All the major US and Canadian sports leagues are looking to grow their social presence, digital business and fan experience. With these goals in mind it would seem that a marriage between Foursquare and these sports leagues is a no brainer. It’s odd that Foursquare has not incorporated events into the fold but I would suggest that a partnership with the NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL would be an easy and mutually beneficial place to begin. Let’s me take the perspective of the respective sports leagues and their teams.

The major sports have all been able to grow their business in the digital world through partnerships (e.g. fantasy gaming is huge) and content syndication but none have really been able to take a leadership role in the social space. With the knowledge that social interaction and building upon the passions of sports fans in an effort to connect them to their team in a social manner will ultimately translate into a more one-to-one sales and marketing relationship (see upcoming pieces for the value of Social CRM) and a better customer experience, better feedback loop and opportunities to direct sell, these leagues need to figure out how to do more than have Twitter accounts and Facebook fans. One thing that is clearly working in social media is the idea of “check-ins” and using these check-ins with business discounts driving sales and loyalty programs there is nothing for sports leagues to lose. However I wouldn’t suggest it for just those reasons, they’re obvious enough.

An Instant Loyalty Program

I believe that if the major sports leagues worked with both Foursquare and each of their digital media departments they could immediately grow their social presence. By making every game in every park/stadium a check-in opportunity the leagues could easily run contests to reward the most loyal fans, the fans who traveled the most to see their team etc – an instant loyalty program! However if you really want to get social, the check-in at the game should instantly send the user a special offer for league merchandise at the game (upsell) and with it an opt-in chance to be part of the game community. Other offers could be made throughout the game, but the key would be that during and after the game an instant community (people are checking in from mobile phones and iPads after all) can emerge where Tweets are all hash tagged with the check-in tag, users are able to vote on in game polls, participate in fantasy games and have a fully social experience at the game. After the game it can’t stop there, the leagues can then continue to populate the community game page and fold the users into the larger team and league social community.

Simply by taking advantage of the growing user community of Foursquare users (a partnership tat Foursquare would jump at) the major sports leagues could open the door to a hugely social group of fans and be able to increase their social presence both at the game and afterward.

The key would of course be in the execution of how the league and team used the check-in to open the door to an in and after game social experience but there is a tremendous opportunity out there for one league to take the lead and explore.

I do know that the leagues have all formed partnerships with Fanvibe, but trying to force users onto a sports only site is of no advantage to the leagues when Foursquare is already at approximately 2,000,000 users and growing each day – this is one of those times where you go where the people are you don’t try to build your own competing service.

What do you think, are the leagues missing an opportunity here?

If you enjoyed this post I recommend:

• February 7, 2010 -- Check-In Currency
• July 17, 2012 -- Gamification For Employees
• July 16, 2012 -- Creating A Content Marketing Culture