NCAA and social media: Friends?

I’d like to extend a huge “welcome!” to NCAA collegiate athletic departments – it seems that this year, you may have finally realized the power of technology in bringing fans into your stadiums. Well, at least some of you have.

What am I talking about? Well, apparently, a panel of [experts?] convened at an NCAA education session and came up with the following finding:

“Programs willing to invest in effective communication can reap far greater support than at any time in their history.”

Couldn’t agree more. I’m just left a little confused as to why it took a panel of experts AND so much time to figure this out. These tools have been around forever. The only thing I can come up with is that there are some weird regulations out there that I don’t know about. Or athletic departments weren’t willing to lose control of their information. But now they don’t have any choice, and control is being relinquished. I guess that’s innovation?

NCAA institutions (especially schools which have strong female programs) should be doing everything they can to get fans, even if that means going online. Free tools exist, starting with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These are ways to connect with people and keep them engaged, and sports fans are some of the most faithful users. Embrace it.

So I have to ask the question -  sports information directors, where the heck have you been?

You’ve got a lot of work to do. You need to show me why my friends and I should care about you. What makes you different and cool? What makes you indispensable?

The NCAA panel was right – unlike any other time in history, there’s a huge opportunity here. But like the millions of Americans who are out of work or suffering in the economic depression, you’ve got some proving to do. Here are a few things to think about:

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How a sports brand can create awareness through viral video

One of the best viral videos I’ve seen coming from a sports brand is associated with a powerful advocacy campaign created by the Nike Foundation called the Girl Effect.

Although the campaign’s mission is not overtly obvious, the interactive video (seen below) is very engaging, and, in my opinion, effective in spreading the awareness of the power of girls in the developing world. This video, which is not overtly focused upon sport,  educates an audience of pro-female supporters on how, by supporting  girls in developing countries, we can help end world poverty.

I’d like to share it with you today, on Thanksgiving, as we all think about what we’re thankful for. Visit GirlEffect.org for the full experience. To measure its effectiveness, take a look at their Facebook page (over 50,000 fans).

Washington, DC welcomes back women’s professional soccer

I’d like to be one of the first sports reporters in Washington, DC to say to the Washington Freedom… we’re glad you’re here.

Washington, DC once again has a women’s professional soccer team, the Washington Freedom.

These ladies will be playing at the Discovery Sports Plex in Germantown, MD, with (hopefully) a few featured double-header at RFK Stadium with DC United. They announced their schedule a few weeks ago. (see below)

The Freedom’s roster can be found here. Notables include Abby Wambach, a forward (and one of the leading scorers) from the USA Soccer Team, as well as some key international draft picks, including Sonia Bompastor of France and Lisa De Vanna of Australia.

On the communications front, I’m a huge fan of how the Washington Freedom is active on a variety of social media platforms. For example, not only do they have their own Facebook Fan Page, but they also have a Twitter account and a YouTube channel.

Hopefully they’re reaching out to local youth soccer teams (the club leagues, in particular) to ask coaches to send e-mails to their players, promoting the Freedom’s Facebook Page. DC-metro area is full of incredible talented women’s soccer players, so generating a crowd, especially in suburbia, should be no problem.

I may be attending some of their games this year to promote their schedule and visibility in the area. I’m especially looking forward to games when the Freedom could be playing a double-header with DC United, the professional men’s team in the area (whose fans are awesome, by the way).

I know this isn’t exactly the best source, but here’s what Wikipedia says about the founding of Women’s Professional Soccer (interesting)…

“As a result of the US Women’s National Team‘s (US WNT) first-place showing in the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a seemingly viable market for the sport germinated. Feeding on the momentum of their victory, the twenty US WNT players, in partnership with John Hendricks of the Discovery Channel, sought out the investors, markets, and players necessary to form the eight-team league.

