Varsity sports and event communication…

Talk at ENAS conference 2015, Nov. 12th, Berlin

Abstract: In the context of digitization, media production and media distribution become trivialized with far-ranging consequences. What only a short few years ago would have qualified as cinematic material with underwater or aerial shots could nowadays easily and with comparably far less effort be produced by an individual on their tablet and published online making it available to an unlimited audience. New video formats, such as 360° video, allow for interaction with the content on the user’s side. Affordable devices help to optimize the experience while mainstream platforms like YouTube support the distribution already.

While these possibilities grow and grow, so also do the demands for variety and quality of content. The users of the academic intramurals do not only seek out the best professional sports activities and opportunities anymore, but also they expect that the same academic sports institution become the best provider of communication of their own sport events. This information is expected in real time live coverage with either video stream or instant result update (live-ticker).

By now an image database for a particular event has become standard. Equally, a social media profile became the landing page for communication surrounding sport events and a forum for media related to them. Users would like to be served the technical and aesthetic high-class content on their favorite channels and exploit this media via likes and shares for self-portrayal and self-expression. In the digital world of social network, communicating the engaging in intramurals became an assembly element of the personal reputation management within your own community, whose boarders vanished between on- and offline mode a long ago.

It is not enough to draft and arrange sports activities on an academic level. Just as important as the quality of the activity being offered is the communication of it for both the end goal of satisfying the target audience and attracting sponsor agreements. Athletes and business partners alike assess the quality of the core sports activity itself by the quality of its media communication. It is therefore imperative to make use of established forms as well as to experiment with new formats and innovative, interactive media in order to boost the institution. This raises the intramurals to an outstanding challenge in terms of media reality, which will be outlined in the discourse and later on subsequently, concretized with the help of practical examples.

 

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