Today and this weekend, I’m at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as a guest of execs at LVMS, attending my first NASCAR event. I’ll be Twittering on location with my behind the scenes observations and impressions of the event.

This article was originally published on PaidContent.org on November 17, 2004.

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the 6th Annual Sports Media & Technology conference.

During the session “Turning a Team Website into a Profit Center” experts from three official team sites — two NHL, one NBA — and an executive from MLB Advanced Media shared their insights.

The topic was particularly interesting to me because I previously founded and published one of the most popular unofficial college team sites on the Internet, Inside Carolina and because I previously built a network of college team sites selling content to fans on a subscription basis as Senior Vice-President at Rivals.com.

That said, you certainly don’t have to run a sports team site for this to be meaningful. The topic is more broadly relevant to a variety of destination websites, not just sports team sites.

– George Kliavkoff, senior vice-president at MLB Advanced Media, said that team sites in their network are one component of a larger strategy. “Think cross selling,” Kliavkoff said. “Think of ticketing, sponsorship sales, merchandise and content subscriptions.”

How does integrated cross selling work? Consider my real-life example: I am a Boston Red Sox fan living in Seattle and after watching free video of the Red Sox championship parade on MLB.com, I was swept up in the excitement of the victory celebration — and on the spot purchased two Boston Red Sox championship hats via MLB.com.

– Kliavkoff emphasized that aggregation has advantages. Visitors to MLB.com, find consistent navigation across team sites. And aggregating rights across all teams enables MLB.com to deliver a single package to their partners. That creates economic value for MLB.com.

– In contrast, the folks who manage individual team sites within the NHL and NBA said they value their independence in running their own team websites and would be unhappy with a more centrally managed infrastructure. So what’s behind that? Marty Quessenberry, director of new media for the Tampa Bay Lightning, said that his team competes for the attention of fans in Tampa Bay (which is a more football-centric market); as a result, his team website has unique needs that he believes wouldn’t be met with a more centralized approach.

– One thing everyone agreed with: the Internet enables teams to connect with fans in unique ways. For example, Quessenberry from the Tampa Bay Lightning said that last year the team auctioned in-person delivery of Valentine’s Day roses by NHL players to high bidders, with the money going to charity.

– Another example: Kurt Kehl, senior director of communications for the Washington Capitals, says that team owner Ted Leonsis regularly reads the message boards. Leonis recently took the 25 most active message board posters to dinner. Credit to Mr. Leonsis where credit is due: rewarding your most loyal customers with a unique experience — and listening to their opinions — is smart business.

– Finally, Jeramie McPeek, senior director of publishing, Phoenix Suns says that his goal is to have more original content about the Suns than anywhere else. McPeek also notes that the website helps the Suns sell sponsorships, with the added online component.

As interesting as this panel was, I would have liked to have seen even broader representation among the panelists. For example, NFL.com is doing excellent work with their team sites; and thinking outside the box of official team sites, there’s much that can be learned about turning a profit from experts at the two major unofficial team site networks, such as Bobby Burton from Rivals.com and Peter Gruman from Scout.com.

This article was originally published on PaidContent.org on November 17, 2004.

This is the third in a series of reports blogging the more interesting panel presentations at the recently concluded 6th Annual Sports Media & Technology conference.

“Expanding the Fan Base with Wireless Applications”..

– Jay Cooperider, Associate Athletic Director at Purdue University talked about Purdue’s wireless initiative to enhance the fan experience at games with real-time game statistics, player and coach biographies, area traffic and weather and on-demand video replays. Fans can even e-mail the coach during the game with feedback and the coach will use the questions on his mid-week radio and television talk shows. Cooperider said that Purdue’s wireless initiative also will enhance the tailgating experience of fans, but personally I’d opt for a cheeseburger and cold beer when tailgating, instead of a PDA. Read more about Purdue’s initiative in this article in Forbes: “Wireless Information Heads For The Big Game”

– Bill Schlough, CIO of the San Francisco Giants talked about Wi-Fi hot spots in the stadium for Giants games. Is in-stadium Wi-Fi a distraction to the game? Schlough says for many fans it is not. “A lot of fans want to bring in devices with them and they want to multi task,” Schlough said. He noted that in baseball there is a lot of dead time during the game, unlike in basketball, and that you can fill in that time with content via their Wi-Fi network. Call me a baseball purist, but when I’m at the game on a weekend, I want to leave the Internet behind and enjoy the game without any distractions. But I can imagine taking my laptop to a weekday game during the day, and working while taking in a game at Safeco Field… shhhhhh. Get more perspective in this Business 2.0 article “San Francisco Giants’ Wi-Fi Experiment”

– The always popular Evan Kamer, Senior Director of New Media for the NFL, suggests paying attention to how the youth market uses wireless devices, a sentiment shared by lunch time key note speaker Bob Bowman, President & CEO of MLB Advanced Media. That’s sage advice. Watch younger people as they divide their time into ever smaller bits and rapidly shift between an iPod, a dozen instant messages, TV and e-mail; anything less and they’re bored. Does this have implications for future wireless applications for sports fans? Oh, yeah.

