Summary
Episode 32 - In this episode of the Farrell Sports Business podcast, the host Matt Farrell about the emergence of the social media platform Bluesky and its implications for the sports world. He explores the political influences affecting social media platforms, the cautious approach of sports leagues in adopting new platforms, and the evolution of social media over time. Farrell emphasizes the need for Bluesky to evolve beyond its current political associations to achieve long-term success and highlights the ongoing relevance of established platforms like X and Threads in the sports media landscape.
About the Farrell Sports Business Podcast
Interviews with news makers from sports business to talk leadership, entrepreneurship, industry news and their unique career paths. Hosted by Matt Farrell, President of Farrell Sports and former Golf Channel, USOPC, USA Swimming and Warner Bros.
Watch it on YouTube - www.youtube.com/@farrellsportsww
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Matt Farrell (00:00)
On this week's Farrell Sports Business podcast, we're going to dive into the surge of the social platform Bluesky What does that mean in the sports world? It's probably too early to tell, but you have a situation with X and threads and now Bluesky. Who's going to win in the sports world? Where are people going to place their chips in terms of social media outlets? I don't think there's any simple answer.
There's also a political influence to this, which I think is actually a blessing and possibly a curse to the long-term future of Bluesky But what's happening in the sports
this is not a political podcast of taking a stand because quite honestly, least teams and leagues rarely take a stand. National anthems have been politicized. other aspects of sports have, have certainly been politicized. Teams and leagues are much more conservative. And I mean that in terms of cautious, not a liberal or conservative.
terms of what they do on social. In other words, they go where the fans are. So what's happening with Bluesky emerging right now is really interesting and very early in the sports landscape. There's no getting around that politics have driven some of the adoption of the early success of Bluesky.
Estimates as of this podcast are 20 to 21 million users, which is really small in comparison to X and even threads. Estimates for X are 250 plus million. Estimates for threads, mainly driven by the success of Instagram and Facebook, are at least that, if not reaching 300 million users.
But there's just this shifting dynamic of what's happening in the social media space for these type of what used to be and many consider a news type social media platform.
But politics are hard to ignore on this. When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, renamed it X, and he made certain decisions that you may or may not like on the platform. Me personally, I saw engagement just plummet with my own X accounts. But in fairness, I'm not that active on that platform. So it could have been a little bit of a chicken or the egg situation for me.
But I just noticed engagement completely drop. But Elon Musk's entry into the US political conversation was very polarizing for X as well. Now, this has actually created an opportunity for Bluesky that's just seeing massive growth. Some days it's growing a million users a day. In October, it had 13 million users now in
late November, early December, it's estimated over 20 million. So it's certainly gaining traction. But my actually biggest concern is that if this really becomes a political refuge from X, I think that's actually dangerous and not sustainable. So if Bluesky becomes the blue platform, I'm sure that was just coincidence in terms of creation of the company.
That may see immediate and some short-term success, but I think that's actually not healthy for it in the long term. If it wants to grow a mass audience and be sustainable, it can't be associated with one aspects of the most polarizing political climate, at least in my lifetime, that we've experienced.
Sports leagues are traditionally careful and cautious, as well as teams. They really want to be seen as neutral, if not Switzerland, when it comes to engaging with fans. And you're literally starting to see some organizations just dip their toe in the water of what Bluesky is about. They don't really want another social platform to become political like vaccines.
or backing political candidates or national anthems. And the sports leagues and teams are very careful that they don't want to set off another, just shut up and dribble type movement by what social media platforms they're, they're on. So I think you are seeing a lot of. Cautiousness in terms of leagues coming onto the Bluesky platform in particular.