The WUSA played for three full seasons, suspending operations on September 15, 2003, shortly after the conclusion of the third season. Neither television ratings nor attendance met forecasts, while the league spent its initial $40 million budget, planned to last five years, by the end of the first season. Even though the players took salary cuts of up to 30% for the final season, with the founding players (who also held an equity stake in the league) taking the largest cuts, that was not enough to bring expenses under control.

In the hopes of an eventual relaunch of the league, all rights to team names, logos, and similar properties were preserved. Efforts to line up new sources of capital and operating funds continued.

In June 2004, the WUSA held two “WUSA Festivals,” featuring matches between reconstituted WUSA teams (often with marquee players borrowed from other teams), in order to maintain the league in the public eye and sustain interest in women’s professional soccer.

With the WUSA on hiatus, the Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) and the W-League regained their status as the premier women’s soccer leagues in the United States, and many former WUSA players joined those teams.”

Regardless of how it happened, we’re happy they’re here. It’s going to make an exciting spring/summer season for soccer in DC. I hope some of the suburban Maryland youth teams go out to the games and support these women.

Here’s the schedule (click the picture if you want to check it out for yourself):

Sheryl Crow supports women’s sports… I think

Check out this video, via the Women’s Sports Foundation:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQDEatFk27g

Great to see Sheryl’s support, and she has some really great things to say as a former athlete about the opportunities created for her later in life.

She also promotes physical activity through the GoGirlGo campaign (which is a great contest that high school girls and AAU teams should get involved in)

However, what’s up with the volume issue on this video? I can barely make out what she’s saying!  What’s up with that?

Regardless, I’m going to become a member. Are you?

Join here. Support their mission.

Sacramone knocks guy unconscious. Costas loves it.

I just finished watching Bob Costas’ December 17 show of CostasNow on HBO, where he highlighted the best sports moments of 2008.

It is a 90-minute show (dominated by men) includes Michael Phelps, Tiger Woods,  Ryan Howard, Michael Strahan, Charles Barkley, John McEnroe and Rocco Mediate.

It also features Dara Torres, Alicia Sacramone and Nastia Liukin.

It’s obvious that one of Costas’s favorites is the below YouTube video of Alicia Sacramone who was dared to punch a guy in the face. She followed through with the dare, knocking him unconscious.

Take a look:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QA6s7p-zU8

Hahaha. This is pretty funny. Great job, Alicia.

Maybe next year Costas will (instead) point out how incredible you are as an athlete.

(Video): 5 year old girl basketball star dribbles with ease

A friend of mine passed this along today and I just had to post it. So cute. She’s going to be great!

About the video: 5 year old Milan dribbles 2 and 3 basketballs with ease. She has been playing basketball for 1.5 years and training with Triple Threat Academy since 2007.

I have to say – not a bad marketing strategy!!!

Word is that she’s going to be on the Ellen Degeneres show either today or tomorrow. If I can find the video, I’ll try and post it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l25bkqWPAQI

V is for Victory… can do better

I’ve been seeing more and more of this V is for Victory campaign flying around the blogosphere. For example, it can be found on one of my favorite bloggers’ sites, Women Like Sports.

The Women’s Sports Foundation is sponsoring/pioneering this campaign – which I completely support. (Hell – anything is something, right?)

Essentially, these are a series of videos dedicated toward getting girls to recognize if their schools are in compliance with Title IX regulations. Which is extremely important. But it can be done better.

I have to be a little bit critical of its transparency and its lack of digital creativity.

1) WSF should have their name all over it - should be completely transparent that this is where these messages are coming from.

2) The URL should not be confusing (which it is). Vis4victory.org. Wow. It’s far easier to just remember womenssportsfoundation.org. Why not create a micro site with its own (non-confusing) URL? Why is that so difficult? I mean, if you’re going to spring the $ for the video, why not spring for a place it can live permanently?

3) The videos (although true) are a bit unrealistic. Sometimes the inequity isn’t as obvious as these videos make them out to be. Case studies and testimonials would work much better. (not sure of legal issues surrounding that)

4) The questions in WSF’s poll are completely directed toward parents. This needs to change. The girls (themselves) should be answering these questions. It makes girls seem like passive watchers instead of active participants.