– Several panelists emphasized that the in-stadium wireless applications need to be free, at least in the near term. And they want to make money by driving people to other things they can charge for.

– Bill Schlough added: “Our goal is that the only reason a person needs to leave their seat during the game is to go to the bathroom. And we’re working on that, too.” All kidding aside, Schlough mentioned that the Giants don’t restrict what content fans can access in the stadium (via parental control software like Net Nanny) but if a fan surfs (ahem) adult content sites in the stadium, and that offends a person near them, then ushers will remove that person from the stadium. Baseball, apple pie and… well, never mind.

– Barry Silberman, EVP for NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, said we generally take wireless access for granted these days, and he wants people at games to have that same freedom. He wants the fan experience to be better, and notes that it was only 10 years ago that the sports industry first embraced the Internet.

Next up: “Turning a Team Website into a Profit Center”.

This article was originally published on PaidContent.org on November 17, 2004.

I recently attended the 6th Annual Sports Media & Technology conference. The folks at Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal do a fabulous job organizing and presenting this conference, and I’ll blog some of the more interesting panel presentations here.

There was a lively panel discussion Tuesday morning on the topic of “Cable Programming and Distribution Issues that Affect the Way We View Sports” (who comes up with these titles, anyway?).

– Fred Dressler, EVP for Programming at Time Warner Cable said he sees escalating rights fees for sports programming as the biggest issue within the industry, particularly in light of recent news about NFL rights fees for television (”NFL agrees to six-year extensions with Fox and CBS worth $8 billion“). “It is fascinating to me to read how FOX concedes that it lost money on the last NFL deal,” Dressler said. “But it says it is going to make money on this one when it increased its cost by over 30 percent.”

Escalating rights fees are certainly good if you’re a sports league and can find a willing buyer. But is this sustainable?

– David Meister, Chairman & CEO of The Tennis Channel (a 24-hour cable television network devoted to tennis) said that sports tiers on cable today don’t reflect what’s driven cable TV in the past: namely, the value proposition of broad consumer choice. Meister says that with tiers today, the consumer ends up paying 2-3 times more, which he described as a flawed value proposition.

There is reason to believe Meister is correct, but some consumers must wonder is it fair for MSO’s to pass along escalating rights fees for sports programming to all subscribers, especially to the majority who dont watch sports programming?

In my next report, I’ll cover “Set-Top Boxes and The Future of Interactive Television”.

This article was originally published on PaidContent.org on November 17, 2003.

Evan Kamer, Senior Director of New Media at the NFL, made a solo presentation to the audience on the NFL’s online subscription business.

Kamer said key factors that prompted NFL.com to launch an online subscription service this season were 1) a large and passionate audience and 2) a critical mass of broadband users.

Kamer shared data with the audience: by January 2003, NFL.com had built an audience of 15 million unique users; and research sized the broadband audience at 40 million broadband users (Nielsen), with 40-50% saying they would pay for content.

The NFL decided to launch an online subscription service to further diversify their revenues while still maintaining a significant amount of free content on the site. There are currently two products on the NFL’s roster: NFL Field Pass (includes live game audio) and NFL Fantasy Extra (a fantasy sports game). Results according to Kamer: approx 100,000 sign ups to-date; half annual subscription and half monthly subscriptions.

Next up for NFL.com, according to Kamer: bundling and packaging of multiple services, more team involvement, new products and wireless.

In my next report, I’ll have an exclusive one-on-one interview with Bobby Burton, Executive Vice President at Rivals.com.

This article was originally published on PaidContent.org on November 17, 2003.

Day One of the Sports Media & Technology conference kicked off Thursday in New York City.

The day started with fireworks.

During the first panel session “Sports-Tiered Pricing and the Battle Over Increasing Rates”, panelists Leo Hindery (Chairman & CEO, YES Network) and Fred Dressler (Senior VP of Programming, Time Warner Cable) squared off in a heated debate.

Hindery said sportscasts are worth the highest prices in cable because they bring in the most viewers.

“Let’s put every network on the table and compare their ratings with their costs,” said Hindery.

Dressler said sports programming costs are climbing 12%-15% every year. But Time Warner Cable can’t get those expenses back from subs because if the rates to consumers go higher than 5% a year, customers cancel and defect to DirecTV and EchoStar.

“Just because George Steinbrenner can’t say no to a high-priced player doesn’t mean I have to say yes to Leo,” said Dressler.

Attendees at the conference were buzzing the rest of the day about the heated exchange during this panel.

For more on this session, click over to the report in Variety.com (free registration required).

Other panels including “Understanding the Realities of the HDTV Transition”, and “Gaining Control of the Emerging Broadband Sports Revenue Stream” (yours truly was a panelist on that session) were more tame.

In my next report, I’ll cover “The Future of Video Games Online”.