Improving communities through sport

Sports Tourism Trends: Engaging Fans

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Sports Tourism and Fan Engagement

For some people, their love of sports can easily hold their attention for hours on hours. But, for many other people, their attention spans will only humor them for so long. What many stadium and facility owners struggle with is engaging their fans and holding their attention for the entire game.
Fan engagement in sports tourism is a crucial step in ensuring your visitors continue to come back. Fortunately, the fan engagement movement has been constantly innovating. There’s plenty of great ways to increase fan engagement in your stadium and bolster sports tourism.

Social Media

Although it’s probably been drilled into your head by this point, we can’t stress enough how important social media has become for fan engagement and sports tourism. It’s not enough to just join Twitter or Facebook anymore. Instagram and Snapchat have quickly become the most used social media applications by younger fans.
Typically, young fans tend to be the hardest to engage, but they are also some of the fans you want to engage the most. A young fan with a great memory of visiting your city will want to come back many times in the future. This is the type of long game that sports tourism thrives on. Implementing an Instagram and Snapchat campaign can easily engage these members of your audience. Having a custom Snapchat filter for your stadium, as well as creating a Snapchat story for game day, is a great way to do this. You can have fans send you Snapchat videos to add to your story. This makes them feel like part of the experience and can be engaging for fans of all ages.
This doesn’t discount Facebook or Twitter as platforms, as these are still widely used and extremely important. It’s beneficial to have your stadium or sports complex covered across social media platforms.  Keep fans and followers updated on behind the scenes happenings in between game days. Create hype and anticipation on game days, and then make sure fans are involved during the game.

Create the Experience

Most of the time a sports game isn’t like it is in the movies. There’s no slick editing to hide the timeouts and general breaks in the game. Make sure you’re not losing the attention of your audience during these moments by creating a complete game experience. Playing music, staging fan contests, and providing fan activities are just a few things you can do to keep people’s attention.
Use music to add another layer to a moment, or to hype up the crowd. Have a fan contest or a halftime show ready. For instance, giving away a prize for a fan making a half-court shot during a basketball halftime show. This gets fans involved and excited. Tell fans to tweet their picture for a chance to win free tickets to the next game. These are all ways to get people involved and engaged with your facility. Offering a comprehensive experience will keep people coming back and is a crucial element of increasing your sports tourism.

Sports Facilities Advisory Knows Sports Tourism

Sports Facilities Advisory implements proven methods to help you with your new or existing facility. We are industry experts in sports tourism and we can help you reach success. Contact us today to start working on your dreams.

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