Arena Live Blog can be your biggest ally in broadcasting the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Check out how Fox Sports Australia leverages it and, boy, will you be amazed.
Starting on July 23, the Olympic Games are the biggest sporting event on the planet.
After all, it’s not every day that you see the world’s greatest athletes competing for medals and set new records for speed, skill and endurance.
There’s also incredible competition for sports broadcasters and audiences to attract and hold the attention of sports audiences. Simply broadcasting the event with commentary is not good enough. Today’s sports fans expect a more interactive experience.
Arena Live Blog has what you need to enrich your audience’s experience.
Keep reading to find five steps to make your broadcast of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics more engaging.
What Is a Live Blog?
A Live Blog is the natural evolution of traditional blogs. Also called live updates, journalists have been using live blogs to cover events for years.
By bringing together words, images, audio and video, you can offer a unique experience to your audience. The result? More interaction, greater audience and a loyal audience that keeps coming back to your content over and over again.
Using Arena Live Blog In Your 2021 Tokyo Olympics Coverage: Step By Step
Getting started with Arena Live Blog is easy. In the following steps, you will see a few ways to use the app to make your coverage more engaging for fans.
Step 1: Create an event in Arena Live Blog
The first step is to create an event using the Arena Dashboard.
Choose your sport from the list and get started. If you don’t see a certain sport listed (e.g. Track & Field), click the “Other Sports” option.
To stay organized, give your event a name (e.g. 2021 Olympics Coverage – Basketball Game 1), enter the date and time, and description. You can also add tags and image to the event to make it even more visually appealing.
Tip: Is your event starting in just a few minutes? Choose the “Live” event status to start your event right away. If you are planning your Olympics coverage in advance, choose the “Upcoming” option in Event Status.
To keep sports fans engaged in your coverage, there are two critical features you should turn on: Enable Comments and Chat Room.
In some cases – like a high stakes final event – you might want to turn on the profanity filter to keep inappropriate comments out of the chat.
Adding Advertising Revenue To Your Coverage
If you have a paid account, you can add advertising to your Live Blog easily.
Simply add sponsored ads during the post flow.
Step 2: Add Social Media Directly To Your Coverage with Social Stream
Live Blog Arena allows you to add channels and social media profiles to further enhance your Tokyo 2021 Olympics broadcast.
Today, you can enrich your Live Blog with content from:
- YouTube
- web
- Other (RSS)
Important Note: Some content may be protected by copyright. Arena is not responsible for any copyright violations. To reduce the chance of copyright problems and complaints, contact social media users in advance of adding them to your coverage and ask for permission to include them in your Live Blog.
To learn how to configure your Social Stream, click here and access the complete walkthrough.
Step 3: Plan Ahead For Surprises With Publication Planning
When you cover a global event like the Olympic Games, it is important to be ready for surprises. For example, a country might win its first gold medal. In the Rio Olympics in 2016, Joseph Schooling won the first ever gold medal for Singapore.
It’s not just medals. Athletes can suddenly suffer a surprising injury or break a world record that changes the outcome of a competition.
Anyone covering the 2021 Tokyo Olympics needs to be very well prepared for surprises. That’s why Arena’s Live Blog lets you create content in advance.
In essence, you can create a “reserve” of content to use when you need. For example, you might ask your assistant to write profiles on the top 10 tennis players at the 2021 Olympics because some of the most famous tennis players like Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem are not competing in Tokyo. By having short profiles on potential winners prepared in advance, you can impress your audience who may not be familiar with less well known players.
By enriching your live blog coverage in this way, you will not be at a loss when a sudden surprise happens. That means your audience will stay glued to your coverage and keep returning to your coverage over and over again.
Step 4: Keep Your Audience Coming Back To Your Coverage
It’s a fact that sports fans have many different options to watch the Olympics. Even if a sports fan likes your coverage, they might get distracted and start watching a different broadcast. Offering high quality coverage is one way to keep fans coming back. But that’s not your only option.
You can also send reminders to your audience to invite them back to your sports coverage each day. Use the Conversion Cards feature in Live Blog Arena to invite fans to stay engaged with your Olympics coverage.
To activate and configure Conversion Cards, click Engagement in the left menu.
Step 5: Set Up Real Time Tracking
Besides sports knowledge, there is one more way sports broadcasters can get ahead: showing their numbers. When you can show your executives and advertisers that your audience is highly engaged, you can get promoted and assigned to more coverage.
The best part? You don’t have to wait for the event to end to get stats. With the Arena Dashboard you can easily follow your streaming statistics in real time.
By clicking on Analytics in the left menu, you can see your audience engagement through metrics such as Page Views and Online Users. You can also track these metrics throughout your session.
By using analytics, you will never have to guess what fans are most interested in. Instead, you can look at the analytics data to improve your coverage.
For example, you might see that engagement spikes up when you respond to comments from sports fans. In that case, you might set a reminder to yourself to glance at the comments every few minutes.
Tokyo 2021 complete Sports List
The Olympic Games are officially set to begin on July 23rd.
From the Opening Ceremony all the way to the Closing Ceremony, a worldwide audience will keep up with the greatest athletes from the following sports:
- 3×3 Basketball
- Archery
- Artistic Gymnastics
- Artistic Swimming
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Baseball/ Softball
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Boxing
- Canoe Slalom
- Canoe Sprint
- Cycling BMX Freestyle
- Cycling BMX Racing
- Cycling Mountain Bike
- Cycling Road
- Cycling Track
- Diving
- Equestrian
- Fencing
- Football
- Golf
- Handball
- Hockey
- Judo
- Karate
- Marathon Swimming
- Modern Pentathlon
- Rhythmic Gymnastics
- Rugby
- Sailing
- Shooting
- Skateboarding
- Sport Climbing
- Surfing
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Trampoline Gymnastics
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
Regardless of the results in each one, Tokyo 2021 has already made Olympic history.
Check out the complete Olympic schedule here.
Conclusion
Despite COVID-19, the 2021 Olympic Games are going to be the biggest sports event of the year. That’s not all. Since the Olympic organizers have prohibited in person audiences, sports fans will have to rely on coverage from TV stations, journalists and analysts to follow the games.
Whether from television, computer, mobile or tablet, sports enthusiasts and fans around the world will eagerly consume news about their favorite sports and athletes.
As we write this, many of the world’s leading sports journalists have already arrived in Tokyo to start their Olympics coverage. To compete with their coverage, use Live Blog Arena to make your Tokyo 2021 Olympics coverage an unforgettable experience.
