It’s easy to be a fan of a popular professional sports team. If you live in the United States most probably you are a fan of team from the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, or NHL whether we want it or not. If you live in Europe (or most of the world actually) chances are that you are a fan of Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Juventus or some other football team of the same level. But the topic of my article is not this.
We know that there are almost as many different types of sports fans as there are sports, but besides those mentioned above whom I call conventional fans (or whatever you want to call them) there is out there an important number of fans who consider themselves part of the ultras movement in football and other sports, especially in Europe and South America (but not only). I am talking about those kinds of people who tend to support those professional sports teams that are not considered big brands in the global sports market. This category would also include semi-professional or even amateur teams, groups of the ultras movements, ect.
Although there is no easy access to statistical data which would show the figures of the fans involvement and interaction in social media but I would argue that the fans of semi-professional, amateur and recreational sports teams make up quite a big part of the active sports community that follows their teams on conventional social media platforms. Only in the U.S. there are about 50 million people that participate in recreation and amateur sports teams each year, and hundreds of millions more worldwide.
From what I have observed during my time on this platform, it seems that there are some active sports fans on Steemit, but the majority of them would fit in those categories of sports fans that I have described in the first paragraph of this posting. Mainly I have seen authors who post content related to the NFL, NBA, NHL, UEFA Champions League Top Clubs, ect.
How can Steemit step in?
My idea is that Steemit should be targeting this particular group of sports fans for quite a lot of reasons. The most important one would be the fact that these kind of teams are not considered big brands in the global sports market are most likely to turn their social media activity to Steemit.
Social media is proven to be the greatest tool for sports teams to increase their brand awareness. Allowing the opportunity for fans to interact with their players has made sports pages of among most popular in ‘conventional’ social medias like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, ect. Although the conventional social media platforms have given a great opportunity also to amateur and semi-professional teams to do interaction with their fans by enabling them to host their own sportscenters, so to speak, but from a revenue point of view of course it is the world-class sports teams that are making the most of it.
I am confident that a big number of amateur, semi-professional and even professional sports teams would embrace Steemit and DTube as their official social media partner or something similar to this, if there would be some kind of special incentive provided for them. A simple example would be that the fans (new steemit members) can have the opportunity to decline payout so that the rewards of their activity (comments, upvotes) go to the post creator.
This would provide a quick and effective fundraising method for the teams in one side, and in the same time it would bring a large number of new users into the platform.
This should bring more “real-life people” in Steemit
In just six months since I have created my Steemit account I have noticed that the platform needs to attract more “real life people”. I am more than convinced that it is in the best interest of this community to fill its ranks with new members who do not necessarily need to be crypto-enthusiasts.
By this I mean more people like myself who have other professions and hobbies besides those related to the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.