Social Media in the World of High School Sports

By Cheryl Roche

The era of social media continues to grow and change how we engage fans in the world of sports.  We have seen evidence of this recently during the Olympics opening ceremony which garnered 8.9 million social media mentions, topping the total number of Twitter posts during the entire 2008 Beijing Olympics in just one day. 

Although High School Sports is on a smaller scale, digital communications tools are opening the doors into the high school sports space at increasing levels.  With 901 million active users on Facebook and 140 million using Twitter, there are endless opportunities for sponsors to engage with these tech savvy fans.

For sponsors who are specifically targeting teens, social media and other digital assets at sporting venues are a very effective means of engagement.  That’s because for the vast majority of teens, social media is a daily part of their lives.  According to the Common Sense Study, July 2012, 68% of teens text every day, 51% visit social networking sites daily and 11% send or receive tweets at least once every day.    

And it’s not just teens who watch High School Sporting events.  For corporations who seek to reach adults, their brand and message is also exposed to the parents, faculty, and community members in attendance.  In fact, more than 66% of the high school sports audience is made up of adults 18 to 49 years (Scarborough Research Study of select U.S. Markets, August 2010 – September 2011).   These adults are adopting social media in an escalating fashion as well.  Experian Simmons recently reported that 52% of adults who can browse the web on their phone do so and at least 41 million Americans now use their cell phone for shopping-related activities. 

Home Team Marketing (HTM) offers digital opportunities to increase consumer engagement and to maximize our sponsors’ return on investment beyond the field or gym.  Through our exclusive partnership with Phizzle (a leading technology provider of advanced mobile marketing products and digital advertising solutions), HTM offers a platform that delivers customized online and mobile marketing solutions including customized websites, text to win contests, sweepstakes, social media promotions, customized smart phone applications, QR codes, in-venue digital interaction, mobile marketing, viral campaigns,interactive games, video and trivia. 

Incorporating these mobile and digital solutions into our traditional media elements such as signage, public address announcements, print advertisements and onsite access, HTM can help our sponsors get liked, tweeted, pinned and shared with more than 500 million onsite high school sports fans throughout the country! 

Updates from the HS sports space

Dan found this article about HighSchoolSports.net re-branding their website through USA Today.  Take a read:

USA TODAY Sports Media Group Re-launches and Re-brands highschoolsports.net as USA TODAY High School Sports

The USA TODAY Sports Media Group today announced the re-launch and re-branding of its high school sports website, highschoolsports.net, as USA TODAY High School Sports (www.usatodayhss.com), which will anchor the group's comprehensive national coverage of all boys and girls high school sports throughout the country, as well as for the more than 100 local media properties within the Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).

As part of the re-launch of the site, Ben Sylvan has been named executive producer in charge of all content creation, as well as curation within Gannett's more than 100 local media sites. In addition, David Weiss has been named the property's vice president of Sales, leading the nationwide Sales efforts for USA TODAY High School Sports.

Both Sylvan and Weiss are veterans of the high school sports space. Sylvan spent more than seven years with ESPN's multi-media teen sports property RISE, where he served in various roles including digital editor-in-chief, managing editor and senior writer. He also covered sports for Associated Press, Sports Illustrated and a variety of other media companies. Together, Sylvan and Weiss helped build RISE, which was purchased by ESPN. Weiss was a founder at RISE, previously serving as publisher. Most recently, he led the Sales and Marketing efforts at ESPN High School.

Dick's Sporting Goods, Gatorade and Under Armour are re-launch partners for the new USA TODAY High School Sports website.

"High school sports are an inherently local experience, and with Gannett's long-standing presence in more than 100 communities across the country, no media company is better positioned to serve high school sports fans than we are. Gannett's local-to-national advantage, along with our relationships with nearly 7,000 athletic directors across the country who subscribe to our ScheduleStar software, enable us to provide the in-depth, real-time news and information that matters most to high school athletes and fans, along with our Super 25 and All-USA Team rankings which have become the industry standard," said Tom Beusse, president of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group.

