Some kind of history was made on Friday the 19th of August. It was the opening game of the FA cup, (follow the link if you're unfamiliar), a match between Ascot United and Wembley. For those who are interested, Wembley won the game 2-1. These teams might not say much to many people which is not surprising since both are far from competing in the Premier League (main league in England) and if you're not a football fanatic you might never come across these teams. That is not important. However, what makes the game remarkable was that it was the first game ever shown live on Facebook! Not only the first football game but the FIRST sports game EVER! The home stadium of Ascot had nearly 1,200 people watching the game. There were 30,000 people watching the match through Facebook. The figure is not as big as it could be but again, it's the first one ever shown on Facebook and many people are not that familiar or interested with these teams. 30,000 is still a huge audience.
What makes this more interesting is that it was shown on Budweiser UK's fan page. It also created a lot of discussion on the topic on their page. Budweiser is the official sponsor of the FA cup and for them, the aim is to bring the game closer to the fans. This will also create a lot of publicity for them and attract traffic to their fan page.
Here's a really cool football ad from them as well
I think this was a great move from them. Even though there were 'only' 30,000 viewers for the match, imagine how many might watch the FA cup final for example? I know I definitely would!!! Furthermore, they might even attract more users for Facebook just because you can see the game for free and we all know how crazy people are in Europe when it comes to football...
Would you become a fan of a page in order to watch sport for free?
HEY RON,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great concept by budweiser..however do u think it was a trial move by Facebook to show a small match as it did not want to attract millions of users and they feared that if they showed a league match between two top teams it would attract too many people and the website might crash??just wondering if they did this to estimate the no of viewers during a league match and will they be able to handle that kind of heavy traffic
That's awesome. I would definitely become a fan. I get very annoyed with sport broadcasters in Australia with so many sport channels but they hardly show big golf tournaments on TV. I have searched very long online to find a free broadcast but just never found anything. Something like this would be amazing for the brand, such as the FA Cup, the team brands, the PGA, player brands. Very interesting, I hop it keeps growing.
ReplyDeleteRoss
Mazahir: I don't think it was Facebook who made the move but it seemed more like an idea from Budweiser because they sponsor the FA cup. It might have been influenced by Facebook but that's hard to find out. Showing a 'small' match first would make sense in order to keep the page up and test it in a way. It may have also been a strategic move from Budweiser to see if the idea works at all. With the main games there might be an issue with whoever owns the rights to broadcast the games... Budweiser might not be able to show them.
ReplyDeleteRoss: I think this way it could be easy to show almost anything on different pages. The other thing is how many ads would people be willing to watch in order to see the game for free?
Hey Ron. I think this is a great idea. Especially since many people, including myself sometimes, struggle to find live streams of certain games or matches. With the trend of people watching things online instead of on tv increasing, I see this as a great strategy for Budweiser. So yes, I would become a fan of a page to watch it for free, especially as that might help give reminders as to when certain games are about to start.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Roni- what an interesting example of a number of brands collaborating on a project that has some serious potential. I would say that 30,000 is a pretty big number considering the size of these clubs. Do you know how people found out about this match being shown on facebook? Did Budweiser advertise it somehow? Just wondered how such a large number was attracted to watch given not all fans would be budweiser drinkers etc. I think that many sportsfans would love this idea- as Ross said broadcasters often make it very difficult to watch live games or tournaments. People would no doubt complain about ads but when its free and live, you can't complain that much!
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