How to keep the audience of sports video platforms through socialization tools
Hugs after scoring a goal or groaning after a foul create a sense of togetherness when watching sports in a stadium, a sports bar, or a TV. How can we bring opportunities for togetherness to a digital platform? Can digital socialization be a credible alternative to that sense of unity we get at the stadium? But the main question is how does this affect the platform integrating social tools?
What does socialization give to users?
Since the early 2010s, streaming services have spread, and users have begun to subscribe to them for sports content, among other things. In 2021, 54 % of viewers chose streaming services for watching sports. In Europe, the rate was lower, at around 20–30%, yet almost half of all young viewers (18–24) from around the world preferred watching video online to TV.
Because of such intense growth among streaming services, researchers have started to study them. Still, this research focuses primarily on the new opportunities created rather than on moving from one platform to another. Since the mid-2010s, many studies into online sports socialization events have appeared, and this is being studied in different countries. We can assume that there are different viewing patterns in each country. Nevertheless, researchers are getting similar results.
Watchers is a white-label SaaS that allows users to create online rooms on content platforms and discuss content by text or voice. It helps companies to keep and grow their audience and boost business.
If you want to learn more or to integrate our solution into your platform, contact us via the application form or email hello@watchers.io.
Socialization helps us to feel that we are participating in an event
One of the first extensive research about sports broadcasts on SLSS platforms was conducted by Han Soo Kim and Minjung Kim from The University of Mississippi. They concluded that the communication driving satisfaction while viewing derives from absorbed engagement. Sports fans want to enjoy sports games by cheering or booing for their teams or criticizing their opponents in concert with other fans.
Social live streaming services (SLSS) have emerged as a new type of hedonic social media. SLSS allow users to watch and discuss video streams in real-time.
Watching a game alone distances sports fans from the team and other fans, depriving them of the feeling of unity. Socialization on SLSS platforms brings back this lost unity and takes the viewing experience to another level, unlike TV broadcasts or viewing alone on digital media. Communities are also formed by the complete sync — of video, chat, and emotions.
At the same time, viewers perceive online communities created via SLSS platforms as “real life.” Viewers with a high sense of community tend to pay extra attention to what is happening and information in the community and see it as relevant. As a result, the viewers perceive the live community as real-life.
Escape from everyday routine
Researchers use the term ‘flow’ when discussing communication during co-viewing sports broadcasts. Flow was defined by Csikszentmihalyi (1975) in psychology to explain the moments at which individuals experience holistic immersion in a task or a process. Sports fans tend to spend time watching sports events for such flow states. Flow allows viewers to escape their dull, everyday routines quickly. This escape from reality and the possibility of distraction is the primary reason for using video platforms.
In the SLSS context, when people view sport events and simultaneously participate in real-time conversations, they may reach the state of being in flow, which helps them solve another problem — tension release. People generally watch sports content on SLSS platforms in order to reduce anxiety, and communicate it chats so as to leave their everyday cares behind.
Beat the loneliness
Film watching can be perceived as a shared dream and personal experience while viewing sports broadcasts isn’t as much linked with the state of an individual. As we have said, sports fans seek unity with their team and other fans. They choose the next best picks, even for matches that aren’t their favorites. That means that what they are seeking is the experience of cheering together alongside other fans. All of the above, combined with the exchange of emotions and reactions, allows viewers to beat their loneliness while watching alone.
But don’t users already connect on social media while watching games? Besides, sometimes leagues broadcast events on their social media accounts on Facebook Live, Twitter Live, or YouTube. It seems that our solution needs to be more convenient for viewers, considering that they use social media anyway.
SM diversity doesn’t create a sense of unity and doesn’t allow users to get into the flow or solve the loneliness problem. Usual accounts can be distracting since event viewing is not synchronized through the account. Even if other users belong to the group in which the event is broadcast, there is no guarantee that these other users are watching the game rather than the feed.
Social media has so many diverse functions that this can interfere with complete immersion in sports content. Direct socialization — right within the platform — solves this problem, allowing users to get into the flow and freely communicate with other viewers, given that all of them are interested in sharing emotions.
Feel connected with a team
Some researchers have concluded that there is a connection between satisfaction with a specific platform and users’ well-being. Well-being has been studied in sport management mainly in connection with attendees of sports events or sports participants. Wann claimed how and why the well-being of sports fans is associated with team identification.
This effect can be increased by a host acting as a medium between the team and the fans. It can positively impact the relationship between social presence and watching intention. In addition, inviting streamers is an easy way to highlight current sports events and engage viewers’ attention by using a streamer’s attractiveness. People spontaneously identify with streamers with particular appeal and see them as role models. Attractive streamers can divert viewers’ stress and gain positive emotions.
Attract and entertain Gen Zers
Research shows that Gen Zers value their time more than do other
generations, and are therefore very thorough in choosing what their time will be spent on so as not to waste it.
Quite numerous polls have shown that with the migration of young people (16–25) onto digital platforms, there is a decrease in their interest in watching sporting events. However, this decrease isn’t very significant. According to polls, centennials call themselves sports fans, though not as actively as millennials or baby boomers, but it’s hard for them to watch sports the same way as other generations do. The reason doesn’t have to do with their age, but with changes in mentality between the generations. They want to communicate while consuming the content. Social mechanisms integrated into video platforms give them opportunities to interact, increasing the value of watching.
How does this affect platforms?
A sense of belonging and successful communication induces users to return to a platform where they have already benefited from positive emotional feedback, meaning that this positive emotion is, in turn, transferred back to the platform itself.
Social instruments may increase the view rate of broadcast events in several ways.
Firstly, social presence improves viewers’ pleasure, and secondly, it can lessen the emotional and social distance. Thirdly, socialization positively impacts online viewers’ fellowship, which can help attract new users via invitation. And finally, social instruments create habits that increase the loyalty of online communities.
Researchers underscore that the more excellent the opportunity is for interactivity and extra engagement, the better the overall effect for the platform. Users can give likes and virtual gifts to a streamer or each other, respond to the event they are watching, or predict final scores via various tests and quizzes. These instruments help to expand paid behavior, meaning that new partnership opportunities to drive the development of paid features will also arise.
Suppose sports fans are actively migrating to online platforms. In that case, logically, this means that they are going to the services that meet their needs and where their experience matches or exceeds that of physical, on-site participation in sporting events.
Watchers is a white-label SaaS that allows users to create online rooms on content platforms and discuss content by text or voice. It helps companies to keep and grow their audience and boost business.
If you want to learn more or to integrate our solution into your platform, contact us via the application form or email hello@watchers.io.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/11/24/gen-z-sports-fans/
https://sport.yougov.com/the-rise-of-sports-streaming-where-is-it-most-popular/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.839629/full
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1016/j.smr.2019.12.007
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1542385/6923852
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.839629/full
