FIBA

Objectives

The international basketball association, FIBA, appointed LEWIS PR to deliver positive media coverage outside of FIBA’s traditional audience ahead of the 2010 World Championship. LEWIS successfully handled the major global sporting event for the world governing body, from the preliminary preparations in London and liaison with Geneva, to the handling of some 1,800 journalists during the tournament.

  • Raise the profile of FIBA and the World Championship in global English language media and national newspapers (non-sports sections)
  • Raise Patrick Baumann’s profile as a global leader in world sport 
  • Increase sports coverage of the World Championship in UK and USA 
  • Achieve coverage around B2B stories such as sponsor launches  
  • Engage new fans using social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter
 

Strategy

  • Harness basketball’s global fan base and engage with new fans using social media to raise FIBA’s profile
  • Demonstrate basketball’s professionalism by offering Secretary General Patrick Baumann for selective executive interviews ahead of, and during, the 2010 FIBA World Championship
  • Build awareness and momentum for the 2010 FIBA World Championship by proactively placing issues-based stories in sports, national and lifestyle press across multiple markets
     

Results

  • Media hospitality event resulted in B2B story success announcing the Spanish Tourism Board sponsorship of the 2014 FIBA World Championship. The event was attended by over 50 journalists from Europe and Latin America and has so far been covered by over 30 outlets 
  • Executive press tours held in select markets ahead of the World Championship raised profiles of both FIBA and Patrick Baumann. Highlight coverage included the Economist, BBC Sport, Bloomberg TV Turkey, The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, Press Association, Guardian, Reuters, NBC Television, BBC World Service Radio, CNBC, CNN International, London Evening Standard, Webcom Brasil (Brazil), La Vanguardia (Spain), Expansión (Spain), The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and AP (US)
  • Countless news hits across print, online and broadcast outlets in 12 markets during the World Championship. Key coverage included with ESPN, AP, the New York Times, FanHouse (US), BBC World Service live coverage, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and MVP magazine (UK), El País, AS (Spain), L’Équipe (France), La Nación (Argentina), La Gazetta Dello Sport (Italy), Primero Hora (Puerto Rico), Goal News (Greece), and Hurriyet Gazetesi (Turkey) 
  • Two highly successful ‘on-the-ground’ strategic roundtables boasting more than 30 key media from various nations
  • Feature stories secured in tier one media including BBC World Service, ESPN and Sports Illustrated following interviews with Secretary General, Patrick Baumann

Innovation

LEWIS established a strong social media presence for FIBA in the run-up to, and during, the World Championship. This helped drive traffic to the FIBA.com website, which received 30 million unique visitors during the course of the three week tournament. 
 
Facebook
  • Since LEWIS began its online promotion campaign in May, FIBA’s Facebook following rose by 92,000 before the Championships
  • During the tournament itself, Facebook fans increased by 32,000 with an average of 30,000 active users posting comments, photos and videos. The page also received an average of 5,500 unique views each day  
  • A ‘support your team’ Facebook application (created in-house at LEWIS) was used to create 62,000 online jerseys for fans
Twitter
  • Over 8,000 followers added to the account in run-up to and during the tournament. The @fibaworld handle also received over 24,000 click throughs from links to the main FIBA page
  • A weekly Twitter competition for three months prior to tournament pushed out the #Turkey2010 and #welovebasketball tags to raise awareness and drive traffic to FIBA.com
  • Hashtag #Turkey2010 was mentioned over 7,000 time on Twitter during the tournament
Flickr
  • Photos of the players uploaded on Flickr received over 64,000 views

Testimonial

  
“Just a quick note to say thanks for setting everything up with the Turkey trip. It went very well and congratulations to everyone at Lewis and FIBA for doing everything so smoothly - not something that happens on every media trip, especially when there's a world championships going on!”
 
Adam Fraser, Sub Editor, SportsPro Media
 
Specialism DesignDigitalEventsMulti-countryOnlineSocial media