Given Facebook’s critical mass, it’s not really big news that the Heat have more FB likes than Twitter followers. Still, the rate of growth on Facebook is so far outstripping Twitter than it is worth noting.

The inflection point occurs on July 8, when King James made his historic pronouncement. Since then, the number of fans following the Heat on Twitter has grown by 5,154 (25%), but the number of fans “liking” the Heat on FB has grown by 38,576 (143%).

According to TNS Research, the Heat have just over 2 million Americans (12+) who say the Heat are their favorite team. Sixty-two percent of these “favorite team” fans live outside of Florida, and just 442,240 (20%) live in the Miami DMA. Obviously would expect these numbers to swell both inside Orlando as well as in Florida, throughout the U.S. and abroad. More

It’s also important to note that Lebron has over 400,000 fans following him on Twitter, ranking him #8 on the list of top NBA stars; and the super star has over 2.6 Facebook fans, which makes him as big as the NBA on the social platform, and ranks him 199th on the overall list of largest FB followings.

Can you see yourself in this picture?
Pictured above are a few of the wonderful speakers from our recent Sports Marketing 2.0 VIP Summit in NYC. (From left: Williams Flaiz (Razorfish), Tom Richardson (Convergence Sports & Media), Eric Herd (Sportsfanlive.com), Joe Dupriest (Washington Capitals), Shripal Shah (Redskins), John Demarchi (DesiHits.com), Kirsten Corio (NBA), Adriana Rizzo (ESPN), James McDermott (Webtrends), Ian Hall (Octagon), Pat Coyle (Coyle Media).

We are looking for speakers for our upcoming events Sports Marketing 2.0 will hold (2) more VIP Summits in 2010: September in San Francisco and October in Atlanta. Qualified speakers will have expertise in sports media plus social media, mobile, and / or digital strategy. If you are interested in being considered as a speaker at one or both events, please follow this link and complete the Speaker Form.

The image above is taken from a new visualization tool sponsored by Umbro, a big brand in soccer apparel which just happens to be owned by Nike. I looked around a bit, but couldn’t find anything that shows Umbro is an official World Cup sponsor, so I assume the brand is not affiliated officially, although it recently has signed on as official sponsor of the UK initiative to bring the WC there in 2018.

Competition aside, the infographic is a savvy initiative for the soccer brand. Umbro is a brand that literally lives on the field. It has immense cache with soccer players worldwide. It makes sense that the brand would seek to add value to the most serious soccer fans by providing an innovative illustration of statistics. This is an engaging piece of content, and and great use of new tech.

From Umbro’s blog: “By simply looking at when successful passes (green lines) have been made in the game, alongside shots (blue triangles) and goals (red circles), you can build an intriguing picture of how the match progressed. For instance, the detail of Spain’s surprise defeat to Switzerland comes to life in the graphic at the top of the page, while an overview of all the action can be gleaned by looking at data from all the matches so far. Click on the picture below to see all the group matches in all their glory, looking more like a musical store than a football report.”

Perhaps inspired by its guerrilla parent, this post shows, Umbro has been uncharacteristically active during the World Cup. the brand has focused heavily on digital media and encouraging fan engagement outside the game broadcast windows. For example, Umbro is also running a photo contest called, “Spirit of South Africa.” (I discovered this initiative view Fast Company).

As I mentioned, competition between Nike (ambush marketer) and Adidas (official sponsor) has been heated throughout the World Cup, garnering both brands a lot of earned media attention.

From ABC News: Social-media monitoring firm Meltwater Buzz looked at online buzz May 24 through Thursday for 11 top sponsors, partners and other key marketers and found outsider Nike had 26% vs. 20% for Adidas, a FIFA partner, and 11% for Sony, also a partner.

Credit Nike’s “Write the Future” soccer ad that launched May 20 on Facebook, says spokesman Derek Kent. It’s had 14 million YouTube views. This Nike video has earned more than 14 million views on Youtube:

Beyond the stadium, beyond traditional TV and beyond the official property Websites, social media has become the HOT place where brands seek engagement with fans. This World Cup tourney is proof that. As footy teams on the pitch vie for goals, the sponsor brands seek exposure and social media followers. But I’m sure questions will arise over the value of fan engagement via social channels.

As I mentioned in my last post, there remains a large disparity in CPM rates between traditional and digital media. Does this gap exist because brands don’t value the exposure they get from digital as much as what they get from TV? Or are brands less willing to pay high CPM for digital because they believe they can earn digital impressions more efficiently through their own engagement campaigns?

Regardless of the reasons and rationale, brands are clearly trying to gain followers on Twitter and Facebook, and in this race, Budweiser is leading the pack among World Cup sponsors. (See this post about the value of a Facebook fan).

Brands gaining ground during FIFA World Cup
Social Media Influence is doing a nice job breaking down World Cup sponsor activity on social media. Below is an image taken from its World Cup social media audit:
Bud United, initiative seems to be generating the most buzz (no pun intended).

Unlike Nike, Budweiser is an official FIFA Wold Cup sponsor, and it is using its entitlement well. The American beer brand is running a global, integrated media campaign that combines traditional and digital media.

