Is Twitter the next big recruiting tool? I never would have dreamed that the first time I saw Twitter, but fast forward to now and it is nearly a perfect fit for coaches. From the road, many of the top coaches in all sports are using this as a way to get to let their fan base (and donor base) get to know them, and also give recruits and their parents a little bit of a glimpse into who they are as people. Here’s a couple links to check out:
John Calipari, UK – broke 100,000 followers in a few months:
Tom Crean, Indiana – challenged Calipari to a follower contest… and is getting his handed to him – 6,000 followers.
Keno Davis, Providence – I hate to put him here since he broke my heart when he left Drake, but he is doing a nice job creating interaction inside Twitter – adding contests for best ideas to increase fan involvement at games. As he puts it, his goal is “ to give our fans access to our program and keep them informed."
Bruce Pearl, Tennessee – interesting that not just the head coach but the whole Tennessee coaching staff is now up on Twitter.
Kerry Keating, Santa Clara is probably the most tech savvy of the coaches I’ve checked:
Jim Larranaga, George Mason will provide "the Mason Nation with plenty of basketball chatter, but will tweet about other daily activities as well. Sometimes you will hear his "Thought of the Day" or get a tweet about a movie he just watched, his latest project with the geography department, and much more - Did you know he had hip surgery?"
Other coaches who seem to be getting into this:
Jeff Capel, Oklahoma
Josh Pastner, Memphis
Donnie Jones, Marshall
Eric Reveno, Portland
The NCAA addressed Twitter, saying “We view Twitter as a blog. As long as coaches are on there talking about what they're doing with their day and how their practice went or things like that … not getting into specific terms, that's fine. They can't talk about a person they're recruiting, or they can't use it to talk about their whereabouts on a recruiting trip."
Here's the full story.
What’s interesting to me is now Recruiting Websites for Coaches are endorsing Twitter. I’m pulling some of my favorite excerpts, but the whole article’s worth a click, both for the level of content and for the style of communication: “For D1 and D2 coaches, this can be a recruiting game-changer. Look for there to be a stampede towards this technology tool…
- It's not so much an opportunity to sell your college program, in our opinion; rather, it is an opportunity to show recruits who you are at your core: As a coach, as a parent, as a friend, as a leader...it's a chance for you to peel back the curtain 140 characters at a time…
- You’ll need to be creative in those short text-like posts. We recommend coaching tips, quick updates on what went on at practice, short observations, things that made you laugh...basically, anything that isn't sterile and common knowledge…
- Focus on learning to get to the point and be brief, because as our studies have shown, today's recruits want more direct information sooner from coaches…
- Your prospects will need to choose to "follow" you on Twitter. It's voluntary on their part, which is why I believe the NCAA is comfortable with this form of communication. They can choose to follow you, or stop following you. They can choose to communicate with you, or not. They have the power. So, after asking them to "follow" you on Twitter, you'd better be interesting! “
Naturally, this is something players are doing as well. I’ve been interested in following Blake Griffin Tweeting through his summer workouts, up to the NBA Draft in June. I love this quote he posted, “Be so good they can’t forget you.” Link.
EA Sports reshapes the NBA Draft. I was pretty pumped to learn EA is taking what worked well with their Madden NFL Draft blitz and applying it to their NBA Live 10 and NCAA Basketball 10 games through the NBA Draft. It will be super interesting to follow, as they will be a first time presenting sponsor of the Draft. This will include a host of PR events in NYC, and the EA Sports Virtual Green Room on NBA.com, where we will see a behind-the-scenes look at the day in the life of an NBA Draft Pick. Something tells me we are almost certain to see a strong presence of their Virtual Playbook. Good read here.
If you aren’t sure about Virtual Playbook, you really need to click here (for my take) or here (for the EA overview). For me, this is a big part of the future. You have a commentator on screen interacting with virtual players. In this case it’s ESPN analyst Jon Barry guarding virtual Kobe. To me, this is only part of the way there. I want to see real Kobe guarding a virtual player. Or an analyst/coach walking you through two virtual players. (the guy in the suit is a bit weird to me) But the signal of gaming as a teaching tool is powerful.