In terms of growth of a new social platform, especially in the sports world, I see a few key influencers. And in this regard, I'm not talking about, you know, a Kardashian or something like that, but I think adoption of a social media platform has three critical areas to it. One is the media itself. And I know there'll be a pushback on that in terms of, you know, what is media, what is mainstream media, but
really when a platform positions itself as a news platform, it's important that other news outlets are there. And so you're seeing some cautious movement into that. so whether that's the New York Times or the Washington Post or the USA Today's or the sports specific type publications, you're starting to see it. You're starting to see some of that movement and presence on Bluesky in particular.
but it hasn't been the full onslaught of effort of multiple accounts, niche accounts for media. But that's one of the first movers in my mind to actually create the influence to have users come on.
The second is the teams and the leagues themselves. And that I would say is very cautious right now as people and teams and leagues are starting to get into it. And this is not exhaustive by any means, but the Detroit Lions were very active on Thanksgiving day on Bluesky during their Thanksgiving day game. And then programs such as Alabama football.
Oregon football might have hundreds or low thousands of users on on Bluesky. Arkansas basketball has started an account, but then you go the Texas Longhorns that just advanced yesterday and are one of the top teams in the country in football don't have official accounts yet. So that tells you how early this is in the lifespan of Bluesky.
Now, meanwhile, threads, I don't even know what threads is really. mean, literally I know what it is, but it doesn't really seem to have an identity to it. And when it really made a push and grew its subscription, base, you know, within the last year or two, it seemed like the heir apparent to take over for X and Twitter, but it just hasn't. It just.
kind of sits out there and I don't really know what its soul or its identity is. I check in on it occasionally out of curiosity, but I just can't get into it. And with that said, X or when it was called Twitter, I loved it for many years and people have a little bit of a nostalgic look back at, gosh, when, Twitter was the best a decade ago,
And it was good and it was great. And I relied on it for news. I, I, I really looked at it during sporting events to just get other voices and other opinions. It literally helped shape world politics and ongoing situations around the world where you could get the absolute up to the second news. It still has some of that. but
Even I've just decreased how much I really rely on X. As many of you know, I went to school at Arkansas. I follow Arkansas sports and I've just had to go to X less and less. Now Arkansas just had a very mediocre season in football, but it was just, the comments were always so negative and I would find myself getting caught up in that and like, what am I doing?
I'm not a Pollyanna. I don't need everything to be positive in life, but it just felt so negative and toxic that it was not even an enjoyable to go there anymore. Some of that's based on the season the Razorbacks had. Some of that's based on the platform. but it just became a less and less relevant platform to me.
Another thing to keep in mind in this is social media apps, they don't stay the same. They change, they evolve. but Bluesky, starting with a political surge and some call it a departure from X or an
X-odus And I think some of that is actually true, but the longevity of this and sustainability of it is what does it become and what is it actually known for? You know, I'll never forget Facebook started, obviously started at a college campus and was very college oriented and college age oriented. And so as a, an adult joining Facebook at one time, just kind of felt a little bit
dirty, like, you know, I was in my forties and joining a social platform for college kids, and that evolved over time. And now it's almost done the opposite, where it's evolved to being known as you know, a parent or even a grandparent platform. So whatever shape Bluesky starts with, it is going to evolve. And I think it just
has to evolve past this partisan nature that maybe is fueling some of its early growth.
I joined Twitter at the time where my daughter had some health issues at the time. And a good friend of mine who was just very in tune with social media said, Hey, you should, you should join, join Twitter and just give some update on your daughter's health as it's going on. I'm so like, okay, I'm sure that's fine. And that's how it started for me. Then it really evolved into this very credible.
news outlet, and then it evolved again, and I'm probably missing a few phases along the way to being extremely political and some of the hate started to really creep in. and that was a turnoff, but that's very different from how it started in, you know, a decade or more ago and how it has evolved and what it is today.
TikTok, which is actually one of my favorite social media platforms. I focus most of my time on TikTok and even LinkedIn for different reasons. But the early days of TikTok, when I joined as a 50 something, male got some Snickers of like, are you going to do dances on TikTok? And that was an oversimplification, but that was what it was known for as an entertainment app.
