Charlotte sports consultant inks deal with college football group

By Erik Spanberg
Charlotte Business Journal
August 28, 2006

A college football trade group hopes to tap into the online huddle of college football fans -- and they're turning to a Charlotte company to make it happen.

Sports Media Challenge, working with partner firm Capital Thought of Austin, Texas, has created software designed to comb through fan chat rooms, blogs and other discussion groups to determine which topics resonate and whether fans have positive or negative opinions on various aspects of the college game.

The software, known as Buzz Manager, also searches traditional online media to find the same things. Clients then receive weekly reports on what is being discussed and where and by whom.

Kathleen Hessert, Sports Media Challenge president, compares the service to an instantaneous, all-encompassing clip service bolstered by expert analysis.

NCAA Football, a separate group from the college sports governing body, has hired Sports Media Challenge to monitor and report on how fans and media view the sport, beginning this season. NCAA Football includes members from all the major conferences, the American Football Coaches Association and the Bowl Championship Series, the organization responsible for managing the national championship bowl games.

"The online community is driven by passion," Hessert says. "If you ignore where your fans are and what they're saying, it's ludicrous."

Hessert's firm, which specializes in media training and consultation, began exploring online media surveys two years ago. Buzz Manager clients pay $25,000 and up for monitoring over a period of five months or more, she says. Specific terms of the NCAA Football deal weren't disclosed.

She says being able to discern the similarities and differences between what fans and media say is crucial. The custom software also provides much quicker access than using mainstream search tools such as Google while filtering out extraneous links, the company says.

NCAA Football has also hired Sports Media Challenge to launch a college football blog. The blog, which can be accessed on ncaafootball.com starting Thursday, will include guest appearances during the season by high-profile coaches such as Charlie Weis at the University of Notre Dame and Phil Fulmer of the University of Tennessee.

Hessert is using a combination of full-time staffers and graduate-school interns from San Diego State University's sports management MBA program to sort and analyze the data gleaned online.



All News