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| Bleacher Report posted this photo from last night's Game 1 in OT |
This is the reality of sports now. The in-home experience is arguably becoming more appealing than the in-stadium experience. Even when fans attend the games it’s not what it once was. When someone scores a touchdown, fans at the 50-yard line no longer high five each other in celebration. Instead, they immediately reach into their pocket for their smartphone so they can fire off their next tweet.
“I believe it has taken away from some of the fun of experiencing a live professional game,” said Kyle Krueger, a college student and Chicago sports fan. “Considering the cost to attend a game, we are distracting ourselves from enjoying the full live experience of a pro game.”
It doesn’t matter what sport you look at, the numbers clearly reflect the falling attendance. A study of NFL attendance showed that the league reached an all-time high in 2007, but since then the attendance has steadily declined. In 2011 the league reached their lowest totals since expanding to 32 teams in 2002. The in-home experience is credited for much of the decline, and teams are now trying to enhance the in-stadium experience so that fans will buy tickets instead of staying home to watch the game on a 50-inch widescreen.
That’s a tall task considering that the NFL is heralded for some of the best television coverage in sports. Multiple games are shown on national television every week, and the NFL RedZone channel allows fans to watch any game at its most crucial points. New apps such as NFL ’12, Yahoo! Sportacular and a host of apps from ESPN have given fans a place to interact with others during the game. Add in the enormous HD televisions for consumer purchase or found at the local sports bar, and the league is in a deep hole.
It’s not just the NFL that has had issues. The National Basketball Association has experienced the same ordeal, and league attendance is down for the third straight year. However, that doesn’t mean that interest in the sport is declining as well. The NBA recently announced that television ratings for games on ESPN and TNT were up more than 20 percent compared to last season.
Players have expressed disdain for the matter as well, and Indiana Pacers point guard George Hill was the most vocal critic of fans preoccupied with their social media this season. After a home defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers in March, Hill ripped Pacers fans, saying they were quiet, outnumbered and it didn’t feel anything like a home game.
“Energy is down,” said Hill after that game. “(We’re) not a team that’s in the bottom in the East. We’re one of the top three teams in the East. We’re winning the Central Division, and it should show. Right now it’s not, and it’s been all season long where it’s not showing, and I don’t think there’s nothing else we can do as an organization and as players. Now it’s up to the community.”
A study done by Integrated Marketing Communications showed that 20 percent of fans say they use tablets or smartphones to access sports content while attending a sporting event. When they are at home that number rises to 78 percent; clearly, we are not always engaged in the game 100 percent.
That 20 percent may seem like a small number, but when smaller attendance is taken into account, that means 20 percent is larger than it appears. For example, the Pacers averaged just 15,269 fans this season. If 20 percent of the crowd is on their phone, that means that on average, there are 3,053 fans multitasking during the game.
And that’s just the number of people looking up sports content. Thousands of others are doing other things on their phones not related to sports content.
These are the realities, though, and teams like the Pacers have realized it. Doug Morgan, Associate Director of Game Operations and Fan Development for the Pacers, is a part of a team that tries to allow fans to use technology to enhance their in-arena experience.
“We have added in-game elements so that fans can connect with the game,” Morgan said. “We have the #PacersCheer where we put the pictures that fans take at a game up in the third quarter. We have “text to win” promotions throughout the game, and we do a Klipsch Text to hear the next song played at halftime of every game. We give the fans three choices, and they text the song they want to hear, and it is played a couple minutes later. They have all went very well.”
Along with the interactive elements that Indiana has debuted this season, they have also unveiled a mammoth JumboTron that spans from free-throw line to free-throw line and stands 21 feet tall. A new sound system was also installed to give fans the best sound quality possible.
“Technology is an ever changing part of the game, and we do our best to try and stay out front to make the fan experience the best it can be,” said Morgan.
For other fans though, the technology is all just a distraction from the root of the reason they are at the game.
“It’s not just a game anymore,” said Ryan Harter, an Anderson University student and former high school and collegiate basketball player. “I go to watch the game, but people don’t just go to watch anymore. They want to be entertained, so instead of immersing themselves in the actual game, they are very much into the JumboTron and things like that.”
Mark Cuban, the rambunctious owner of the Dallas Mavericks, would agree more with Harter’s statement rather than the moves of the Pacers organization. In 2011, about the time that smartphones were starting to weave their way into the in-arena experience, Cuban posted a blog to speak out against the use of them at games.
“I can’t think of a bigger mistake than trying to integrate smartphones just because you can,” said Cuban. “The last thing I want is someone looking down at their phone to see a replay. The last thing I want is someone thinking that it’s a good idea to disconnect from the unique elements of a game to look at replays or update their fantasy standings or concentrate on trying to predict what will happen next in the game.”
“There is a huge value to everyone collectively holding their breath during a replay, or responding to a great play or a missed call and then spontaneously reacting to what they see. You lose that if people are looking down at their handhelds. The fan experience is about looking up, not looking down. If you let them look down, they might as well stay at home, the screen is always going to be better there.”
However, there is a group of people in sports who do enjoy the change. Naturally, it’s the media. Twitter, especially, has made it easy for fans to connect with players, coaches and media members, and media personnel agree that it’s made their job more fun.
Chuck Swirsky, the radio play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Bulls, frequently tweets back and forth with Bulls fans before, during and after ball games. His partner, former NBA player Bill Wennington, does the same. “I think [new technology] is great,” said Swirsky. “The good outweighs the bad, and I love communicating with Bulls and NBA fans.”
Dave Shore, an Anderson University graduate and current Operations Manager at ESPN Los Angeles, has worked with the NBA for years and hosts the Los Angeles Lakers pregame show on 710 ESPN in Los Angeles. Shore said that while he thinks the technology has affected attendance some, it really has affected the demand for more information.
Shore has been on several social media panels and is quick to point out how much of an effect the social media has had on the sports radio business. Like Swirsky, Shore says tweeting with fans has become a large part of what he and his co-workers do during the Lakers’ season.
Whether or not the technology is good or bad for the games depends on who you talk to. Some people are all for it, but others despise it. Despite the opposition to it, this is just the beginning. Every year we become more of a technology-driven society.
So next time the big game is about to start, make sure you have all the essentials for good viewing: great food, a cool beverage, comfy chair and, of course, your smartphone and tablet. Because was a play really that great if you didn’t tweet about it?
This post was originally written as a story for a class at Anderson University
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