How Sport Demonstrates the Reach of Social Media

When you live in Australia, sport matters. You may not be personally into running around after various differently shaped balls, or propelling yourself through water or pushing yourself to the limit of physical endurance, but at a societal level, there is nothing more socially acceptable in this country than sport. And social media usage is starting to cause considerable angst where the coverage of sporting events is conce
ed.

On one level, sport and social media are a perfect fit. On an average day, it is estimated that between 700 and 800 tweets are sent out every second. During the recent Football World Cup, that number rose to over 3000 a second whenever a goal was scored.

This demonstrates the reach of social media. Five to 10 years ago, while watching a game at home, you’d ring up a mate to point out that your team was wiping the floor with his. At best, you’d have had an audience of several friends to whom you could complain about a referee’s decision. Today, thanks to social media, you can share your thoughts with the world.

It’s a state of affairs that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the traditional conduits of mass sporting communication. During the recent Bathurst 1000 motor race, the broadcaster Channel 7, beholden to its advertisers, paused the action at every ad break, meaning that the race on TV finished 30 minutes behind the race in real life.

Twitter, however, didn’t have to stop for adverts. Meaning that the race result was widely known while Channel 7 was still trying to create the impression of a ‘live’ event – leading to some very annoyed viewers. As has been pointed out here, Channel 7 was in a Catch-22 situation. If it hadn’t paused the action, viewers would have complained for missing out. If it hadn’t gone to the ads, it would have lost a lot of revenue. Which raises an interesting question…

Social media is changing the way the world interacts, the way the world thinks and the way the world expects to receive its information. It is not only traditional broadcasters and media outlets that need to accept and adjust to this rapidly changing situation. Advertisers currently pay a premium to be associated with high-profile sporting events. Pretty soon, they are going to have to ask themselves whether they want to be associated with a delayed transmission or with the real-time coverage social media provides.

In a country like Australia, where sport has such a strong hold on the national psyche, and where a new generation of tech-savvy individuals with disposable income are already demanding that they receive instant, bite-size info updates, surely there is only one logical answer.