There is a new social networking site on the rise! It was created specifically for amateur athletes, amateur and professional coaches, and all their fans and teams. It’s NextSportsStar.com and it’s a social networking site which has been to combine the elements of all the current top sites such at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even some of the features from Craigslist and Kijiji.
It’s a place for both male and female athletes to create a profile with all their accomplishments, including pictures and highlight reels, as a means of sharing their success on a personal level as well as gain attention from recruiters and scholarship foundations. In some ways, it’s like the athletic version of LinkedIn.
For recruiters, it’s a site not only to find prospective athletes, but a method for the recruiters themselves to promote their own team, whether it’s at the college or the professional level.
On this site, members are referred to as “Stars” and can create profiles, also known as homepages, they can share information and interested with their other friends (or “Fans”) on the website. This also allows them to chat with other members one-on-one as well as participate in group discussions. If you’re wondering where the Craigslist aspect comes in, the website even has an advertising section, where members can post their own products or services within the sports community, and is directly linked to PayPal.
How does this site impact sports television networks? Each sports season brings about new athletes on both the college and professional level. Young and often new to the league, these athletes are of great interest to the die-hard sports fan and the impact the player will have on his or her team. That being said, most major sports stations like ESPN will cover the annual drafts for the professional teams, as well as spend time while broadcasting games on both the college and professional level to discuss new recruits.
A site like NextSportsStar.com has great potential, both good and bad. If the stations chose to ignore this site, fans may drift over to the online world as a more credible source of information and entertainment. However, if major stations like ESPN, or even the NFL Network, chose to participate in this new social media site, they could easily incorporate their findings and discussions within the site into their programs. ESPN has already done a good job at incorporating other social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, (as mentioned in a previous post aboutSportsCenterand Twitter). With the potential integration between social network sites and sports television stations, NextSportsStar.com could be the next social media star.
stephzajac 