MLB advanced media chief claims multi-platform approach is needed to attract young people to sport

Bob Bowman reflected that high quality content on multiple platforms was needed to attract young people ©Twitter

Major League Baseball's (MLB) President of advanced media Bob Bowman claimed that “connectivity is the most important part of young people’s lives” as digital media again featured highly in further discussions about how fans engage with sport taking place here today.

Bowman, who was speaking at the Leaders Sport Business Summit 2015, expressed the need of major sporting organisations and leagues to produce high quality digital content, reflecting that 70 per cent of this was now viewed on mobile devices by younger sports fans.

During the keynote session he expressed his view that organisations needed to employ a multi-platform style business model, arguing that relying on television solely would not prove as effective to draw in new viewers, as the number of pay-to-view TV households is beginning to drop.

“The phone is the most important screen in the world to young people,” he said.

“If you don’t have a world class app then you are missing out on a lot of people.

“If you don’t give them an event on the correct devices, they may say ‘I won’t watch it’.

"We have to accept that the only thing that millennials will watch live is sports - give them what they want, when they want it.”

Bowman also outlined that while baseball was enjoying lots of coverage in both the Americas and in Asia, a contributing factor to the sport being put forward for Olympic inclusion for Tokyo 2020, that MLB would be looking to introduce more content in Europe to continue to grow the sport and the league’s fanbase.

Twitter's Laura Froelich urged sporting bodies to put athletes at the heart of their content ©Twitter

His comments in an entertaining talk were also mirrored in a session titled “building fan relationships”, featuring Laura Froelich from Twitter, Amanda Vandervort, the senior director of social media at Major League Soccer (MLS) and Federico Palomba, head of marketing at Juventus FC, on digital and fan relationship management.

Vandervort expressed her view that highlights from sporting events needed to be made available as soon as possible to get fans to engage and discuss your event, a point furthered by Palomba who argued that a greater awareness of what appeals to fans is needed in order to attract worldwide engagement, rather than just local.

With sport’s organisations continually looking to attract a younger audience, Froelich explained how Twitter are looking to work with them to display their content but urged them to put the athletes at the heart of their brand.

The American stated that their “Twitter mirror”, which has allowed athletes to write messages for fans and has allowed beside-the-scenes material to be created, has proved widely popular while the use of video application Vine has proved successful in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States for sports companies, allowing them to promote the footwear used by star players in short clips.

The Leaders Sport Business Summit is being held at Stamford Bridge with more than 1,500 of the industry's most influential people sharing insights and sparking discussions to help shape the future of sport.