The DataPOWA view on the most important talking points in the worlds of sport sponsorship and digital.
England’s World Cup campaign might have got off to an unusually bright start with the win over Tunisia, but you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s still something to blame the players for. They may have fought till the end and claimed a confidence-boosting win on the pitch, but off it, they’re sadly lacking when it comes to social media skills, apparently.
Sportstar Influencer is a website that ranks sports star for their social media influence, and frankly, England’s boys just don’t cut it. In terms of social influence, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Lionel Messi are leading the way as the top three, which isn’t too surprising as they are the three biggest footballers on the planet.
More surprising is how far down the list England’s most influential player is. Captain Harry Kane might have scored twice against Tunisia, but his Twitter skills need some work, because he’s only 65th on the list, with Raheem Sterling a little further down in 71st.
Clearly, they need to spend less time playing Fortnite and watching Love Island in their hotel rooms and more time brand-building…
You can read the full article here
Tags: Football, World Cup, Twitter, England, Harry Kane
Their opening defeat to Mexico might not have been the best advertisement for whatever Germany’s World Cup plans might be, but before the tournament, there was plenty of talk about how SAP technology and data was going to be their not-so-secret weapon. Having used SAP Match Insights at the 2014 World Cup – which they of course won – Germany were keen to build on that success this time around.
They’re using SAP Sports One this year, with data, technology, AI and machine learning, including a video cockpit and a player dashboard, amongst other opportunities for analysis by German players and staff. No doubt they will have had a lot to analyze after the Mexico game as they seek to find out what went wrong.
The real test for players, staff and SAP will be how they bounce back against Sweden.
You can read the full article here
Tags: Germany, World Cup, machine learning
Romelu Lukaku may have had a successful first season at Manchester United when it came to getting goals, but he somehow managed to do so without a boot deal. Happily, since moving to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports management company, he’s put that right, signing a deal with Puma and announcing it with faux album artwork on Instagram.
The deal started straight away with Belgium’s first World Cup game against Panama, which saw Lukaku score two goals, which isn’t a bad way to break in your new boots. As the man himself said in the announcement: “I look forward to hustling with the big cat in the future.”
You can read the full article here
In amongst the excitement of the start of the World Cup, the Premier League fixture list release was much less of an event than it is in football-free summers. For most fans, it was a case of checking the key fixtures (opening day, closing day, Boxing Day, key rivals) and then getting back to counting down to the big kick-off.
For the clubs on Twitter, mindful that it was going to be difficult to get much attention right now, they mostly played it cool. Apart from Brighton, who created graphics for every single game and tweeted each one out in chronological order for the entire season as well as putting them in a Twitter Moment. Since the day, they’ve still been tweeting out some of the fixture highlights, just in case anyone missed them.
It can be a long summer before the Premier League starts again, can’t it?
You can read the full article here
Whether or not your brand has a sponsorship deal with the World Cup or even a direct connection to the tournament itself, this summer is still an opportunity to use it to get attention and engagement. Twitch is of course a live streaming service and one that has no live streaming of the World Cup to offer, but what it does has is some football-themed emotes to collect while cheering for select streamers.
These include emotional footballs, a few national-flavoured hats, a red card and a whistle amongst others. Perfect if you still need to collect things and have filled up your World Cup sticker album.
You can read the full article here
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