And it still is. That's how I use TikTok. I love the entertainment aspect of the platform, but even that has gotten really political. it's, you know, once the algorithm sees you watch some political posts, you certainly get more and more of it. And I've tried to cleanse that of just like keeping it pure for me as an entertainment platform.
But that really started as an entertainment. And if not, you know, doing choreographed dances as a platform and look what that's evolved to today to being really, I would say a major influencer in us politics and sports, certainly in music and as a platform for athletes and, everyday people to create their own voice and their own platform and even use that to
spur careers on being an influencer, TikTok shop, creating of UGC content. That platform has really gone from being a dance and fun app to really being a tastemaker for American, if not global society.
So the big caution in all of this to me is Bluesky is being a beneficiary of people leaving Twitter and X, but that just can't be its long-term positioning. Social media platforms have to have some balance and can't be affiliated with one political party. So if you're asking me, if I'm a sports organization and how would I counsel my clients and organizations that I'm involved with is absolutely beyond
Bluesky, but try to stay in that apolitical environment because that's fueling early growth, but it can't be the definition of long-term success for a platform.
In terms of just a really quick snapshot of organizations that are starting to come into the Bluesky world, and this is not a full list by any means, but there are organizations that I just really wanted to see a spot check in what they're doing in the Olympic world. You're starting to see organizations like us figure skating, USA triathlon, USA gymnastics, create and start to build accounts.
Other organizations, even USA Swimming, my former employer, they might reserve a handle and park on it for a while to determine what they want to do. But even taking on any new social media platform internally in an organization is a relatively big decision because you have to connect people to it. That means more time for somebody's job. If something is added,
to their list of responsibilities, is there something else that has to come off? It's a relatively big decision before you start taking on new social platforms and what your commitment level is going to be. As I mentioned, the Detroit Lions were very active, building a following really quickly in the college space, which is also, I would say, a very conservative space as well. The professional leagues and teams are
a little more aggressive in terms of adopting new platforms. you're starting to see some early accounts set up for, the Oregon Ducks, Georgia football with hundreds of followers, not hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. So, and as I mentioned, the Texas Longhorns don't even have accounts yet.
You see the influence and you see people just weighing the options of when they're going to dip their toe in the water.
But at the end of this, you can call this Twitter or X X-odus this, departure of X all you want. Honestly, not that many people are just abandoning X. Most sports organizations are still placing their chips in both places. You know, some of us, and I'm a small example where I have a low thousands of followers on, on X, but that's been
decades of building a reputation, a following, a community for many athletes, sports leagues, and teams. They're not ready to abandon that. media members as well, who have just really made their mark being active on X to not only grow their brand, but drive traffic to their stories. We're in the age where just writing a good story is not
good enough anymore. As a journalist, you almost have to be part of the marketing machine to drive traffic to those articles. So you're not going to see a complete departure, but you are going to see a diversification of how media, sports teams, leagues spend their time and where they post.
So at the end of the day, I have a Bluesky account. I'm going to follow it. Have I gone all in on it? No, but I haven't gone all in, gone all in in terms of posting on threads or X either. a couple other platforms, Tik Tok and, and LinkedIn have just taken more of my time and effort, but I'm actually very curious and anxious to see where Bluesky goes. If it continues this trend.
If I'm sitting in the front office at a sports league or a team, I'm absolutely putting a chip on the Bluesky box just to see where this goes and play it out in the same way that I'm probably doing that with threads and absolutely keeping my X profile. We're in this turbulent time of social media and how that's really been a fallout of politics.
And it'll be an interesting one to see for now. I keep some cautious optimism on what Bluesky can be, I would love to hear what you think. What's your experience with Bluesky, with threads, certainly with X.
threads I think I've actually been the harshest on that in many ways on this podcast because I've somewhat ignored it and if you have a different thought on that it just feels like dry white toast to me so would love to hear the comments in the meantime thanks for listening to the Farrell Sports Business podcast
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