Sports that Tweet

The hottest new Web 2.0 site isn’t really that new at all. Twitter—the subject of recent adulation from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and more—started as former Blogger creator Jack Dorsey’s side project in March 2006. Now this stripped-down, not-for-profit social networking site has an avid group of followers, estimated at around 7 million. Not so much compared with Facebook’s 132 million unique users, or Myspace’s 117 million users, but a rapidly-growing vanguard of early adopters that Web 2.0-savvy sports properties shouldn’t overlook.

So far, an impressive collection of sports apparel manufacturers, teams, sports media, and athletes have staked out virtual territories on Twitter. The NFL has 600 followers (and no posts), while ESPN has 36,000 followers and Lance Armstrong has 150,000 followers.

Among sports video games, EA Sports has some of the best content. About two dozen employees, developers, producers, and community managers actively tweet, including Will Kinsler (Raczilla), who has 1,300 eyes reading his Madden and NCAA series posts. Sports game publishers Activision, 2K Sports, SEGA, and Sony Computer Entertainment also have Twitter accounts.

At minimum, a Twitter presence can help communicate with customers and fans. At best, Twitter can build a brand by engaging a pre-segmented market of tech-hungry loyalists, sharing insights into upcoming products, pointing fans to a Web site or other forum, and relating with consumers in a non-corporate setting.

The white hot risk with Twitter seems clear, though. Even at 7 or 8 million unique users, Twitter has a lot of catching up to do before it can compete with its larger Web 2.0 kin, let alone traditional media giants. But, like Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, many companies are betting that if they build it, fans will come.