YouTube Ball Sports Audience Content Opportunity Analysis™ Q4 2022

Content Opportunity Methodology

1. Measure & Categorize: Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
2. Identify Top Themes: Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
3. Identify a Benchmark: Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. Identify Opportunities: Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
5. Repeat For Each Platform: Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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YouTube Content Bucket Definitions

• Football Compilation Shorts: YouTube Shorts featuring themed video clips sequenced together and played with music.
• Basketball Talent Highlight: Single takes or multiple clips highlighting talented basketball players in practice and game settings. High performing videos include well known NBA players and prospects.
• Ball Sports Humour: Entertaining videos of sports-related stunts, funny plays, and interview clips. Top videos in this category are basketball related.
• Commentator Reactions: Commentators share their take on the news coming out of the sports they cover.
• Pro Athletes IRL: Videos in this category feature professional athletes outside of their respective sports and making appearances at events or out in the real world.
• Athlete Spotlight: Videos that spotlight a single athlete and describe elements of their performance, ability, and career. 
• Entertainment Segment: In these videos athlete(s) participate in challenges and games hosted by sports news outlets and creators. This content gives fans a chance to see a more personal side of their favourite athletes.
• Coach and Player Interviews: Full interviews and interview clips with coaches, players, and team managers. 
• Football News and Gossip: News, opinions, and gossip in the football world in formats like top 10 lists and roundtable discussions.
• Press Conference Coverage: Uncut footage from press conferences with players and team management. 

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Video Montage Shorts and Basketball Skills are extreme performing content opportunities, averaging over 3X the views & engagement rate on YouTube.

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Excellent performing content categories for the Ball Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Good performing content categories for the Ball Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Substandard performing content categories for the Ball Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Low performing content categories for the Ball Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Extreme Performing Segment:

Football Compilation Shorts

YouTube Shorts featuring themed video clips sequenced together and played with music.

Tactics to Implement:

• Short & Sweet: Videos in this category range from 26-30 seconds.
• Music: All compilation videos feature pop music with a fast-paced beat that compliments the pace of the clip sequence. 
• Short Descriptive Titles: Popular videos come from the YouTube channel Foot Mood and each Short is titled to match the content category of the clips. Examples include comedy moments, One in a million goals 😍, and Rare freestyle skills 🤩.

20.4M  Views

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14.7M Views

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Basketball Talent Highlight

Single takes or multiple clips highlighting talented basketball players in practice and game settings. High performing videos include well known NBA players and prospects like the video on the left featuring Lebron and Bronny James. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Audio & Visual Emphasis: Both videos use music and visual effects to add emphasis to the most impressive parts of a play. Beat drops are timed with dunks and visual effects and slow motion are used as players beat defenders or make shots.
• Captions: Captions use all caps to emphasize the action word in the title and often include emojis and identifiers like player and league names. The titles of the examples shown are “LeGenes are KICKING IN & Lebron loves it!😈” and “18 Yr Old Luka DESTROYS EuroLeague Defenders😈”.

• Format: YouTube Shorts. These videos are 22 and 24 seconds respectively.

3.2M  Views

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3.3M Views

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Content Opportunities:

1. Ball Sports Humour

Entertaining videos of sports-related stunts, funny plays, and interview clips. For example, the video on the left combines clips of a group of basketball players bring out a net and giving girls a basketball to rate their shots.

Tactics to Implement:

• On-screen captions: On-screen text gives context to the video content and act as a visual hook in thumbnails to increase click rates. In this example, an emoji is added to each clip to rate the reaction.
• Audio: This video includes music that cuts to the original audio from each clip to hear the group's reaction. This example uses uncut original audio. Hearing the laughter from the athletes and interviewers adds to the humour. 
• Format: Top videos in this category are YouTube shorts. These examples are 29 and 31 seconds respectively.

1.6M  Views

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670K Views

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2. Commentator Reactions

Commentators share their take on the news coming out of the sports they cover. Top videos in this category feature commentator Stephen A. on ESPN’s First Take series.

Tactics to Implement:

• Name dropping: Stephen A. is a big name and big personality in the NBA community. ESPN’s “First Take” videos use his name in video titles and his image in video thumbnails to increase viewership. 
• Hot Takes: The commentator's passionate and often divisive opinions on NBA news and events lead to high levels of engagement and comments on ESPN’s videos. 
• Intro: Videos start by giving context to the conversation with interview clips or visual representations of the discussion topic. 
• Duration: 3:02 & 4:37

600K  Views

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550K Views

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Viral Videos: These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements (V+E)  of their respective benchmarks.

Street Skills‍

Content: This YouTube Short showcases an impressive trick shot from a man on the street. 

Tactics: The on-screen caption, “wait for the celebration💀😂” encourages viewers to watch the video in its entirety.

11.6M Views

NBA Celebrations

Content: YouTube Short featuring clips of the point celebrations deemed obscene by the NBA that landed players large fines.

‍Tactics: The video pauses on each action and displays the fine amount in bright and bold text.

11.1M Views

Athlete Spotlight

Content: Narrated short describing a top NBA prospect. 

Tactics: The video uses complementary clips to illustrate his points and on-screen graphics like the logos of each NBA team that is trying to sign this player.

1.5M Views

Ball Sports Humour

Tactics: This video’s caption includes a CTA to “tag a friend”. Text to voice is used to narrate the video and the on-screen caption reads “Wait for it 😭”, encouraging viewers to watch until the end.

3.9M Views

Entertainment Segment

Content: Following a popular trend in which pro athletes go undercover at a college team tryout, this video documents NBA player Jimmer Fredette being disguised and joining the basketball tryouts at BYU. The 3:26 video ends with the player revealing his identity to the other players.

 1.5M Views