How the London Olympics will energise the trend we call ‘Performative Leisure’
The Future Foundation’s Jason Mander on why London 2012 will be the most networked, social and digitally enhanced set of Games experienced to date…
The 2012 London Olympics has the explicit aim of boosting sports participation levels in the UK. But we argue that one of its most immediate and pervasive impacts will be to elevate the importance of Performative Leisure – a trend we talked about here earlier this year – with millions of global consumers using smart technology to broadcast real-time records of their viewing activities – whether from the stadiums themselves or the comfort of their living rooms.
The Performative Olympics
London 2012 will be the most digitally enhanced and advanced Olympics seen so far.
Never before have sports fans and casual viewers alike been so technologically equipped, never before will we have had such a smart and social set of Games.
Despite an official ban on the activity, thousands of spectators will capture images and upload them online (LOGOG deputy chairman: “We live in an internet world… and there’s not much we can do about it”).
Across the world, meanwhile, millions of viewers will take to their preferred social networks to download their real-time thoughts and reactions.
So we ask whether London 2012 will be the Performative Olympics – the games which elevate our Performative Leisure trend into the mainstream and which, rather than appreciably and permanently boosting sports participation, become the first truly real-time, leisure-rich Olympics – participation of a highly particular 21st century kind.
The digitally enhanced Olympics
Since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, so many aspects of the typical consumer’s day-to-day life have been enriched by technology and now glow with a digital sheen.
The numbers using the mobile internet have, for example, quadrupled. Social networkers have increased nearly threefold. HDTV penetration has crept towards the three-quarter level. And, by 2012, around half of us have smartphones. Will this impact the way we consume the Olympics? Absolutely.
We know, for example, that nearly half of young sports fans think that HDTV is the best way to improve their viewing experience; nearly 40% say that they access sports content via their mobile. In this context, it is proper to speak of London 2012 as being truly networked and multi-platform.
As consumers have become a) more social and b) increasingly tech-rich and savvy, so growing numbers have chosen to broadcast details of their day-to-day lives and leisure pursuits – with over 40% saying that they have shared content found online by 2012.
At present, those wanting to share live event experiences are still most likely to text or phone someone (ca 25% having done this). But posting status updates or photos follows closely behind and, as the mobile internet percolates into more and more places and facets of our lives, we have to imagine that such performative behaviours will grow.
During the Olympics, then, will millions tweet about the 100m final and the men’s coxless fours? Will many post photos to show where and how they are watching events unfold? Inevitably, the answer here must be yes.
Already, it is 30% of younger consumers who will tell us that they have tweeted about a television programme they have been watching. In this sense, then, Performative Leisure offers a way to feel involved rather than merely spectating passively.
But this brings a clear challenge for those who hope to stimulate greater levels of sport participation: will millions of us feel as if we are indeed participating by engaging with this new form of social spectating?
While we might not be playing the game ourselves, will we feel sufficiently engaged through a series of blogs, posts and tweets? It is certainly revealing that, while over two thirds say they expect to watch some Olympic coverage on the television, just a fifth will report that the events of 2012 make them want to get out and about and be more involved.
Networked Sport and Performative Spectating
At time of writing…
- Jessica Ennis has over 150,000+ Twitter followers. Michael Phelps has over 5.2 million Facebook fans and over 175,000+ Twitter followers.
- The Official Olympic Facebook page has over 2.7 million fans. London 2012 has nearly 575,000 Twitter followers.
- The Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich sets a new “tweets-per-second” record and generates 1.12 million messages.
To mark 2012’s Six Nations rugby tournament, sponsor RBS released an app designed to encourage fans to participate in real-time interactive activities as they watched matches.
By February, RBS reported that it had been downloaded over 275,000 times and reached the number one spot for sports apps in both the UK and Ireland.
May 2012 saw Visa unveiling its Olympic “Go World” campaign, which encourages sports fans to create digital “cheers” in support of their favoured athletes.
The “cheers” – which can take the form of photos, videos or posts – can be uploaded to the brand’s Facebook or YouTube channels, with Visa saying it hoped “cheering” would become akin to other social actions such as “liking” or “pinning”.
As the Olympian year places sport on a particularly prominent podium, levels of expressed interest in such activities are bound to spike – especially as technology makes it easier than ever before to watch events in real-time, anytime.
Along the way, Twitter records will be broken, updates will be frenetic and many millions of spectators will capture (and then share) their Olympic experiences in photographic form.
Emphatically, London 2012 will be the most networked, social and digitally enhanced set of Games experienced to date. And thus will the Performative Leisure trend mature from emerging to mainstream status.
For more, please contact:
Jason Mander – 020 3008 6105 / jasonm@futurefoundation.net
or Richard Nicholls – 020 3008 6103 / richardn@futurefoundation.net