Bo Li, is an associate professor in Sport Leadership and Management department. He teaches sport administration, sport marketing and sport public relations. His research has been mainly focused on sport digital media and branding. He has previously co-edited the book Sport and the Pandemic: Perspectives on Covid-19’s Impact on the Sport Industry, Sport Administration, and Governance and Administration of Global Sport Business. His research interests lie in the intersection of digital media, mass media, branding, and consumer behaviors. Specifically, my scholarship aims to advance our understanding of how various forms of media are used to connect with customers at different levels. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed academic manuscripts. His works have been published in leading academic journals including Sport Management Review, Communication & Sport, Journal of Media, Culture, and Society, International Journal of Sport Marketing and Sponsorship, International Journal of Sport Communication, Sport Marketing Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Finance and Journal of Sport Media. (9/18/2024)
Episode Description
Paris hosted the most recent Olympic and Paralympic games. But, before these fade into memories what did you think of the coverage of the games? That’s what our guest Dr. Bo Li is talking about today and how these types of sports mega events are covered.
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John Bailer
Paris hosted the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics games this year. Before these fade into memory, what was your reaction to the coverage of the games? Having Snoop Dogg as a commentator added a fun element to these games. But what does that mean for the branding of the games in sports? How did that impact audiences? This Stats and Stories episode will be a conversation about decisions by journalists covering major sporting events such as the Olympics, more and about how branding and sports digital media is evolving. I'm John Bailer. I'm joined by Rosemary Pennington, chair of the department of media, journalism and film. Stats and Stories is a production of Miami University's departments of statistics and media, journalism and film, as well as the American Statistical Association. Our guest today is Dr. Bo Li. Li is an associate professor in the Sports Leadership and Management Department at Miami University. He teaches sports administration, sports marketing and sports public relations. His research has been mainly focused on sports, digital media and branding, positioned at the intersection of digital media, mass media branding and consumer research. But prior to starting his career as a teacher and researcher, Li was a journalist who covered two Olympics, three World Men's World Cups, one Women's World Cup and three International World Swimming Championships. Wow, Bo. Thank you so much for being here today.
Bo Li
Thank you so much for having me, such an honor.
John Bailer
Well, can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved in sports journalism?
Bo Li
Yeah, definitely. You know, when I was a kid, being a sports journalist had always been my dream. So after I graduated from college, I went to Australia to study for my master degree. So after I finished my master's degree, I went back to China, and happened to be in 2007 so it's like when the 2008 Olympic Games was, so I always want to, like, cover the Olympic Games. They say, Oh, okay, I need to find a job in sports media. So I apply for multiple different jobs. And then I got into Tencent, which is the largest Internet in China at that time. So I had the honor to, you know, cover my first ever Olympic Games, which happened to be in Beijing, where the city I was living at that time. So it's kind of cool, like, cover major events like the Olympics.
Rosemary Pennington
What was it like for that to be your first foray into sports reporting and to have to, like, juggle so many different sports and so much data that comes with the reporting on those events?
Bo Li
Yeah, that's a very good question. It's like the current Olympic Games, and is very challenging compared to any other sports events that I covered before, because the Olympic Games are 16 days long. You've got so many different sports happening every single day. So before going to the Olympic Games, you do need to spend tons of time to prepare your work. So you have to understand, you know, a lot of sports that you're familiar with, a lot of sports. You possibly only watch it a few times in your life. So you do have to prepare a lot of this information before going to the game. So every single game, because each media only has limited numbers of media potentials, so they want you to cover as many things as possible, so right before the first day's event. So we need to have the meeting. So if, like, three of us have the media potential, we have spread the word. We say, hey, tomorrow, you know, I'm gonna cover swimming, because Michael Phelps will be swimming tomorrow, so we're likely to have some very good results for this athlete. So we will need to spread the word, and then we have to travel between different venues every single day, so you have to get that ready. So before that, we actually spent tons of time getting all this data to understand who'll be likely to have a really great performance tomorrow and what particular event. So what time do we have to be there? So everything has been calculated and made sure that we won't miss anything major. So that was very exciting. But also have to say this, 16 days, you usually get up very early because, like, shooting competitions are usually scheduled, like starting at six o'clock in the morning. So you basically have to go to the shooting venue at 5:30 in the morning. And to cover that, you know when this finishes, and then you tend to go to a different venue. It's just a lot of work, definitely, when you cover the Olympic Games.
