Yahoo has been at the intersection of sports and the internet for over two decades. As a trusted destination for Fantasy Sports, NCAA Brackets, and original editorial content, the brand is one of the pioneers of online culture.
But therein lies the challenge: how does a brand that’s fifteen years older than Instagram stay relevant? For us, it’s all in what we have to say - and how we say it.
The following pieces were a few parts of the larger annual initiatives of Yahoo Sports in 2019: NCAA brackets, Fantasy Football, and live NFL streams. Each element is part of a larger campaign that included social posts, page takeovers, banners, and, of course, (very) heavy email correspondence.
The beauty of the NCAA Tournament is consistent unpredictability. That’s what fuels millions to fill out their own brackets: Everyone can play, and anyone can win. We took the insight that most participants are very casual followers of college basketball - and that the fun of this particular tournament isn’t picking winners, but picking in a way that is unique to you.
Yahoo has been innovating Fantasy Football longer than most of their competitors have even existed. The platform is more intuitive, sleeker, and faster than the offerings of ESPN, CBS Sports, or any other provider.
So our message was simple: Don’t be a moron. Just make better choices - like choosing Yahoo Fantasy Football.
Yahoo partnered with the NFL in one of its most ambitious initiatives ever: free, live streamed games from the preseason through the Super Bowl.
Again, we aimed to keep our executions simple, with a gentle reminder that whenever you find yourself in a less-than-ideal situation, you could be watching football.
See? Direct email campaigns can be fun - especially when they’re written to taunt downtrodden fanbases whose disappointing seasons might somehow be mitigated by winning some money at a Super Bowl Squares game.
These emails targeted specific fanbases and were written with (not-so-subtle) references to the futility and incompetence each team exhibited over the course of the season. We appealed to the ubiquitous self-loathing of the hapless and hopeless football fan in a way that is both tragic and comic.