Leyton Orient: can clubs engage fans with no live sport?

How do football clubs stay active and engaged with fans on social media when there are no matches being played?

That’s the challenge faced by media managers across the 92 Premier League and English Football League (EFL) clubs during the coronavirus pandemic.

While some teams have given a modern twist to old school games such as noughts and crosses and Connect Four, others have turned to online football games including Football Manager and FIFA.

League Two Leyton Orient have captured the imagination better than most with their #UltimateQuaranTeam competition bringing together 128 clubs from across the globe to compete in a knockout FIFA tournament.

The April 6 final saw Wolves defeat FC Groningen and we caught up with the O’s Media Manager, Luke Lambourne, to find out more about the concept.

“My assistant Dan Walker and I came up with the idea. We’d seen how clubs were interacting with each other online through games like Connect Four and we took what we knew about esports and tried to improve upon it.

“FIFA was something that we had planned in the background and we wanted to see if we could get buy-in from clubs in the EFL and potentially the Championship and Premier League.

“I don’t think we were surprised by how quickly fans brought into the concept, but the way that it exploded beyond the UK was unexpected, with teams entering from Africa, Australia, the United States, and all over Europe.”

With sports reporters needing column inches to fill and no live sport being played, Leyton Orient have been featured across several national media outlets and gained widespread exposure.

At the time of writing, the club has over 84,000 followers on Twitter, a sharp rise of over 22,000 people in the past fortnight alone.

“Looking at both social media and online news stories, we’re estimated to have reached over 90 million people in terms of impressions through #UltimateQuaranTeam,“ added Luke.

“On Twitter alone, we’ve had 55m impressions over the past 26 days, which is probably about 10 or 11 times what we’d normally get in a month.

“So, in effect, we’ve got a season worth of engagement in one month, and when you consider there’s been no live football, it’s even more pleasing for the media team.”

Premier League players Andros Townsend and Todd Cantwell were among those to represent their clubs in the tournament, with other teams choosing fans or esports professionals to wear their shirt.

The presence of those stellar names has certainly aided #UltimateQuaranTeam, but the media team wanted to ensure they were not the only beneficiaries and set up a JustGiving page to raise funds for EFL clubs, as well as for MIND, the mental health charity, and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Over £57,000 has been raised so far, thanks in large to two donations from betting companies in the UK.

“We’ve been able to help some really worthy causes and any impact that we can have on football clubs that may struggle without matchday income is a massive positive.

“It’s a difficult time for many of the professional clubs and jobs will be at risk, but hopefully this will go some way to supporting those that need it most.”

While the club has received widespread praise for their creativity in setting up #UltimateQuaranTeam, Luke says that it has been hard work for their tightknit team of four media and marketing staff.

“I only started my role on March 3, so it’s been a bit of a whirlwind in terms of how quickly everything has been moving.

“I’d only had a week in the office when everything started to shut down and so I’ve only really had a small taste of what the club is about.

“Dan and I have been working from 6am-11pm some days trying to balance the tournament with general business priorities and have been ably assisted by our Head of Marketing Dave Toyn.

“People from the outside might be thinking we’re doing nothing now that the live action has been cancelled, but in reality, it’s the complete opposite.”

No one has any idea of when the 2019-20 season will resume, if at all, but you can be sure that media managers will not stop in their search for innovative ways to keep their audiences entertained.