does now,’’ she said. “We have seen that particularly with AFLW, which was the most tweeted of any league handle in 2017. What I keep going back to is that a sport may not be mainstream but it doesn’t mean their fans are any less avid.’’
