The NBA season is underway and from a digital marketing perspective there is no better professional sports league to analyze for fan engagement strategies. Whether it’s the players, the league, the media personalities, or the fans, no other league is as digitally active as the NBA.
Each year new fan interaction ideas and strategies regularly pop up around the league and so far this season is already off to a fast social start. The league’s best player’s digital influence is at an all time high, teams are getting creative with city-wide scavenger hunts, and major sports apparel companies are signing sponsorship deals based on a player’s social media impact.
Another unique social experience for NBA fans this season is happening between SB Nation’s Golden State Warriors blog Golden State of Mind and a new single team fantasy sports game called Start Four. The two have partnered up to provide an online community for Golden State fans to not only discuss their team but to actually play a unique fantasy game together that can be replayed every time the Warriors play.
Below is an in-depth look at this interesting relationship between Golden State of Mind and Start Four. Shailo Rao, the founder of Golden State of Mind, and Bill Onderdonk, the founder of Start Four, were kind enough to share their insights and experiences about how they plan to combine these two platforms during the season to engage Golden State fans.
SportTechie: Golden State of Mind will be using Start Four this NBA season to increase community engagement. How did you first hear about Start Four and what made you think it was a good idea to add it to the blog?
Shailo Rao: Bill first told me about the concept for Start Four last spring during the NBA Playoffs. I immediately fell in love with the idea both as a retired fantasy basketball player and founder of Golden State of Mind.
I used to play fantasy hoops every season, but retired from the (fantasy) game I love 8 years ago. The season long commitment and daily mind share required just became too hard to justify. As a fantasy basketball player, Start Four is exciting because there isn’t the 6 month-long daily grind of traditional offerings. I can now play fantasy basketball when my schedule permits.
Back in 2006 we had a community fantasy basketball league on The Sporting News for the Golden State of Mind community. We had over a 100 community members participate which deepened the bonds in the community and generated a lot of great banter. It was a fun community activity, but I always felt a little bit of disconnect between the fantasy league and our blog. The fantasy game was about all 30 teams in the NBA, but our blog was laser-focused on our favorite team the Golden State Warriors.
When Bill told me about Start Four I was excited to finally have a Golden State of Mind fantasy basketball league that perfectly maps to our Golden State Warriors focus. Similarly, Start Four is a great tool for any team focused blog to really engage their readership.
SportTechie: How do you plan to incorporate Start Four with your SB Nation Golden State of Mind Warriors blog community?
Shailo Rao: We will have a Golden State of Mind group on Start Four that any of our community members can join. My Start Four picks for each Warriors game will be a fun topic to sprinkle into game previews. Which 4 players in a Warriors game will total the most points is a great pre-game discussion topic for the community. I can only imagine what types of discussion people’s picks will generate in our community live blogs of each Warriors game. Post game we’ll have a new way to interact with the community in our recaps. In addition to awarding a Warrior Wonder (Warrior player of the game) now we can also award a community member for picking the four highest scoring fantasy players from the Warriors game that evening.
SportTechie: What made you come up with the concept behind Start Four?
Bill Onderdonk: A group of friends wanted a way to play fantasy football for our college’s football games. I came up with Start Four, which is a fantasy sports style game for a single team and game, to play our college’s games. We had a great time playing football and extended it to basketball. At that point, a friend and I decided to build the application to enable more people to play.
SportTechie: How does Start Four work and how is it different from other fantasy sports options?
BO: Start Four is a fantasy sports style game for single teams. By focusing on a single team and game we create a unique, fast and easy to play fantasy sports experience that is tailor-made for fans. Fans are passionate about the teams they follow and players on those teams. With Start Four, fans turn that passion into a lineup of 4 players they think will do best in a game. Fans score points based on how their players perform. They play their lineup against friends and other fans. Plus, they can see how close they came to picking the perfect lineup for a game. With Start Four, fans don’t just watch the game, they get to play and win too!
