Working in college athletics right now can feel like building the plane while flying it through a storm. NIL, conference realignment, and the transfer portal keep the landscape constantly shifting. Yet despite the chaos, athletic departments continue to crush the content game.
One thing hasn’t changed: national fanbases crave dynamic, innovative, and engaging content. As you gear up for kickoff this fall, here are best practices to elevate your gameday and digital streams using Tagboard.
Level Up Your Coaches Shows
Alabama Crimson Tide: Hey Coach & The Kalen DeBoer Show
Most colleges have a coaches show. A sponsored weekly segment, sometimes with a local radio affiliate, where fans get face time with the head coach and a little inside look at the program. These shows scream for some elevated engagement and a graphics pack that makes them feel more broadcast-quality.
- Drive Fan Interaction: Source real-time fan questions directly from fans to feature on-screen during Q&A segments. Alabama does a great job of this on their “Hey Coach & The Kalen DeBoer Show”
- Elevate Broadcast Quality: Layer in live player stats, visual lower-thirds, and dedicated sponsored overlays to create new revenue streams or give title partners premium visibility.
Automate Your Real-Time Stats & Scores
One of the biggest keys for keeping fans in the know while at a game is giving them updates on how other teams in the conference, or ranked in the top 25 are performing. When you talk about crowd pops, seeing a top 25 rival losing to an unranked team is one of the better crowd pops in college sports.
- Scores On Every Screen: Don’t let complicated and outdated stat providers get you stressed on gameday. Introduce a low-lift and automated out-of-town scoreboard that can displayed on your video board, ribbon boards, concourse screens, or live streams.
- Real-time Player/Team Stats: It doesn’t stop at the scores, bring game and season stats for players and teams into the mix as well. This can be pre-game player comparisons, halftime team stats updates, or postgame box scores.
Put UGC On Any Screen
College sports thrive on community, alumni pride, and gameday tradition. Showcasing user-generated content (UGC) across your physical and digital venue spaces is a great way to flex your fandom.
- Capture Every Touchpoint: Display live fan photos and comments during pre-game tailgates, in-stadium breaks, and road-game watch parties. Every game typically has a theme, and each week the display can be updated to fit the sponsor or storyline of the week.
- Sponsored Data Capture: All of this has first-party data capture tied into it, so you can better understand your fan habits and deliver engagement metrics back to your sponsors.
Engagement For A Cause
College athletics has a massive platform, using it every season to elevate essential causes like cancer research, mental health, and military appreciation. These community moments become even more powerful when fans are empowered to share their own stories. By giving a voice to the audience, teams find new ways to amplify awareness and drive meaningful engagement.
By simply scanning a code, fans can share their personal experience right from their phones. Post-submission, teams can take engagement a step further by linking directly to donation pages, silent auctions, or volunteer opportunities.
Engagement Through Integrated Partners
In addition to the dynamic data backed graphics, and fan engagement tools that are native to Tagboard, college’s can also tap into an ever-expanding marketplace of our interactive partners. Each one, with unique and advanced audience engagement opportunities that integrate directly into Tagboard os they can be displayed the same way you power all other on screen elements. The list includes SQWAD, CUE, Momento, Adventr, and ScoreStream.
Fall season is just about to get started and we can’t wait to see how athletic departments across the nation elevate their fan engagement and content production.