On January 2, 2013 the University of Louisville defeated Florida 32-23 in the Sugar Bowl. So? The win was a big deal for Louisville, it is our second major BCS win and it is arguably one of the biggest underdog wins in BCS history. Florida was expected to win by 14-21 points, ESPN joked about it before the game, odds-makers put Florida at over a 90% chance of winning the game and everyone, almost, expected it to be a blowout. EXCEPT LOUISVILLE FANS!
UofL scored in the first 15 seconds of the game against Florida and that awoke a giant that still exists today (online and off).
On January 2 and 3, the university broke all of its social media records, surpassing even our Final Four numbers from 2012. This is coming from Kentucky, “the state of basketball” (home of powerhouses such as the 2012 National Champ UK, Western Kentucky, Morehead State, Murray State and Bellarmine, the Division II national champion in 2011).
Facebook Stats
Twitter Stats
This was our first year with a director of social media, Nick Stover (@ULFlyingCard) and the first year our academic director of digital media (the author of this post) attended a bowl game.
Nick and I met several weeks before we knew we would be in a bowl game and discussed ideas on how we would prep for a bowl experience for our fans.
Understanding The Fan
I don’t claim to understand our fans but I do know that they are some of the most die-hard, dedicated and passionate fans in college sports. Nick and I looked at past March Madness and bowl numbers and could see one glaring fact – we were not feeding the beast (our fan base). So, how do you satisfy an unquenchable fan base that wants its team to win (always) but more importantly, wants to be part of the experience or to share their experience with the rest of their “fanmily”?
Pre-Bowl(ing) Plan
Academics and athletics are two very different animals, you can’t feed the same posts, pictures or volume of information to them without losing fans on one side or the other.
Nick, in the Athletics Department, focused on content development for our athletics fans. He generates behind-the-scenes photos and videos of players, coaches, venues and some fan experience.
Academics focused on the experience. I didn’t spend as much time following the game as I did following the fans. Obviously there was plenty of overlap but that is where the pre-bowl meetings were important. Here is what we planned before we even knew where we were playing:
- We would generate more content (for everyone).
- Athletics would run point. It was their achievement; they should.
- Academics would focus on the fan experience.
- Both of us would promote the same hashtags, web sites and events, online and in traditional print media, like the official UofL Sugar Bowl schedule of events.
- Academics would share its photos with athletics to ensure the fan experience was shared by all.
- Athletics would share appropriate photos/video or posts with academics for re-post or sharing.
- UofL would reach out to Florida to see if they would be interested in sharing a hashtag (#sugar2013).
- We would work with our top influences as much as we could; including Elle Raiser, Howie Lindsay with CardinalSports.com, Cardinal Sports Zone and Mike Rutherford at CardChronicle. We didn’t do as well as we will next year but we did try.
- We Would work with internal fans, we knew would be there; Admissions, Athletic coaches, the Speed School, Student Activities and others.
- We would work with local agencies (both agencies of record and agencies not under contract) and national social media partners, like Ptch.com, to get them engaged as far as they were willing, for probono or free.
- We would look for every opportunity to engage fans, get behind the scenes and connect those at the Sugar Bowl with those at home cheering equally as loud.
Continuing the Conversation
We did everything we had planned above, to some extent, with the limited resources we had available. The experience for almost everyone was amazing and we tried to make sure that it was chronicled, shared and sharable for everyone. But we also wanted to make sure that the excitement, energy and experience lived on long after the game.
Extending Social Media to Real Media
Shirts are printed before, after and during major sporting events for both teams, whether they win or lose. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of legitimate and knock off variations of the winning team’s claim to fame. We knew the university, its partners and suppliers would print plenty of shirts. We also knew they were much harder to integrate with a social media experience, other than showing a URL, which isn’t very sexy on a shirt.
We wanted to do something that was memorable, integrated into the experience and directly tied to our social media efforts (over 1,600 photos, videos and posts). We also wanted to make sure it was done with traditional, archival and tangible material. The concept of a photo collage is not new; the fan mosaic has been done by several teams and sports for many sporting events. We took this concept and used it to tie our social coverage with our fans’ desire to remember, archive and brag about their experience.
We took over 1,600 photos of fans, at the Sugar Bowl, in the days leading up to it and in the two team celebrations after it (in Louisville) and used them to create this university-logo collage. What makes this “social” is that ALL of the photos were originally posted, tagged and shared on Facebook, almost in real-time during the Sugar Bowl and related events.
Sugar Bowl 2013 – CARDS Fan’s Poster
Check out the Facebook galleries:
Dec. 30 | Dec. 31 | Jan. 1 | Pre-Game | The Game | Signing Party
The goal is to give something back to the fans, while helping support students. For $10, you pick up this piece of history, while giving future students an opportunity to attend school. If we sell most or all of the posters, over 90% of the money raised will go to student scholarships in athletics and academics (10% covers printing). But this post isn’t about selling posters. This is about keeping fans connected to the university they love.
Lessons Learned
Poster sales haven’t started yet so we don’t know how that will go but we’re hoping for the best.
Here are some of the things we took away from the 2013 Sugar Bowl:
- Louisville fans are AWESOME! Whether we win or lose, our fans are the best! They are dedicated, passionate and love their team, while respecting and showing respect (most of the time) for our opponents.
- Feed the beast! We did well in NOLA but can do better (especially with the fan experience)
- Work with influencers more. We touched base with a few of our top blogging/social friends but we need to extend that to our friends in traditional media and PR and also reach out to more bloggers.
- Create more fan opportunities. We needed more meet-up spots and coverage in NOLA, back in Louisville and at our regional alumni clubs.
- Empower super-fans. One of our early plans was to give all of our “registered” super-fans an Ambassador Pass. It wouldn’t get them access to anything official other than to show, everywhere they went, that UofL knew about them, worked with them and wanted them to lead the C-A-R-D-S cheer (and post it on FB or Twitter). We just didn’t have the time or budget to pull this off.
- Print business cards to hand out to everyone with URLs and other pertinent information on them