Digital agencies The Wonderfactory and PERFECT SENSE Digital led the re-design of the improved website, which now offers new features, including more user-generated videos and photos, as well as trend analysis, comparison tools and training tips for athletes. 

Between the proprietary ScheduleStar athletic management system and Gannett's local media properties, USA TODAY High School Sports has relationships with more than 11,000 high schools across the country. Visitors to usatodayhss.comcan receive news stories, athletic and fitness training, videos, photographs, scores, driving directions and more for their favorite teams locally, regionally and nationally.

Thanks for Air Conditioning!

We borrowed this from The Quirky Blog. Interesting reading for a hot day!  Thanks Baron. You can ready more quirky blogs at http://www.quirky.com/S

This is Why I’m Cool: A History of Air Conditioning

posted 11 days ago by baron

Since Neolithic man first raised a disapproving glance towards the summer sun, humanity has been locked in an annual battle to stay cool and dry. From rural Malaysia to the streets of Manhattan, heat is the world’s biggest party pooper, and as we struggle with summer’s first heat wave, Quirky would like to give props to a gift that makes it all tolerable. That sweetest of amenities, our proverbial ninth wonder: the air conditioner has brought more joy to the world than candy and Nintendo combined, and it’s only fair that we pay tribute to the brave (and sweaty) inventors who brought it to life.
The Earliest AC
The tyranny of heat is nothing new, and it is hardly surprising that humanity began to devise solutions right from the start. Though centuries away from complex mechanics, ancient cultures devised a number of clever ways to keep a room’s temperature low, using the clever application of both air and water circulation. In ancient Rome, wealthy homeowners would reroute water from aqueducts through their walls, which cooled the rooms within. Farther east, the Persians used a similar circulation system called a badgir (also called a windcatcher) that channels wind into interior rooms, cooling by improved circulation.

A modern example of a badgir in Central Iran

The first mechanical solution to heat didn’t arise about until the second century A.D., when the Chinese engineer Ding Huan invented the first rotary fan. His design featured seven ten-foot-wide fans, which provided significant cooling: however, since it was manually powered, this first design required that at least one person be thrown under the bus (think of pulling four-hour fan duty at the family BBQ). Luckily, further advancements made this technology more efficient, and rotary fans were still a staple product in China a millenium later.

The Industrial (Cooling) Revolution
While the concept of a rotary fan was toyed with for centuries, the next step in atmospheric comfort didn’t come until 1820, when British scientist Michael Faraday discovered that the evaporation of compressed ammonia could be used to rapidly cool water, allowing for ice to be manufactured anywhere. 22 years later, a physician from Florida named John Gorrie developed a plan to harness this artificial ice as a means of cooling an environment. Not content with placing a bucket of ice in front of a fan, Gorrie imagined a system that could cool a hospital (he believed that warm, fetid air was the cause of many diseases), and later expanded his vision to large, centralized cooling systems that could keep entire cities chilled. However, while Gorrie was able to build a working prototype of his device, he was plagued by financial troubles from the start, and the venture ultimately ended in failure. While there are several theories regarding the reason for the flop —the ice importer Frederic “Ice King” Tudor was rumored to have launched a smear campaign against the device— Gorrie nonetheless died an impoverished man in 1855, and his dream of an air-conditioned life would lie abandoned for the next 50 years.

A model of John Gorrie’s first air cooler, which used artificial ice to chill the air in a room

The Great Leap Forward
The foundation for modern air conditioning was laid in 1902, by an American engineer named Willis Carrier. While working for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company, Carrier was given a very specific task: in order to maintain paper density and ink alignment in their printing rooms, he was asked to design a device that fully regulated both temperature and humidity. Gorrie was familiar with the concept of heating air by running it through warm coils, and theorized that the system would work as well for cooling: by running air through coils filled with cold water, he was able to regulate the air’s temperature, and consequently, the amount of moisture it could hold.