Bud’s strategy is right on: connect fans to each other, and connect them to the brand
“Budweiser is doing everything we can to unite beer drinkers during the tournament, and this is a great way for us to connect with people around the world across multiple layers,” said Andrew Sneyd. Budweiser’s global advertising director.

Bud’s usage of World Cup entitlement is powerful: give fans unprecedented access to the experience:
“It’s amazing that FIFA has allowed us to democratize the man of the match trophy, and to let the world decide who the best player of any given match is,” said Sneyd.

I wish I had more time to dig into this topic, but a sunny Saturday beckons from outside my window. Clearly there is something new and something BIG happening here vis a vis sports sponsors and social media. That said, it’s clear to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sports properties have been challenged, and will continue to be challenged, by brands who find ways to activate ambush marketing promotions which borrow excitement from the property without paying for rights.

Here’s a complete list of World Cup sponsors

More on World Cup sponsors from NY Times

The first thing I found was Mary Meeker’s awesome State of the Internet Report which shows: Read

But this chart is a broad average. If we are talking about CPM for banner ads or video pre-rolls, and assuming the prospective buyer is trying to reach fans of a specific sport or team (not just sports fans in general, or adults, or some other general demographic segment), then I’d say:

$10 to $20 CPM (page views)
$20 to $50 CPM (Video pre-roll)

These rates are higher than the general market average, and that’s intentional. From what I’ve seen, the key to earning premium CPM is to package your unique audience and tailor marketing programs for sponsors (rather than selling pure media).

Along these lines, you might find this article interesting

There are two main trends which will impact your pricing:

1. Downward pressure caused by inventory glut – Facebook, along with ad “networks” and “marketplaces” tend to commoditize impressions because they can’t possibly sell all the impressions they create.

2. Upward pricing trends as Internet rates come in line with other (declining) media – traditional media have long enjoyed (relatively) healthy CPMs compared to what’s happening with digital. Some think digital will increase in value…I say, that’s only going to happen if (sellers) learn to sell. For more on this, read this article

These slides taken from Mary Meeker’s annual 2010 Internet Trends deck – here it is

This report comes from Adify, and data is only from its ad networks…but it looks pretty useful:

Here’s some video info:

YOUTUBE IS HELPING DRIVE THE OVERALL VIDEO CATEGORY read
YouTube is having more success this year selling premium ad inventory. In addition, since YouTube drives most of the video viewing online (about 40%, according to comScore) it is helping the entire category meet aggressive near-term analyst forecasts. Specifically:
• Run-of-network pre-roll inventory is generating $10 to $15 CPMs.
• Overlays are around $8 to $10 CPMs.
• In addition, the company is receiving CPMs of between $5 and $6 on its homepage leaderboard banner ad with daily buys that can range from $200K to $300K.

And revenue per unique user chart :

At the end of the day it is incumbent on the publisher to know its audience, and create opportunities for advertisers and sponsors to engage with this audience. The better we package our engagement platforms, and the more valuable our audience, the higher price we can charge for our impressions, and the higher the value of each and every unique visitor.

Meanwhile, one question my client didn’t ask (but is certainly worth asking) is this: what is my mobile audience worth?

Mary Meeker says that within the next 5 years, more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop computer. read

What’s next for Sports Marketing 2.0?
Stay tuned for two more Sports 2.0 VIP Summits in 2010: September in San Francisco and October in Atlanta. Registration will open this Summer.

Follow the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York today to our Sports Marketing Twitter Page!

Stay tuned for two more Sports 2.0 VIP Summits in 2010: September in San Francisco and October in Atlanta. Registration will open this Summer.

As of Friday there were over 100 news stories published regarding the deal, below are a some highlights:

• Venture Beat: “[The NFL license is] a remarkable achievement”

• ESPN: “[Quick Hit] now it has done the unthinkable and signed a multi-year agreement with the NFL”

• Bloomberg / Businessweek: “the NFL’s first licensing agreement for an online game”

• San Fran Chronicle: “ social gaming start-up is about to go big time”

• Kotaku: “[Quick Hit] lands rare league license”

This morning…

SBJ: “Quick Hit gets boost from NFL License”

You can find more information and view the press release at www.quickhit.com/nfl.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Twitter’s new World Cup site, do so now. It’s an amazing source of news for FIFA’s tournament–and perhaps a glimpse at how we’ll be socializing during events, in a Twitter-dominated future.

Fast Company – If this foray into live-event social networking isn’t part of Twitter’s expansion plans, it should be. (Whatever they do, they need to solve that spam problem, on the double. At least put a cap on the Hashflags, k?)

Imagine if Twitter branched this service out to other sports and tournaments–say, the NFL, NCAA March Madness, and the Olympics. The events could be designed just as the current World Cup site; branching the service out should be a no-brainer, and it’s an angle that apps such as Hot Potato have already tried to capitalize on.

But with Twitter’s massive, skyrocketing audience, which just grew to some 2 billion tweets per month, the 140-character powerhouse may have found a new market to tap in the live-event arena.