State of Play: How Audiences Are Engaging With Teams, Content and More

Hosted by ESPN's Karl Ravech, the event took place at Citi Field

Now in its third year, Clio Sports State of Play took place yesterday at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. Karl Ravech of ESPN hosted the event, which concluded with appearances from Mr. and Mrs. Met and a tour of the ballpark, courtesy of Netflix.

Panels covered everything from emerging leagues, the popularity of sports documentaries and marketing U.S. teams to an overseas audience.

Below, some highlights from the day.

In “Going Long: How Storytelling Shapes Sports Culture,” execs from Netflix, Fulwell Entertainment, Everwonder and Intermission Film discussed the surge of longform sports documentaries, showing the human side of athletes, and how it increases a fanbase.

• “Who watched Formula 1 before ‘rive to Survive,” asked Ian Orefice, CEO of EverWonder. “That one show fundamentally changed who an audience group was for an entire sport.”

• “I think partners like Netflix being in this business have changed documentary filmmaking and allowed a lot more stories to be told, a lot more people in this audience to probably say they’re documentary lovers, which probably wasn’t happening 10, 20 years ago,” said Fullwell head of sports, culture, and branded entertainment Jamal Henderson. “We’re all reaching people through story. And that’s the beauty of nonfiction. It’s unpredictable. And it generally beats the script, so to speak.”

• “The challenges of sports vs. scripted content are kind of the same in some ways. Because it’s not about sports. It’s drama,” notes Intermission founder and CEO Sam Cryer. “You’re not comparing it to any unscripted series. You’re comparing it to a film, a series of unscripted series. And it is all about the relationships between the characters.”

• “We’re always trying to drive conversation and culture. Getting people to watch the content is the goal,” added Will Ullman, head of sports documentary making at Netflix. “Getting people to talk about the content gets them to watch the content. When we’re seeing that conversation [on social media] happen, we don’t want to stifle it. We want that megaphone to widen and eventually drive people back to the show.”

The second panel: “Startups Aren’t Just For Tech Bros: How New Leagues Are Changing the Game,” featured leaders from Unrivaled Basketball, League One Volleyball and TGL (Tomorrow’s Golf League). They discussed how large fanbases are built from scratch.

• “Volleyball is the largest girls’ team sport in the country. So we started building around youth, and really started building from the ground up, and when we went to build our league, which is in six different cities, we looked at the most volleyball-obsessed communities, where we could build and really build a fan base together, so that we could continue to grow together,” said Stephanie Martin, chief marketing and communications officer of League One.

• “As we looked at TGL, which is the first sports league for Tomorrow Sports, we really looked at three core audiences,” said Regina O’Brien, CMO of TMRW Sports and TGL. “We knew we wanted to start with the core golfer, because they would tune in just to see Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, all those names that they already knew. We also looked at the casual golfer, maybe somebody who is looking for golf during prime time. And then, because we were on ESPN, and the core of our idea was really to get a more casual sports fan, somebody who doesn’t necessarily watch golf.”

• “Unrivaled always starts with re-emphasizing that we were solving a real problem for both players and also for fans,” noted Kirby Porter, chief brand officer. “For players, it’s when they’ve had to go overseas to supplement in the offseason. We’re keeping them home, we’re keeping them visible, and keeping them compensated. For fans, it’s that they’ve lacked access to their favorite players for a long duration of time when the WNBA is not in season. We were really able to connect with the WNBA Women’s College Basketball Superfan through our players that wanted more access, more stories, and just to feel better connected to their favorite players. There was also a unique opportunity around the women’s sports fanatic, as we call it. Just those people that are super excited about the growth of women’s sports.”

The next panel focused on the New York Mets gameday experience, specifically how to engage fans and make an impression on those who are in the ballpark vs watching the game online or on TV.

Attendees got an inside look at the video and the lighting effects that take place at the start of the game, when the team takes the field, then at the close of the game when reliever Edwin Diaz gets on the mound. 

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• “We need to provide an experience they can’t get at home,” noted Mets executive director of in-game operations Brendan McKeon.

• “Each year we try to add a new element. The goal is always, how do you improve what you last did? How do we make it better?” added Josh Rosenman, senior director of creative content.

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The final panel, “Rethinking the Away Game: Lessons in Marketing Overseas,” centered on teams crossing the pond and engaging global audiences.

• “The first thing we ask: Is the population size there for us to build growth in that market? Second: We take a look at the baseball affinity in that market,” said Uzma Rawn Dowler of CMO and SVP of global corporate partnerships at MLB. “In a market like India, we take a look at the parallels of how we can market the game compared to cricket and really lean into that aspect. And then the third is we take a look at is the juice worth the squeeze. The best way for our fans to experience baseball is to really experience a live game and to bring a live game to a market that might not have the infrastructure or a regulation baseball field.”

• “If we go to a match in Germany, for instance, we might not go back for a couple of years. So we really have to break down where we’re going to go and how we’re going to get there,” added Robert Alberino Jr., VP of content and production for the Kansas City Chiefs. “It’s how we keep a lasting impression when we don’t have a tangible game there. The NFL is a monster in America. It is a grain of sand on the beach when you’re talking globally.”

• “We always get the question, why does a German soccer team have an office in New York? It makes no sense,” added Dee Kundra, a managing director (Americas) for FC Bayern München. “We always say, we knew when we opened the office, there were 100 million people interested in the sport of soccer. That’s bigger than the population of Germany, so the potential is huge. Why wouldn’t we try? For us, we knew we had a fan base, but what are merchandise sales like? What are sponsorship-like opportunities like? That comes into play as well.”

• “France is a priority market for the Nets. When we dug a little deeper, we saw that there was so much connective tissue between the two cities, New York and Paris,” per Ron Goldenberg, VP of international marketing and innovation at BSE Global. “From music, hip-hop rising in France, to basketball, Victor Wembanyama getting drafted, the Olympics heading there that summer. We felt like there was a real opportunity to show up in a way that no other team ever has. But we lead into culture. Because, again, we think that’s our differentiator as a brand. Our ability to transcend the core really authentically into other areas of culture.”