Peter Robert Casey, a fellow Sports Networker member who recently attended the Sports Networker NYC event has been getting a lot of attention online at mashable, Brian Solis, the St. John’s site (along with many others) for his recent “acceptance in the press” credentials he has received because of his powerful Twitter presence. Let’s just say, as a social media sports community that we are extremely proud of him for leading the way into this new opportunity.

Casey, according to the press release, is currently among the Top 10 most-followed basketball-related users on Twitter. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native and Bronx resident trails only NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers, University of Kentucky coach John Calipari, Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors, Charlie Villanueva of the Detroit Pistons and a few others among those associated with professional, collegiate and youth basketball. Casey is, by far, the most-followed basketball-related individual who is not a professional basketball player, team or coach.

Casey’s arrangement with St. John’s Athletics is as an independent, credentialed Twitter micro-blogger, which will allow him to use his access to take St. John’s basketball from his behind-the-scenes vantage point directly to hoops fans worldwide, and in real time via Twitter. Casey currently brings a broad-based perspective on all things basketball to his massive following on Twitter, distributing links to news items, event coverage and feature stories, while providing an interactive forum for discussion and conversation. Through Twitter, fans of St. John’s basketball and the basketball community as a whole will be able to chat with Casey during live action – about the game, athletes, coaches, strategy, atmosphere or any topic that comes to mind.

We are all really excited about this opportuny for Peter, and look forward to watching his live tweets courtside this season!  Follow Peter on Twitter here.

Do you think more teams will start giving bloggers and power twitter users press passes to tweet or blog live at the games?  How many followers should one have until they are considered for a press pass?

Southeastern Conference associate commissioner for media relations, Charles Bloom, has had better weeks. Actually, so has everyone in the SEC offices in Birmingham, Ala.

Just days after a conference ticket policy went into place, the SEC began to receive unprecedented criticism from season ticket holders at its 12 member schools to media nationwide. The primary complaint stemmed from language that when taken at face value, said that fans could not share their game experiences via social media – Twitter, Facebook and other outlets on which people like to post photos and comments during games. The league, which had signed an exclusive, lucrative, broadcast contract with ESPN and CBS in August 2008, that would take effect with the 2009-2010 sports season, was accused of prioritizing corporate dollars en route to disrespecting its fans.

“”We never intended to cut off social media in our stadiums,” Bloom said. “It was the language that was misleading.”

According to Bloom, who has deep roots within the SEC, having held sports information positions at member schools and at the Conference office since the late 1980s, the original ticket policy focused on the protection of video and photo rights.

“Our objective was to not flood the market with unlicensed video,” Bloom said. “Since this was a first-of-its-kind document for us, we relied heavily on information from other like documents, and those were very restrictive.”

“This a classic battle of PR versus legal and financial decisions. I think where we landed was a good middle ground for everyone.”

Upon further review, the SEC released a revised ticket policy. Unfortunately, by the time they put red pen to legal papers, the league had been dealt a big public relations blow with blog posts including Mashable, and stories in the New York Times and on CNN.com Live, shared among thousands.

Even after the SEC announced that a revision would be released, Bloom and his colleagues did their best to stop the PR bloodletting.

“As a PR professional, one of my main objectives is to obtain as much positive coverage on the league as possible,” Bloom said. “That is done various ways and sometimes you have to balance that by making unpopular decisions that in the end, benefits the league. Even after all is said and done, we will continue to accept comments and feedback.”

Bloom said that although each school had to sign off on the initial policy prior to making it public, the blaze of criticism took those not in the know about the impact of social media, by surprise. They didn’t realize that by telling fans they could not share photos and experiences via these widely viewed online portals, they would make fans believe they were less than valuable to the league.

That’s not to say that Bloom, who is @SECSportsUpdate on Twitter and has a Fan Page on Facebook didn’t learn something in the face of the publicity crisis.

“I was surprised with how quick and viral the issue became on social media,” Bloom said. “It was an amazing exercise for me and showed how important social media will become in our communications strategy.”

