As I drag my team into the Premier League’s relegation zone on FIFA 12 for Xbox 360, it dawns on me that the football industry has embraced transmedia whether it knows it or not – and is a master of it.

From the perspective of a transmedia writer Football’s use of transmedia is an interesting model to look at. What I note here could be applied to most popular sports like, American Football, Basketball, Baseball, Golf, Cricket, Tennis and even the Olympics.

Kick Off

Imagine the football industry as the Storyworld that houses the various leagues and games. Think of each season as a story with plenty of drama – there is conflict, a beginning/middle/end structure, controversy, heroes and villains, winners and losers and of course GOALS!

Individual games contain the same elements of drama as the whole season story – conflict, beginning/middle/end structure, controversy etc. Each game can be viewed as a piece of story content that feeds into the overall story of the season and at the end of the season we know how it was resolved and who won.

Transmedia storytelling works in a similar way – over a period of time story content is delivered to add to and advance the bigger story.

Extra Time

Football and indeed most popular sports have a vast multiplatform presence across TV, film, print, live events, games, merchandise, social media and also in the extra dimension of behind the scenes dramas that are digressions from the season story but add texture and depth to it – match fixing scandals, training ground bust-ups, drugs, sex and violence.

In my next post, ‘Football – A Transmedia Example – Post #2’, I will take a more detailed look at the various elements that make up football’s transmedia way.

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