To play you choose your team and game. Then you pick the 4 players you think will do best. To make picking players fast, fun and strategic we use a simplified salary cap system. Each athlete has a cost which is a whole number typically from 1-12. People playing the game have a budget of 20 to spend on their 4 players. This system means you can’t just pick the best players in the game because you won’t be able to afford them. Your lineup of four players scores points for you based on how they perform in a game, similar to how players score points in traditional fantasy. You can play your lineup in a public group against other fans or in private group with friends. Plus, you get a score based on how close your lineup came to being the perfect lineup.
The goal of Start Four is to pick the Perfect Lineup, which is the lineup of four players who get the most points in a game. You get a score in Start Four based on how close you came to picking the Perfect Lineup. For example, in one game your lineup gets 20 points and the Perfect Lineup gets 40 points, so you get a score of 5 because you got 50% of the Perfect Lineup. Now, in another game you get 20 points and the Perfect Lineup gets 25 points, so you get a score of 8 because you got 80% of the Perfect Lineup. Your score does an interesting thing. It lets you compare performance game-to-game even if those games generate vastly different amounts of points. You can even compare your performance with a friend’s performance across different teams in the same sport or different sports. For example, you can create a league to play Eagles, Sixers, Flyers and Phillies games and have a score that unifies all those games.
Start Four is different from traditional fantasy sports primarily in that it focuses on single teams and games, whereas traditional fantasy sports cover all the teams and players in a league. As a result, to be successful in traditional fantasy sports you need to follow every team and player and you have to build and manage a roster of players week-to-week. That takes a lot of time. With Start Four you play the teams and games you care about and already follow, so picking players is fast and fun. Plus you get to pick a new lineup for each game, so you aren’t stuck managing a roster of players. As a result, Start Four is fun and easy to play for anyone who is following a team or even a single game.
Start Four is different from fantasy sports for cash again in that it focuses on a single team and game. Fantasy sports for cash typically involves a week or day of games which still amounts to a large number of teams and players to consider. As a result, cash games are generally more complicated and time consuming to play. Plus, while cash games offer a compelling reason to play and a clear business model, I find them to be much less about playing with your friends and much more about simply playing to win money. Start Four is really about playing with a community of fans or group of friends.
SportTechie: Explain what you are doing with the Golden State of Mind Warriors blog. How do you see Start Four fitting in with that online community and are you looking to expand Start Four’s partnerships to other online sports communities?
BO: As fans, we love sites like Golden State of Mind that let fans go deep on the teams they follow like the Golden State Warriors. Because Start Four is a game built around a team’s games it is tailor-made for fans and a perfect fit with sites like Golden State of Mind. We create a custom group for Golden State of Mind so readers can play Warriors games together. The group can be embedded in the blog site. Start Four lets readers turn their passion for the Warriors into a set of player picks for a game and compete with other fans. The Golden State of Mind group on Start Four drives reader engagement, cultivates community and generates content for the site. The game gives readers an extra reason to visit the site and tune in during and after games to check their scores. The friendly competition helps build community. Finally, the game generates data that can be used on the site. For example, who are the players fans like or don’t like in an upcoming game.
SportTechie: What are you looking to add to Start Four in the future and what is your ultimate goal?
BO: Our goal is to enrich the experience of being a fan. Playing Start Four makes following a team and watching games more fun because you get to play and win too. Our game is a perfect fit with how most fans engage with sports, because it is built around a team and a game.
At this point, we are adding to the game based on user data and feedback. We have a long list of ideas to implement but we are prioritizing based on what people are saying they want. For example, people want to play NBA games, so we’ve added the NBA and are looking forward to the season!
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We are very much looking forward to monitoring this relationship between Start Four and Golden State of Mind as the season progresses. It’s a great opportunity for Warriors fans to become even more involved with fellow Golden State fans and it will not be surprising to see other NBA blogs adopt a similar strategy if this partnership proves to be a successful online community building strategy.