A Sports Team Finally Sees the Light

Wow…I was excited when I read the following article since it showed that sports teams are slowing understanding the importance of social computing and its role in marketing the team. It's taken them many years to finally join today's technology-focused society. How hard would it be to hire interns who live and breathe social computing to handle all the back-end issues for an organization?

Each sports team needs to continue to find ways to break away from the traditional media clutter.

Earlier this week, MediaPost wrote an article titled, "Bengals Kick Off Fan Video Site." The article reported:

"THE CINCINNATI BENGALS HAVE BECOME the first NFL team to launch a site where fans can post user-created videos. The new video site, hosted by technology firm ViTrue, which runs user-generated promotional sites for clients, will be part of the Fan Zone section of the Bengals team site (www.bengals.com)."

As I have ranted on this site regularly, this is a great way to drive traffic to the site. The Bengals need to find ways to divert the media and its fans attention away from stories about which of its players are headed to court or jail. This site could offer some decent PR if an exciting clip is posted online.

I also like how Vince Cicero, the Bengals director of corporate sales and marketing, is trying to be forward thinking and wants to take a risk to try to drive up ticket sales in the future. In the story, it noted:

"No advertising or sponsorships tied to the fan videos have been developed yet, but Cicero expects the site will eventually include some type of corporate sponsorship. 'This is all still new for us,' he said."

I would be shocked if local and national sponsors aren't calling Vince already to discuss ways to sponsor the site.

This is a smart, smart idea for the team.