Most sports media executives would agree: the key to getting viewers to watch live sports is producing an entertaining product. That’s largely true; people wouldn’t watch sports if the games were uninteresting.
But one Fox Sports executive thinks that a lot of his peers are close-minded in that framing. Sports are entertaining, sure. But the real key to success in sports media is creating a sense of “belonging,” according to Ben Valenta, SVP of Strategy & Analytics at Fox Sports.
Appearing on The Varsity podcast with Puck’s John Ourand alongside San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer, Valenta, who authored the book Fans Have More Friends, described why emphasizing the “belonging” aspect of sports fandom is more valuable than simply focusing on creating an entertaining television product.
“Sports are entertaining, but they are not entertainment,” Valenta asserted. “Sports is the business of belonging. That’s how this business works. So if we frame it that way, and we frame it properly, then every question, every challenge, every opportunity that comes across Larry [Baer’s] desk, he’s thinking about differently as a result of that framing. And we’re getting closer to the heart of why consumers actually engage in this space. Why they give their money to the businesses in the space.”
It’s fascinating to hear someone who works at a sports media company somewhat diminish the quality of the product as a reason why people would tune in or out. Individuals up and down the ranks at Fox Sports are no doubt striving to innovate and create a better viewing experience for fans, but for Valenta, that’s all secondary.
The executive cited this year’s NBA ratings discourse as an example of why he’s right. Earlier this season, many in the media were criticizing the style of play that has overtaken many of the league’s teams as a reason why ratings were down. But at season’s end, ratings were relatively flat versus last year.
“There was a lot of coverage paid to how the ratings were dipping for the NBA. And there were a lot of commentators talking about, ‘What could be the problem? What’s wrong with the NBA? How can we fix the NBA?’ And because they were framing the question in an entertainment lens, they naturally arrive at entertainment answers. And those entertainment answers are all about, ‘Well, there’s too many three-pointers.’ As if that’s the reason people engage in the first place. And it’s not.”
That viewpoint is quite innovative for someone working at a network, but it seems rooted in fact. The sense of community and inclusion built around fandom is a much more compelling factor for whether someone will watch a game or not than if a certain subset of fans think teams take too many threes now.
At the end of the day, sports is about a shared experience. And while it’s more than fair to criticize the entertainment product, perhaps, from a business perspective, more attention should be paid to building that community that keeps fans engaged.