The Ohio Valley Conference Online: Elevating the Best Players, Ever

Another week, another conference.

Each week we will break down a different conference across the D-1 landscape, giving you a look into how they are connecting with fans (and recruits) across their website and social media. Along the way, we'll elevate a few things in each conference that are best-in-class: what we can learn from the schools that make up each conference.

You can stay plugged into this journey via this blog, via the Digital Hoops Blast Facebook page (linked here) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

We break down leagues based on how squads finished last season. Thus far we've checked out the ACC, Horizon, Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, Atlantic 10, MVC, Pac-10, Ivy, WCC, and MWC. It's time to keep moving... Up next, the Ohio Valley Conference -- thanks to Murray State.

Let's move.

One of the biggest areas of importance if you are at a low to mid major D-1 conference is to make sure your conference is equated with success. It's much more critical that the Ohio Valley Conference to remind recruits of success than it is the ACC, for example. (Though, as we saw previously, the ACC definitely reminds you of their success!)

Hit the OVC Home Page (shown below) and turn your attention to the OVC Awards menu.

I'll zoom in here. Now note the callouts for Male and Female Athlete of the Year. I love the concept of elevating these, as you're taking the time to signal out the best of the best, across all sports. And this should give you a chance to do two things: 1) align with success and 2) show what is important to the conference. (Is it on the court/field performance alone? Is it impact in the community? Is it something bigger?) Let's dive in.

The Female Athlete of the Year (here) and Male Athlete of the Year (here) are shown below...

As you can see, the information is here but the emotion is lacking. The OVC has a chance to tell us a story and, in the process, get recruits to envision themselves joining this club of individuals.

How could this be better? I'd love to see the OVC go back and tell the stories of why each player made their respective list. And I'd love to see the OVC tell us what the criteria they use to make these calls. (How do you decide if the winner is the best football player or basketball player, for example?) Telling the story of the impact each individual had/has on the conference would go a long way!

Ohio Valley Conference week continues tomorrow. We will take a peak at how the conference is leveraging social media. Then, we'll wrap the week up with 3 peaks into things I found fantastic across the 8-team conference landscape.

Don't forget, you can follow along via the Digital Hoops Blast Facebook page (linkedhere) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

Andy