Bleacher Report's Courtside Correspondent
The 6th Annual Awards
- Best Use of Culture Music or Entertainment
ABOUT THIS ENTRY
It’s clear fans covet a deeper connection to the teams, athletes, and leagues they passionately follow and that connecting with fans is critical. Bleacher Report consistently meets those needs in unparalleled and creative fashions often experiementing and testing the boundaries of what is possible. Take for example, its new real-time social experient, Courtside Correspondent. This content series plants professional athletes from other leagues in courtside seats for their first-time at a NBA, NHL, or MLB game allowing fans to follow along with unprecedented access. Players are miced up with a single camera spotlighting their experience as they take over Bleacher Report’s Instagram stories and timeline with authentic banter, game predictions, and interactions with players and TNT crew.
How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?
This execution created a direct connection with athletes for fans with video as the primary vehicle. Courtside Correspondent provides access driven video to an audience clamoring to be closer to the athletes and teams they love. This content series highlights athletes off the field and allowed their personalities to draw attention and support to TNT league partners. This achieved the goal of developing an innovative, repeatable franchise that could activate during TNT’s biggest sports tentpoles. Having professional athletes mic’d up as spectators has allowed for a humanizing effect for some of the biggest sports stars. It has created a space of vulnerability like when Deandrea Swift asked the rules of baseball during one of Courtside Correspondents’ executions. It was kindly received by fans because of the environment he was in, and the comfortability to ask questions. Through Courtside Correspondents, fans are able to tap into authentic athlete interaction unlike anything else seen in the industry.
Objective
Unprecedented access Bleacher Report’s exclusive access and partnerships with some of the biggest names in sports makes this execution unlike any other. A run in with LeBron James, an intro with Wayne Gretzky, incredibly special authentic and unstaged moments captured for our audeience are what set this content series apart. By putting the right pieces in place, we are able to let the night unfold organically and capture content that turns into an engaging and viral experience, like Micah Parsons trending during a Celtics playoff game reading the comments from fans on his phone. This original onsite and live content created to support some of the biggest tentpoles in sports broke new ground. Unfiltered reactions from the biggest names in sports as we documented their reactions and unprompted dialogue created a content experience that felt unstaged and organic.
Strategy & Execution
Multi-Platform Engagement In a fractured media landscape, appealing to audiences through a mix of distribution channels is critical. This is especially true for Gen Z fans. Courtside Correspondent is produced for distribution across YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the B/R App. Its creation was social first and designed to illicit strong responses – and it delivered, generating more than nine million engagements. The results were eye-catching with moments like cxx. From one singular shoot, B/R can generate dozens of pieces of content all catering to the platform of the fan’s choosing. Bleacher Report leads the industry in linear and social integrations innovating its NBA, NHL, and MLB broadcasts through the introduction of B/R’s social content. We innovated creatively, from the way we shot the content of athletes and celebs courtside, to the way we packaged the content alongside the game footage they're watching.
Organizations
- Bleacher Report
- TNT Sports
Links
Credits
Tyler Price
VP
Bleacher Report
Louise Chouinard
Producer
Bleacher Report
Katie OMealia
Programming
Bleacher Report
Celebrate in NYC
Join us for the 6th Annual Hashtag Sports Awards™ on the evening of June 6, 2024 as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.