The SEC is using old-fashioned media relations to help ease the wounds of its mistakes as it continues to answer questions about its ticket and media policies.

“Through all of this, we have done our best to return every phone call and email possible on the subject.  That’s been our tactic because we have heard from so many,” Bloom said. “We did not issue a press release on the revision – we put it on Twitter and used our PR contacts to help spread the word.

“Social media will grow in the future. It may be in our best interest to have someone on our staff who is exclusively devoted to it – hopefully that will come one day.”

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Gail Sideman assisted the SEC to communicate the value of its fans to the league and in the communication of its revised policy.

Photo Credits: Social Media ;  SEC

Perception is reality I am told and recently sports sponsorship has taken it on the chin. Do we need to rehabilitate our image and if so, how?  Some have suggested we should change the terms we use to describe our practice.  Is this managing perception or folding in the face of uninformed critics?   Jason Peck had a spirited discussion on the topic a while back on his blog.  With that in mind, I thought it would be a decent enough time to take a look at a few of the terms we use day in and day out while networking in the biz. 

• Need – I hear a lot of people confuse charity with sponsorship in a way that screams desperation.  ”We need sponsorship.” Not to sound cold or corporate, but “need” should be removed from the sponsorship lexicon. Sponsorship is a business decision, not a philanthropic one.
• Levels – Sponsorship levels.  Don’t get me started. You’ve got certain assets, both tangible and intangible and the collection of them (and how the sponsor uses them) in a customized way is what makes them valuable to that particular sponsor. Want to commodotize your sponsorships?  Throw in some levels. Leveling should be left to bull dozers.
• Sponsorship – Partnership is in vogue, but in my opinion something more specific is needed and running from a practice (and term) that has helped to build brands with unparalleled success is not the answer. As an industry, what is our brand?
• Official – As opposed to the “unofficial” I suppose?
• Category Exclusive – You mean.. category exclusive until the property creates new categories.
• Ambush – You mean you didn’t do anything with your sponsorship and someone else came along and did – spending a lot less money doing it. Properties vigilantly protect rights + sponsors activate = ambush is irrelevant.
• Hospitality – Wikipedia refers to this as “the relationship process between a guest and a host, and it also refers to the act or practice of being hospitable, that is, the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers, with liberality and goodwill.”  We’ve also heard corporate entertainment, luxury suites, etc. In today’s environment, stealth marketing? What’s the term you use?

• Signage – Everyone uses the term signage, but nobody likes to think of sponsorship as “signs.”  In comes, sponsor visibility, awareness opportunities and branding. Ultimately, this one really depends on what you’re looking for and how you use it. Signage is still a viable tactic for name awareness and call to action. Just don’t confuse it with the activation… which leads us to..
• Activation – Some people call it leverage. I call it what the heck are you going to do with your sponsorship. Like buying media space and not running an ad. Sometimes when things work out right, properties provide the right benefits that grease the wheels of the sponsor’s activation plan.
• Media/Social Media – Shouldn’t all media be social in this day and age?  Is social media really it’s own breed like many properties are treating it? Fine maybe it is, but should it be? TV, radio, print and the internet should be one virtuous circle that emphasizes the sponsor’s raison d’etre… there.
• Recap – The annual recap. I get it.. measurement is important, but how about something a little more real time since we do have modern tools like smoke, the telephone and internet at our disposal. I also like “wrap-up report” and there’s always the sponsorship asset delivery recap or sponsorship fulfillment assessment.  I’m not making these up. Fun Fun.
• Renewal - commonly referred to as renegotiation or blame session.  This is the part where the sponsor blames the property (for what they didn’t do with the sponsorship), in order to reduce the renewal price or get out of the deal altogether.  Or ideally – and if it’s a true “partnership” – both parties are looking for ways to build on the positive outcomes the sponsorship received.

I’m not a linguist, but I do know that there are a lot of properties that are using different words to say pretty much the same exact thing.  Semantics? Perhaps. But if everyone’s speaking a different language there is probably some logical reason why, no? After all, “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” In which case, how do you say it? More importantly, how should we (collectively) say it?

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Photo Credit via flickr: Text