GreenEdge

Online channel strategy is the key to launching a pro sports teams – Australia’s latest pro cycle team GreenEDGE is no exception.

Opportunities to build new sports brands occur only rarely. Rarer still are successful implementation stories with pay back for investors. The omens, however, appear to be good for Australia’s new pro road cycling team, GreenEDGE – but perhaps only if they pay enough attention to their fan and commercial engagement model from the outset. A well thought-out online channel strategy is vital to delivery.

Former Melbourne Storm rugby Exec Director, Gerry Ryan (also owner of caravan manufacturer Jayco), has in Shayne Bannan, all the right contacts in the sport and the funding in place to immediately break into the top 10 pro teams in the world from a performance perspective -- something that would be tough to achieve in many other sports of this scale and popularity without deep pockets. However, is it sustainable as a commercial entity – will fans provide commercial payback, and will GreenEDGE be part of the wider social benefit story?

There is a perfect storm happening globally in a sport that has spent decades battling doping allegations. Against the odds cycling is a growth mass participation sport – unusual given today’s sport-saturated market. It’s also highly complementary to social and political agendas around obesity, green commuting and worker well being. It could be perfect ground for social media strategies, harnessing modern tendencies to align to a brand or story in large numbers – increasingly enabled by social and mobile technology.

In the UK, 1.3 million new cyclists were seen on the roads in 2010. The cycling economy is reckoned to be worth in excess of £2.9 billion annually. Thirteen million adult cyclists are reckoned to exist in the UK - behind other European countries but rapidly growing. In Australia there are estimated to be 1.9 million active recreational cyclists - sure to rise after Cadel Evans’ success. With a population of around 22 million the ratio of cyclists to population looks low in Australia - in part due to geographic challenges and in part the maturity of the sport. Therein lies the opportunity for GreenEDGE.

There are success factors that cannot be controlled by an investor, yet there are many that can be, and this is where GreenEDGE must focus. Otherwise it risks becoming the latest in a long line of trade teams who simply run out of funding and never reap the reward for their investment – as, for example, peloton drop outs Cervelo found out when they ran out of cash focussing purely on selling more bikes.

A top flight team will absorb nearly 16 million Euros’ worth of funding over a two-year period. How do you make that kind of investment start paying for itself immediately? The answer may be a combination of riding the wave of opportunity in sport growth, encouraging the political agenda but, most importantly, engaging fans and sponsors with a compelling online presence to encourage 1st Tier sponsorship and deliver on commercial endorsements.

Crucial for this new team is to manage its commercial and fan strategies as effectively as its rider and race strategy. Quickly harness and engage fans – connect via online, social and mobile technology with great content and insight into the team not found through normal channels and implement a visible and coherent online, mobile and social strategy in order to maximise commercial deals. There is a huge opportunity to provide content rich experiences linked to an inherently technology rich area. Convergence should be the word on GreenEDGE’s lips. Cycling fans and sponsors cannot get enough, it seems, of technical content and gadgets.

Perhaps more powerful is the opportunity to get close to team riders and integrate their brands to GreenEDGEs. Ace cyclist Robbie McEwen has 70,000 Twitter followers who will immediately affiliate with GreenEDGE. The potential is there to sell merchandise, develop multi-source news feeds, manage race profiles, rider profiles and seamlessly engage a huge audience. Team Sky has 127,000 Facebook followers in the space of months and a deeply engaged fan base that is the envy of many in the peloton.

The question remains – will GreenEDGE succeed on the road and off it with an online presence that matches the best in the sport? For all its promise, the team may risk long-term success without one.