A few weeks ago CIC released our latest IWOM white paper, Tuning into Sports IWOM 2007 Q4 (download here or get off of slideshare here). Unfortunately, I never really had a chance to write up a follow up post about the paper because of the earthquake, but after reviewing the paper again, I really do think it has some good case studies worth mentioning, especially the one about NBA “group reporting/watching”

Case Study: ‘Group Reporting/Watching’ on Twitter and Chinese BBS

During game 2 of the NBA finals between the Laker-Celtics, I noticed that one of the people I follow on Twitter, social media guru Shel Israel, was “live tweeting” the game with some fellow Celtic fans. See example of a typical tweet here.

Shel kept up with other Celtic fans by using ‘hashtag’ markers #beatla. If you do a search on Twitter search engine Summize for #beatla, you can find others commenting. See here.

A quick analysis looking at Summize shows about 90 messages over the course of the game written by about 15 people.

This phenomena of “group twittering” among fans is something that has gained momentum this year in the US. I first saw it happening around the Super Bowl and American National Public Radio recently did a feature on Boston Redsox twittering fans here.

What’s interesting is that this phenomena of “group watching” or “group reporting” has actually been going on for years on BBS, especially around the NBA and football (aka soccer).

In our white paper we outlined how it works (see screen shot from the white paper below): a fan will set up a special topic within a popular BBS forum, inviting other fans to join the conversation to discuss the game as it happens. After the game, the conversation will continue with further analysis.

If we take a look at Game 2 of the NBA finals on June 9, we see that on the popular basketball community , Hoopchina, two “group watching” conversations were set up in the Lakers fan forum and Celtics fan forum. Within the few days surrounding Game 2 of the NBA finals, the conversation in the Lakers fan forum received 87,430 page views, 4,974 replies by an estimated 600 unique posters and the conversation in the Celtics fan forum received 28,966 page views and 1,926 replies by approximately 200 unique posters.

Prior to the match, fans upload pictures, audio and videos supporting their favorite teams and players. (see below)

Pictures:

Audio:
Netizens uploaded the Italian pop song “In the Name of Love” and dedicated the tune to the Lakers to show their support for the team. (Link)

Video:

Title: Let’s go Celtics

During the match, fans actively uploaded instant reports and updates. Below are some sample quotes from the Lakers and Celtics forums:

“What the hell are you doing? There are only 22 seconds left. Why don’t you pass the ball to Kobe? 搞什么，22秒，为什么球不到kb手里” Link

“Great steal! Celtics’ defense is really strong! 抢断不错，防守果然强悍” Link

Keep in mind, these are just two conversations on two forums. There are countless fan clubs, fan sites and sports verticals hosting conversations and generally serving as platforms of love for the NBA, its teams and players.

Following the match, fans continued to discuss game highlights and key statistics and cheer for their favorite team in new conversations such as “Let’s Go Lakers!!” (Link) which received 18,689 page views and 689 replies.

Chinese NBA fans gather and cheer virtually

To be fair, I don’t think comparing Twitter to Chinese BBS is an apples to apples comparison in terms of users. Twitter users are a very vocal minority who are social media geeks (that is a compliment, by the way), and some of them happen to be sports fans. Hoopchina is an example of a basketball vertical with very active basketball fans.

It’s not a fair comparison, but it does underline a key principle that we believe: Chinese IWOM and social media are more “mainstream” than in the US. Chinese netizens are passionate about their sports and have been going to the Internet to express this passion for years. In addition to vertical communities like Hoopchina, you can find active “amateur analysts” on blog groups on BSP’s like Sina, Sohu and Netease. Even the NBA is now inviting such analysts to write commentary on its site. In the US, however, it seems only recently that such fan driven sites have been popping up in the US (see Bleacher Report as one example here). There are other sites like FanNation, but they do not seem to have as active a community as Chinese sites. I could be wrong about the US market, but after checking around with people who would likely know, I found no comparable site, at least in terms of such activities as “group watching” live games.

This case also demonstrates the overall passion of NBA fans in China. It is not surprising then that the NBA has big ambitions for China, raising US $253 million for NBA China (giving away only 11% of the company). The Internet is already a big part of the NBA experience for Chinese fans:

The NBA’s Chinese language website makes up one third of the NBA’s total web traffic, according to the report. Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) is an official partner of the NBA’s Chinese website operated by Chinese broadband sports portal Nusports.cn. Sohu and Nusports.cn are expected to continue offering live online broadcasts of NBA games in 2008. KongZhong Corporation’s (Nasdaq: KONG) Kong.net is the official WAP site partner of the NBA. Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) users searched for “NBA” more than 61 million times in November, 2007.

It seems that instead of going to sports bars or a friend’s house to gather around a TV, Chinese netizens prefer to virtually gather around the live video stream and virtually cheer. Other sports franchises looking to enter China may want to take heed.