You Mean They Like to Blog the TV Games Too?

It is good the research is in to support the reality that the second screen is for interaction with TV.

I had running discussions -- hesitate to say battle, but they were skeptical -- with administrators back in the beginning of interactive blogs at Arkansas thinking it wasn't necessary to do any game on TV.  Some thought that "infringed" on the TV rights; others naively believed "who would follow that" when they could watch.

For the community.  And while we did get a different crowd -- the ones who had no other way to follow the event previously (no TV coverage) -- were less and the need for volumes of play by play was reduced, a much different dynamic began as the fans could discuss among themselves what they saw.

In the report, I'll call out two obvious problems.  First, this looked at 16-to-24.  My experience is this is NOT a youth movement.  We had as many fans over 30 as under on sports blogs at Arkansas.

The second one was this quote from the report:

The challenge for second screen content today is that it is likely to be relatively expensive as we are still in an experimental, bespoke phase.

Relatively expensive?  Compared to the total production cost of the event -- are you kidding?  A CoverItLive or similar interface account is a modest expense without advertising and finding a staff member to interact.  That's it.  We never had marketing or the rights holder on board sufficiently (read: they didn't care because they didn't see it as a revenue stream worthy of their time), but there was no doubt in my mind that a little effort could have washed the minimal costs through a sponsorship agreement.

Like so many things in social -- they aren't free, people's time is money, but it is about believing in the end result -- building community and affinity -- and deciding that it is going to get done.

As master Yoda said:  Do.  Or do not.  There is no try.