I found a pretty good read here on the battle between EA Sports and 2K Sports in the world of NBA games. There’s a few key excerpts I’ll include below that show directionally where EA is moving.
“This year we’re doing a big overhaul on all of the player models, all of the faces, and we want to be really accurate with all of the sneakers these guys are wearing so we can feed into the lifestyle and culture of the game. We want to connect with the consumers who are checking out the sneaker sites, the guys who are paying attention to when LeBron wears his Big Apples in NY, and really trying to add that into the game… The signature stuff and the trademark moves, those need to be contextual. That stuff just needs to be there. What we’re going to try and do is make sure players are performing like they do in the real world. There is a huge focus on player differentiating this year.
And you can't downplay the importance of Dynamic DNA with all of this stuff. When you introduce a big feature like that, the first year you're never going to see the full vision of the feature. But for this year, I think you're really going to see all of that. We're implementing that Synergy Sports data into every aspect of gameplay right now and it's going to have a lot more of an affect and show through. Player differentials and signature stuff are huge to us because that's what NBA basketball is all about. You need to differentiate the stars and the teams as well, so I think this is a huge focus for us. Don't expect just a minor upgrade with this, there is going to be a huge difference.”
Meanwhile, 2K Sports announced their game, NBA 2K10, will be released on the Wii console. To my knowledge, this is the only NBA game currently announced to hit the Wii system, and is being done to expand the reach of the 2K line. Read the full story here.
Ratings wise, this year’s NBA Playoffs are blowing up. ESPN’s ratings are up 16%, TNT is up 20% over last year. But it goes beyond that. ESPN set a record for the most-viewed playoff game in cable history in the Cavs-Magic Game 4. In fact it was the highest rated program on cable this year. Full story here.
LeBron was no doubt the lead reason people are tuning in. Here’s his Game 5 highlights put together in a minute by the NBA – there’s something amazing about 1 minute highlight reels.
In case you missed it, here’s the NBA’s Amazing Campaign MVP edition, unveiled for LeBron.
Also in case you have some how missed them, here’s the NBA’s Historical Playoff Amazing Ads. I’m a big fan of the empty gyms at the start of these clips. The only thing I’d rather see is the step before all of this – show me Magic working on his hook with no one in the gym. That’s where the play starts.
Bird
Kobe & Shaq
Magic
Dr J
Fan-created videos in near real time. Moments after LeBron’s game winning shot in Game 2, fans posted their own version of the NBA Amazing campaign here:
Fans also took to re-using a Jordan spot for Eric Maynor of VCU here. This whole thing is interesting to me. It wasn’t likely that there would be a Jordan-brand Maynor spot (no offense VCU fans!). But fans loved the concept and the voiceover. They dug and found these and created something relevant. I’d love to see how many of these might be created if you didn’t have to dig to get it. What 12 year old hoops team wouldn’t want their own Amazing ad, right?
A fan created his own Blazers season recap highlight reel, which I found to be fantastic. Wow I’m fired up for next season! Fantastic video here.
[T-10] Portland Trail Blazers - Someday [B2L] from Tom10 on Vimeo.
The Blazers also released a Brandon Roy highlight reel here.And UNC released a quick video recapping their tour of the White House as National Champions. Pretty funny video.
Finally, I wanted to close this month out with a pretty interesting read on team play. Specifically, who’s the most selfish player by position? It’s an interesting analysis of how often players work to get their teammates involved versus looking for their own shot. The most selfish by position: PG Eddie House, SG Rodney Carney, SF Thaddeus Young, PF JJ Hickson, C Samuel Dalembert…. And the most selfish Trailblazer was Travis Outlaw.
If you really want to dive in, here’s the full spreadsheet.
Until next month,
AP
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