How to Engage Today's Sports Fans with Jack Settleman CEO SnapBack Sports

The Work in Sports Podcast - Insider Advice for Sports Careers

Hey everybody, I’m Brian Clapp VP of Content and Engaged Learning at WorkInSports.com and this is the WorkInSports podcast!

Just as much as change is a constant, so too is resistance to change.

Every generation, to some degree, fights against change. They like how things operated in their youth, that is what they see as their perfect combination of how things should be.

This definitely applies to sports, and unfortunately just about everything else. A lot of the discord in our society comes down to many people being unwilling to change, they like the powerful seat they have, and change could disrupt that.

In sports, it’s often about nostalgia, memories of going to the game with their dad and getting a hot dog vs. sharing memes on social media.

I remember vividly how upset the generation before mine was about the wild card being introduced in baseball... it was going to ruin the game! The Wild Card, really? The game is so fragile that introducing more teams to the playoff format can break it?

This resistance is nonsense, things change. The world changes. Demand changes.

The fact you carry around a supercomputer in your back pocket capable of giving you real time game results, means you don’t have to wait for Headline News to give you updates on the sports news of the day at the 10’s and 50’s of each hour. And you surely don’t have to wait for tomorrow’s newspaper.

Anyone that is resistant to these changes is stuck.

Now, that said, I’m not always a social media maven, I still like to watch a game instead of just highlights, I still like a well-crafted story...and every once in a while, when I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll turn on SportsCenter and remember the olden days.

That was a bit of a rocket shot at ESPN... sorry, love you guys!

Today’s media and fans are changing, their appetite their interests. Do you think commissioners like Adam Silver can afford to sit back and think, man I loved the days those fans acted in this particular way. That was great.

No! They are constantly evolving!

That bring us to today’s guest Jack Settleman, CEO and Creator of SnapBack Sports. Jack hosted a panel right after mine, at the recent Hashtag Sports conference, and he captivated me. Jack was talking new media, new fans ad new levels of attraction...I was hooked and wanted to learn more.

Snapback sports tagline: a new way to consume sports – does just that, really well. Snapback is the largest sports Snapchat account in the world totaling over 500M+ views YTD. And Jack and his team leverage other social channels, collaborations, memes, experiences, betting, fantasy –it's amazing, and it works.

Let’s learn a little something about fandom with Jack Settleman CEO f SnapBack Sports!