Willis Carrier with the first model of his “Apparatus for Treating Air”

After four years and a biblical amount of hustle, Carrier presented Sackett-Wilhelms with his patented “Apparatus for Treating Air”, considered the first true air conditioner for its ability to alter both cool and humidify/dehumidify. The design worked brilliantly, and Carrier began to refine his product for the home and automobile, forming the Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America in 1915 to meet rising demand. In 1928, the development of Freon provided a safer alternative to the toxic gases first used in the cooling process, and by the 1950′s the consumer air conditioner had become a household standard. For anyone who’s ever experienced a Manhattan summer without the blessing of AC, the positive impact of this movement knows no measure.
Sources:

What is your favorite state championship venue?

By Dan Malone

June 14, 2012

It is a common message that we often preach to current and potential clients, fellow employees and even to state associations, that high school sports are so unique. You often see this message in the news through a wonderful act of sportsmanship, a community getting behind a local team or even a group of students honoring a member of the school. I could not agree more that these are phenomenal acts that only promote the high school sports experience. However, as the 2011-2012 athletic year wraps up this weekend, I wanted to take a minute to and reflect on something that I find very unique about high school sports and our work here at Home Team Marketing…the unique venues where state associations host championship events.

Two weeks ago, as I sat at the OHSAA state softball tournament, I kept thinking that this is likely the last time most of these athletes will play an organized sport and what a phenomenal way to go out. The venue was packed, fans were on their feet, the girls in the dugout were chanting…it could not get any better (and of course our sponsors were well represented). I later discovered that Babe Ruth even played at this facility! You cannot beat that for history and atmosphere combined into one.

That brings me to today. With the conclusion of the school year upon us I wanted to have some fun with my post. From NFL stadiums to a 90 year old ball park that the Sultan of Swat played at, state associations have some of the best and most unique host sites in the country. I have been to a number of venues in my time with HTM, but look forward to traveling each year to new and unique ones. So with that said, I wanted to raise a question…what is your favorite state championship venue?

Stories that Make Spectators and Sponsors Smile

By Cheryl Roche

There aren’t many sponsorship opportunities at the professional sports level or through traditional media that can make a corporation feel as proud as those who sponsor high school athletics.  This was witnessed just this week when a sophomore runner for West Liberty-Salem High School carried her opponent across the finish line after collapsing during the 3,200-meter race at the Ohio High School Athletic Association Track and Field Championships.  This selfless athlete not only helped the fallen foe to the finish line, but assured that she crossed the line first, leaving herself in last place. 

http://espn.go.com/high-school/track-and-xc/story/_/id/8010251/high-school-runner-carries-fallen-opponent-finish-line

This feel-good story is just one of many at the high school level that shows genuine sportsmanship.  And it’s these types of tales that really resonate with fans as well as with anyone in the community who has the opportunity to see or hear how high school athletes are demonstrating respect and honor toward competitors, on the fields and in gyms across the country. 

High school students participate in athletics for the excitement, socialization and competition it brings.  But throughout this experience, they are also building character and self esteem. This recent heroic encounter is a perfect example of the real-life situations that these students come across.  But with many high school budgets being cut, the athletic and activity programs that provide these valuable lessons of teamwork, sportsmanship and dedication are becoming more and more difficult to fund. 

High school athletics is a great choice for corporations who are looking to direct sponsorship dollars toward cause-related marketing.  Their support can help struggling schools make sports more affordable for student-athletes.  With a portion of their investment going directly back to the school or state association that they support, corporations can take pride in their efforts to help keep high school athletics and activities alive.  Their involvement can make a huge impact on the lives of these students and in the communities where they study, work and live. 

In return, the community recognizes and appreciates this assistance.  There is a strong affinity for corporations that give back to the community.  According to a Survey conducted by Turkey Research in 2010, 76 % of high school sports fans agree that they make a conscious effort to support sponsors of their local high school’s athletic department.  It’s a win, win - - for the schools and the sponsors!