ESPN & YouTube Want To Give You A Shot At Being On SportsCenter

Hey sports fanatics, get ready to qualify for the chance to appear in a highlight on ESPN’s SportsCenter! According to Broadcasting & Cable, the sports network is preparing to launch a new promotion on YouTube that will encourage fans to submit local sports highlights of themselves, their friends and their families. The top highlights will be broadcast on none other than SportsCenter. The YouTube launch looks to be the beginning of a major social media campaign for ESPN, bringing Facebook and Twitter into the mix as well.

According to Jon Lafayette of B&C, Senior VP and General Manager for Digital Media at ESPN, John Kosner, the sports network is taking a hint from the fact that sports fans are relying more and more on social media to discuss sports, from games to favorite players, trade news and more. Kosner said, “There is a lot of ad sales interest in social media programs on ESPN.com and on ESPN Mobile.” The YouTube campaign will be the first of these commercial social media programs, but Kosner said ESPN is talking about similar campaigns on Facebook and Twitter as well.

ESPN isn’t completely new to the social media scene. They have managed campaigns on Facebook, including giving Facebook fans the option to share their NFL draft picks in their news feeds, and the implementation of Facebook chat in their coverage of the World Cup. However, they plan to push forward in the world of social media even more. They plan to launch a new social sports game, created by Playdom, called ESPNU College Town, which gives players the opportunity to build their own college campuses, Sims-style.

However, I have a feeling that once the ESPN-YouTube campaign launches it will be great for SportsCenter and ESPN as a whole. I can just see local sports stars, the high school quarterback, the neighborhood rugby champion, uploading their highlights in the hopes of being broadcast on SportsCenter and getting discovered. Not to mention the increase in viewership of the show, which will most likely result from people tuning in to see which YouTube clips made the cut. Details about the campaign and its launch date have not yet been announced, but we will keep you updated.

Will you submit a local sports highlight clip to YouTube when the ESPN SportsCenter campaign begins?

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.