Opening Night thoughts...

With the Houston Astros' 8-2 victory over the Texas Rangers here on 2013 Major League Baseball Opening Night, I wanted to take a few moments to post about production practices that could help ESPN promote/direct the Twitter chatter in regards to broadcast games. As time progresses, I fully expect ESPN to begin to embrace the social promotional practices of rival sports networks (i.e. FOX Sports, MLB Network, etc.).

An example from the 2012 Postseason of FOX Sports brick and mortar hashtag promotion

While the Twittersphere obviously does not require specific campaigns in order to create social buzz, the incorporation of specific hashtag campaigns helps to direct the conversation to a common digital arena, wherein sports networks are able to more easily engage with an audience that wants to be part of a larger conversation.