Why is a Community Chat Feature Paramount for Covering Sporting Events?

Sports events come with their inherent energetic vibe that can draw people in. Whether it’s an OTT or website, a thriving sports platform prioritizes integrating powerful tools that foster better interaction and engagement. It’s no wonder that online live chat features are a key part of top sports communities. A robust integration can do away with language barriers, uniting sports enthusiasts from various demographics.

A study reveals that 80% of sports spectators simultaneously use a mobile handset or computer while watching TV. This explains why online sports communities have soared to popularity. With instant messaging and chat options available along with statistics and information, sports lovers find streams and community chat more accessible than ever.

Established professionals like Viafoura have been working closely with sports streaming platforms, ensuring seamless management of the chat features. Visit this page to learn more about the features of an online community chat solution and how it can help to boost engagement during sports coverage on your platform.

What do sports enthusiasts look out for in major platforms?

Sports enthusiasts hunt for the best interactive features on OTTs and other leading sports platforms. This way, they can make the most of the event, living up to the excitement and vibe. With an online chat feature available on sports platforms, fans can engage with each other as the event proceeds. This real-time interaction crafts a memorable experience for them.

These days, sports streaming platforms collaborate with reputed service providers like Viafoura to integrate chat features into their website and allow for greater engagement with their audience. This ensures that sports enthusiasts can chat, comment on videos, and interact with other users consuming multimedia content in a mobile-friendly and easy-to-use format.

• With global sports events appealing to millions of fans, they would love the comprehensive experience, connecting online and engaging with like-minded people.
• While hashtag surfing can be somewhat fulfilling, fans end up with just a small slice of what the community has to offer.
• With online chat integrations on major sports platforms, you can turn your audience into a major contributor to the conversations. In the end, the participation of fans defines the success of a popular sports community.

What makes community chat important for sports events?

More than 45% of sports lovers use social media during the event. With a live chat feature, this massive section of social media enthusiasts can find a similar experience by communicating with like-minded people across your platform. Let’s explore why you should have a live chat option in your sports community.

1. Spark engagement

The ultimate goal of OTT owners and sports platforms admins is to spark productive communication among their users. With a community chat feature, it’s easy to accomplish this goal by understanding that your content acts as a catalyst to start discussions. 

The chat feature serves as a medium that encourages community members to communicate with one another. But note that special guests and authors can also chip in with their respective contributions during the live coverage, sparking additional discussion based on their insights. This allows your community chat to serve as more than a functional tool, and actively engage the audience through natural communal interactions.

2. Managing and moderating discussions

It can be challenging when you need to cultivate a healthy ambiance in your sports community. Regardless of the size of your platform, you’ll run into your fair share of trouble makers some time or another. 

• With live chat features, specialized software can help you instantly disable messages or flag inappropriate conversations using the front end.
• • The same moderation idea has been implemented by many free chat sites.
• Sophisticated solutions are simple to use, and they can be intuitively used by even the least tech-savvy of your moderation team.
• You can preemptively moderate discussions without letting the offending content ever hit your public space.

3. Capture data to customize content

With the use of analytics, OTT and website owners can hugely benefit from the power of data and the insights they provide. When you know how your audience responds to content, you can strategize your blogs and subsequent content accordingly. Live platforms allow you to adjust and modify your offerings as they happen, and you can capture all this data from community chat to better understand what generates the highest levels of engagement.

Eventually, it’s a good idea to act on your learnings and also identify beneficial contributors within your community. This way, you can go about offering badges or special identifiers to these members that lets you award behaviour that’s in line with your community guidelines.

4. Prevent trolls in real-time

While many fans find trolls humorous, these unprofessional elements might be a real nuisance to your platform. In the end, you might end up losing subscribers that aren’t ready to accept interactions in a space that’s filled with unchecked toxicity. Thankfully, with moderation features, there are several ways to control trolls and keep your live chat healthy:

When you integrate the live chat feature, trouble-makers might try to capitalize on the opportunity and engage in trolling. In the end, preventing trolls might turn out to be an expensive ordeal for your sports community. 

With tool assistance and a prepared moderation team, you can ensure that these toxic messages don’t even reflect on your platform. You can significantly slash your content moderation expenses with intelligent tools that filter out troll posts and comments before they can be submitted.

The evolving sports experience on websites and OTTs

With integrated chat features on OTTs and sports websites, fans are experiencing a new level of engagement altogether. In particular, sports and electronic gaming platforms have realized the value of interacting with their users. 

Thanks to sophisticated technologies and expert guidance, successful platforms are capitalizing on this engagement factor to implement new content strategies, making them ideal for genuine sports lovers.

Endnote

Live chat on sports websites makes the digital experience highly engaging and contextual. Ultimately, you want to capture the same energy and excitement that fans would experience in the stadiums. While physical proximity happens to be a necessary constraint while telecasting sports events, integrated live chat can be optimized to make this a complete non-issue.