5) This campaign needs to be interactive (similar to Gonzaga’s inspired season). Why not have the poll in the video? Why not make this a YouTube video? Why doesn’t WSF create a YouTube video channel and hold contests for girls (i.e., best sports moment caught on film)? The possibilities are endless here.

I hope WSF is watching – and paying attention. Their campaigns could go so much further if the right perspectives were brought in.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh on Ellen

I Tivo’d this episode of Ellen last night to catch Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. Found it on YouTube today.

Something I find particularly interesting is our culture’s obsession with them wearing baithing suits (barely nothing). And Ellen makes a point to bring up that Kerri smacks Misty May on the butt when they do well.

Is that really what people are interested in?

Regardless, Ellen is hilarious, and this is a cute feature. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6RfeHeTvj4]

Cell Phones: Mini Microwaves?

When I saw this video on Good Morning America today, I could not believe it. A wildly popular YouTube video shows cell phones, when placed toward each other, can actually produce enough microwaves to pop popcorn. Gross.

So this got me thinking. If it’s powerful enough to do this, what’s it doing to our ears?

I remembered an article that I recently posted on the site which I am Editor for, Hesfit.com. In a piece about cell phone usage, writer Denise Musumeci uncovers a link between cell phones and brain cancer — a correlation that, although not proven, IS existent.

“I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an ear piece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”

A microwave antenna? Since when?? THIS explains the popcorn. But is it safe? We’re not sure. In fact, the FDA also admits that the average period of time that cell phones were used is three years, which is not enough time to measure the long-term risk of cell phone use.

“Three types of tumors have been associated with wireless phones: glioma tumors, salivary gland tumors, and acoustic neuroma. All three types of tumors are very rare, however, heavy use of cell phones increase this risk. According to the New York Times, “Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cell phone users.”

What’s also unknown is the effect it will have on children, who are growing up using these things from a young age (I’m only 22, and I didn’t have a cell phone until I was about 15).

“Young people who are still not fully grown face a lifetime of increasing cell phone use and will ultimately face more exposure in the long run than those who didn’t start using cell phones until well into adulthood.”

Experts recommend — if you use a cell phone, wear a headset, if possible, to avoid holding the antenna near your head.

Yikes. Scary thought.

Sportsmanship and Moral Judgment

Sportsmanship extends far beyond the “man” part of the word. Women across the globe now participate in sports in alarming numbers. In America alone, more than 40,000 student-athletes participate in NCAA championship competition each year, and that’s just at the collegiate level. I don’t even know if the numbers exist for high school athletic participation, but I’m sure the number is incredible.

Participating in sports taught me about why it’s important to believe in dreams and other people. I’ve been playing sports since I was about six years old, and I’ve developed some amazing friends over the course of the past 16 years. Athleticism taught me how to be strong, and it taught me the true meaning and power of moral judgment – what many link to refer to as sportsmanship.

I saw a true example of sportsmanship in the New York Times Well blog, one of my favorites to read. Tara Parker-Hope writes, “If there already weren’t enough reasons to get your child involved in sports, the story of Sara Tucholsky will give you another one.”

This story is truly incredible. It’s a YouTube video that features a girl who played for Western Oregon University. She always dreamed of hitting a home run. In April, her dream came true as she slammed one over the fense. As she was rounding the bases, she drastically tore something in her knee and fell to the ground.

The umpire would not let anyone run the bases for her, and her teammates were not allowed to help her. So  a girl on the OPPOSITE TEAM asked the umpire if it was ok to carry her around the diamond. The umpire agreed. The girls said they did it because “she deserved it.”

When she got to home plate, everyone was crying with emotion. At her last at-bat of her career, she achieved her goal… only with the help of some true athletes.

This YouTube video has been influencing many people. At least 150,000 people have watched the video, featured by ESPN.

This is a true example of the power of “sportsmanship,” an athlete’s term for moral judgment. Check it out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocw-oD2pgo&hl=en]