Welcome to the segment Storytelling in Sports. This will be the agenda. I'll talk about the power of storytelling in sports. I'll talk about some of the more famous sports stories. I'll talk about the need for a theme, a focus in the telling of a sport story. I'll talk briefly about how to formulate a good narrative. And finally, I'll finish it off with storytelling analogs for non-sports industries. So, let's get started. Okay, what is the power of a story? Well, a story has a beginning, middle, and an end. In other words, it has context. So it's not just about winning or losing, but how you won, how you lost. And it makes it that much easier to remember. And it's something that anyone could personally relate to. They can talk about, I watched that game. I was here when that happened. So, there can be that very emotional connection. And this is where even failure can resonate. That "BIRGing" can be part of how you relate to not just the winning but also even the losing of your team. And lastly, it's entertaining. Stories entertain, and that's what a captivating an audience's needs. So, the marketing in sports needs storytelling. And these are some famous stories. Some of them are actually quite tragic, such as the the Manchester United Munich Airline Crash, which now has become part of the DNA of the team. And why they care so much about European soccer, the need to play Champions League. We also know about the famous, or infamous, Jesse Owens Berlin Olympics, where he was discriminated against by the Nazis, but overcame that. And it's transcended just the story level. The legend of the Dream Team that won the basketball gold in Barcelona. A team that had Michael Jordan. It had Larry Bird. And lastly, you don't even have to be a fan of the sport to know the famous story about the amateur. The builder of the Masters tournament, who won the Grand Slam, many, many years ago. Okay, so in storytelling in sports, as in any good story, you need a theme. You need a focus. And they are many to choose from. It could be about a country, such as India beating one of their arch rivals in a sport like cricket. It could be about a famous team such as the New York Yankees that have won many, many World Series. It could be about one of the athletes. And it doesn't even have to be a likable athlete, such as Eric Cantona who played for Manchester United. I actually like Eric Cantona because I follow Manchester United. So if you are a fan of that team you love Eric Cantona. But if you are, or were a follower of Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea, you would have hated Eric Cantona. So someone who is that divisive makes for a great story. The story could be about the owner, or someone who manages the team, or it can be even about an employee. And it could be about, also of course, special fans of the team. Okay, so storytelling is about developing a good narrative. And so, this isn't just limited to of course the sports. It could be for any form of story. So, this is something that I think non-sporting companies can benchmark. But in the good narrative, you have to develop a plot. So, a very common story line in sports is pitting the underdog against a powerhouse. Another part is of course, defining your characters well. It could be about a manager who is unloved. [LAUGH] So even though this is a fictional story, so in the movie Rocky, you have Mickey the trainer who is like that. Who ultimately of course does become loved by Rocky. It could be about the setting and knowing the setting, such as playing in very hostile turf. A big part of formulating a good narrative is that you have to keep the tension about how the movie will end. Make them anticipate the climax. So don't make it predictable. And lastly, finish well. And it doesn't have to be about just winning. Again, it could be about moral victories. How despite losing, your athletes, your team and the fans, achieved a moral victory. And there are many platforms now. So it's not just limited to movies, as we had before, or books and ebooks. So here's some great examples of sports movies, like Chariots of Fire. Great books, which also became a movie, Moneyball. But nowadays you have 24/7 channel like that used by Real Madrid. It could be online. It could be social. And that's what PGA players do. And it could even be a comic book. So Charles Barkley, believe it or not, Sir Charles Barkley, had his own comic book. So he was the action hero in his comic book. Okay, so some examples of digital storytelling. Here are two. Exposure.Co, which isn't limited just to sports, but it's a platform that enables you to tell stories through your pictures. You also have a Repucom's fan stories, which is a data analytic platform which allows the sponsors to identify the social journey, so to speak and the social media that fans really connect with. So you can pinpoint where the storytelling, or the kind of story, resonated the most with people. And this matters with sponsors. So you can target the sponsorship of teams to precisely when and what story fans look at. Okay, these are some of the analogs that non-sports industries can think about. And so it's not just limited to sports, but in any industry you have something that should be compelling, that resonates with people. So what is your compelling story? Who is your arch rival? Who's your coach? Who is your main player? Who is the star? Who are some of your die-hard fans? We talked a lot about platform, so what is your best platform? And last but not least, sports marketing, even through their social marketing, are trying to monetize their content. How are you monetizing your account? Not only offline, but also online as well? Okay, so wrapping up, we learned here that storytelling is very important in sports. Because storytelling is about content, with context. But it has to be planned, it has to be formulated, especially the narrative. We learned that through storytelling, nowadays with social media, can be very interactive. And finally, for non-sports industries, we learned that it's not just limited to sports.
