Sport has long been about so much more than the event or the team. It long since crossed over into a non-linear world of entertainment, previews, analysis and engagement that starts and finishes long beyond the first kick or the last whistle.
Last night in Dublin a new website called SportsJoe.ie was launched to bring competition to a market that has been dominated to date here by Balls.ie and The Score.
The tagline of the new site is that Sport never sleeps and it promises 24 hour rolling updates on news, results, sporting stories and digital content.
Developing out of a solid base from the successful Joe.ie site it comes ‘pre-loaded with an audience that has shown its hunger for sporting content online, on mobile and on tablet. Like the parent site it is optimised for mobile and the growth of smartphones use in Ireland, where we now check phones on average more than 100 times a day means that it is entering a market where there is a strong demand.
The Journal’s TheScore.ie is rebranding as The42.ie and increasing it’s journalist and content creation workforce by 35 over the coming months and Balls.ie is driving on with expansion towards the bigger and more lucrative market of the UK.
The content on all the sites is free as needs to be to attract a mass audience and the business model becoming established is of single big partnerships with online brands.
Ladbrokes is all over and around the launch pages of SportsJoe with betting promotions integrated into the story lists as well as in more traditional banner and skyscraper advertising.
Balls.ie is currently involved with Elvery’s Sports while The Score carries Nissan promotional material around it’s Champions’ League activations on each page.
The hardest demographic to reach for advertisers has traditionally been young males who have money to spend, few commitments and a short but highly viral attention span. That SportsJoe should kick off withy two lead content stories around MMA and a 12 month video diary contract with man of the moment Conor McGregor says much for its intent to deliver that audience.
The market is crowded but we have seen this week at the Web Summit that there remains an insatiable appetite for this content. Bleacher Report in the US has shown the massive investment potential so good luck to the three leaders in the field hoping to conquer Ireland first and then the world.
Brian Reynolds, founder of Balls.ie will be a keynote speaker alongside Lyndsey Irwin of the Sotic Digital Agency in the UK and Muirne Laffan, Managing Director of RTE Digital in the Innovation and Integration stream at Digital Sport 2014 on November 27th. A limited number of tickets are still available. See details below.
