The Social Scrum #02

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joe.weston
In this month’s Social Scrum, our Director of We Are Social Sport, Joe Weston delves into the biggest sport and social media news from the last four weeks.

American sport embraces Twitter
Twitter has this month announced the extension of its content deals with the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Soccer (MLS). The multi-year NFL deal will see new live shows around some of the league’s biggest events come to the platform, along with weekly game highlights, pre-game Q&As with players, curated Twitter Moments, sponsored content opportunities for brands, and more. Meanwhile, the agreement with MLS will see North America’s premier soccer league continue to provide the platform with live and on-demand content each week until 2022.

The National Hockey League (NHL) is also bringing its Facebook Live Show, ‘Stanley Cup Live’, back for this year’s championship round — this time adding Twitter to the mix. Starting this week (May 27th), the NHL will now live stream ‘Stanley Cup Live’ on both platforms before each game of the Stanley Cup Final.

Twitch tests new subscriber-only streams feature
Live streaming video platform Twitch is currently testing a new subscriber-only streams feature which would block non-paying users from viewing certain content. The update, currently being tested on the channel ‘hgg_cheering_test’, will give users a short preview of the content before asking them to subscribe to see more. The current incarnation of the feature is only being tested to apply toward Hearthstone Global Games – which feature players from multiple countries that compete against each other – and is believed to be aimed at promoting a pay-per-view service for esports tournaments.



Amazon snatches WTA Tour UK rights from BT Sport
Following its acquisition of the men’s ATP World Tour 1000 and 500 rights in 2017, Amazon has picked up exclusive UK rights to the WTA tennis tour from 2020 – taking them from the incumbent broadcaster, BT Sport. Under its 2017 to 2019 deal, BT held the live rights to 52 events per year, as well as digital rights. This acquisition means Amazon now has rights in the UK to both the men’s and women’s tennis tours; in addition to its five-year US Open deal which runs until 2022.

Lucozade rewrites ‘Three Lions’ in support of women’s football
Lucozade Sport has rewritten the classic football song, Three Lions in support of England’s female players ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup this summer. ‘Three Lionesses’ launches as the soundtrack to Lucozade Sport’s new ad, which tells the story of footballers overcoming prejudices to reach the international stage. The video is part of a wider brand campaign which aims to encourage more women to try football by giving away 90,000 minutes of free pitch time nationwide; as well helping to make women footballers as prominent household names as their male counterparts.



Ms Banks features in the BBC’s Women’s World Cup trailer
South London rapper, Ms Banks has reworked Fort Minor’s ‘Remember the Name’ track, and performed the song, for the BBC’s new trailer to promote this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in France. The video, which aired on Saturday during an episode of ‘Football Focus’, forms part of the BBC’s ‘Change the Game’ campaign aimed at promoting its summer of women’s sport coverage. All 24 qualifying national teams are represented in the film, alongside England players such as Steph Houghton, Nikita Parris and Lucy Brown.



BBC Sport gets accused of plagiarism over ‘Slay In Your Lane’
Author and journalist, Yomi Adegoke has accused the BBC of plagiarising the title of her book ‘Slay in Your Lane’, which became a billboard tagline as part of the broadcaster’s ‘Change the Game’ campaign. The title, ‘Slay in Your Lane’, is classed as a registered trademark in the UK; however, the BBC says that the legal advice it sought informed them the line was “sufficiently far removed from the goods and services covered by the trademark registration in place.” It is understood that posters using the headline were taken out of circulation from Tuesday 28th March.



Social Moments of the Month