I stumbled across these sports business pages on the BBC website today. I'm not sure if it is a permanent dynamic resource as it is labelled 'special report'.
Being the BBC it is inevitably centred around sports business in the UK and our favoured sports such as soccer and F1, but it does have plenty of international perspective, such as the impact of recent events on Tiger Woods' brand and a look at the development of the facilities for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Here's the link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2009/business_of_sport/default.stm
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
So, at the start of this New Year (decade indeed) you've resolved to blog more to raise your profile as a sport or exercise professional. Right? Sure you have. Why wouldn't you?
Well, one reason might be that you think you've nothing to say. Well, you have. Trust me. Here are some thoughts that might stimulate blog ideas for sport and exercise professionals in 2010 and get people flocking to your blog, site or profile.
Major Sports Events
Major sports events generate incredible traffic. In 2008, when the Beijing Olympic Games were on we saw an incredible spike in traffic, often doubling our visitor stats and more.
We've no summer Olympics this year but of course the Winter Games are due to start soon, in Vancouver. That doesn't mean that London 2012 won't attract attention this year. Indeed, the closer the Games get the more interest will ramp up.
We've also got the African Nations Cup in football starting now - and if you didn't know that before the terrible attack on the Togolese team, you probably do now. But the big event in world sport will undoubtedly occur this summer, with the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Sports Stars
Predicting who's going to attract the most attention in 2010 may feel like crystal ball gazing, but it needn't necesarily be so. You and I may not have predicted Michael Schumacher's return to Formula 1, for example, but after his aborted 'interim' contract with Ferrari perhaps it shouldn't have been such a surprise and may not have been to those in the sport.
Indeed, if you are working in and around a particular sport you are likely to party to a lot more intelligence than you perhaps realise. With a little thought, you're likely to be able to come up with some names that have the potential to make an impact this year. Of course, they may already be doing so, but just haven't come into the public spotlight yet.
In 2008 I posted a short blog in which I wondered what it must be like to be Michael Jordan's son (Marcus). To be honest, it was a bit of a throwaway blog, and didn't get that many hits at the time. But then, all of a sudden, in March 2009 it suddenly got loads of posts. Why? Partly it was down to the double whammy of Marcus Jordan making an impact in a major event (college basketball's annual 'March Madness'). If you live outside the US and don't know it - this is a huge deal. But the other variable was that I had included an image (with Marcus Jordan in the alt text and title - easy to do with our editor) and most of the hits came from Google's image search.
Big Issues or Trends in Sport & Exercise
Again, you don't have to be a clairvoyant to predict which trends in your sport or area of interest are going to be popular in 2010. The 'super suits' issue in swimming was around for some time before reaching a peak at the World Championships in Rome last year.
Things to consider might be:
What new technology or scientific breakthrough will have an impact in a particular sport?
What foods or training methods will the public grab hold of and turn into the fad of the year?
What more controversial issues in your sport are starting to build?
How to Take Advantage
The first point to make is that if you don't predict these things, you can post reactive blogs to good effect. Posting in advance will allow you to get picked up in search more effectively. Posting at the time will allow you to take advantage of the trend through more immediate media such as Twitter and Facebook. Of course, there's nothing to stop you from doing both - posting in advance and reminding people of their presence.
However, once you decide to post consider the following:
1)
Keywords are, well, key! I see cleverly titled posts on here all the time that don't get a lot of hits because they just don't show up for the terms that are being searched. You have to signpost to people what you are posting about - putting the key words into the
title,
text and
tags of your post.
2)
Include images or video. Embedding mutlmedia into your posts will help it to show up in more searches, for example video or image searches on google. There's more about this in the '
How to use iStadia' club on this site.
3)
Remember that search engines and hits aren't the be-all-and-end-all! Write for, and choose keywords that will interest, your target audience. 100 views from people that are actually interested in the topic you are writing on will add more value to you as a professional than 1000 views from people that are not. This means relating popular themes to content of value - for example the psychology of a particular star or the marketing of a particular event - and including content / key words that relate to your particular niche.
4)
Promote your content. You can use the 'Share' button on iStadia to email, or repost your content to social media or bookmarking sites. Only making your content accessible through one site is like only selling through one outlet. You are limiting people's opportunity to discover how great your service or product is.
Just do it!
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
I was astounded by the great Kenenisa Bekele's statement after losing out to a Kenyan clean sweep today in the Edinburgh International cross country athletics race. "I am not in good shape," he said, in an interview with BBC Sport. "I arrived three
days before the race and I could not train because of the snow. I
missed two or three training sessions."
What? Two or three training sessions? And he's not in good shape? What kind of physiology does this guy have? I could understand if he said, "I didn't feel great today. I like to be able to run in the days before a race". But that's not what he said.
It seems like an incredibly ignorant statement for one of the greatest endurance runners of all time to make. It's the sort of thing I hear kids say. It's understandable that kids might obsess about how much training they've done and whether missing a couple of days might be the end of the world, but not a 27 year old multiple world record holder!
Indeed, I'd like to see kids have more perspective, and for a role model like Bekele to come out with this is only going to reinforce the myth that if they miss a couple of days of training they are suddenly going to lose fitness.
Oh - and I suppose no-one else in the race had their schedules affected by snow either?
What a nonsense.
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
Some excellent advice from Mark Washo on Lewis Howes'
Sports Networker website on
how to break into sports.
Mark Washo is an 18 year professional sports executive and author of
Break Into Sports Through Ticket Sales.
He is the current President of the Washington Freedom. Mark has
experience in Minor League Baseball, the NBA, MLS and now Women’s
Professional Soccer.
Mark's advice is good not only for aspriring sports professionals, but those looking to further develop their career.
Lewis Howes will be with as at the
London Sports Networking event on January 19th.
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