John Bailer
It sounds like this mad combination of statistics and logistics, yeah. So, I'm sort of picturing you kind of pouring through the schedule for each day, right, and trying to imagine what's going to be the kind of stories that's going to have the biggest hook, yeah? So what are some of the things that might lead you to say, Oh, this is definitely where I need to be tomorrow.
Bo Li
So there are a lot of different things. And one thing is the top athletes. Everyone wants to target the top athletes like the 2008 Olympic Games. Like people want to know whether Michael Phelps can become the first ever swimmer to win eight gold medals. So every single day, what we're doing at that time was just, you know, going to the swimming pool to see whether Michael Phelps could continue winning the medals. And also, because Michael has tons of schedule, so at least usually, every time when they finish competition, they just talk to me there right away. So Michael Phelps is different at that time, so they have a press conference for him when the whole competition is over. So maybe he'll win three races that night. So you're not going to talk to him during the race, but you only get a chance to talk to him when the race is over, then he has his own press conferences. So this, obviously, top athletes are important, and also we want to see people who break the world records at the Olympic stages, right? So that's something we've been really focusing on, because that really triggers people's interest. People want to know, you know, who's actually the best athlete? Why are they the best? Because they set the new record, or what record that was the, you know, best accomplishment by any human being in that sport. So that really triggered people's interest, and also made our story become very appealing.
Rosemary Pennington
So in the Olympics, you might be covering, shooting, one hour. You might go to dressage. You might maybe do indoor cycling, maybe it's track, maybe it's gymnastics, all of these various sports have their own sets of data, right, that are important to understand the sport. How do you prepare to tell a story of, say, dressage, in a way that you know you can explain what these stats mean and how they're being judged to an audience? What I'm assuming, you are not going to be an expert on dressage.
Bo Li
Yeah, it's difficult. Is like for us, we only know certain sports. We only participate in certain sports, so we're not going to be understanding every sport very, very well, but having this statistic with you that makes you really understand the sports better, and also can help you develop a very good relationship with athletes. So for instance, when a competition is over, go to the mix zone, where the media is all getting together. Try to touch all these different athletes. The Olympic Games is like you go swimming with possibly 300-400 reporters all waiting at the mix zone. You know, when athletes finish that competition, they're gonna walk across the mix zone and try to talk to everyone. So there's no way they're able to talk to everyone, because that time is very limited. So they only talk to someone they believe they trust. How you are able to develop this relationship is if you ask them a very good question. So what would be a good question is you ask them and say, Hey, Michael, you just won a men's 200 meter butterfly in the last 50 you swim like this time. You know this is much faster than the previous. What's the strategy behind this? So when you ask questions like that, the swimmer will say, Well, this guy knows swimming, so I want to talk to him a little bit more, because he know my sport, he's not like random person who just assigned a job to come here to ask me some random question that has nothing to do with my sports, so they want to talk a little bit more about it. So I think they make us more professional, and then also help you develop a trust relationship between you and athletes. Athletes would prefer talking to you over other journalists which can help us to write better stories.
John Bailer
I hadn't really thought about this, sort of having this insight about the details about performance as being one of the ways of developing credibility, and also this connection with the athletes.
Bo Li
Yeah, you also find out there are many, like loyal fans, like they care about statistics, right? They're very sensitive about the time, right? You talk about this time, they know if there's a good time or not a good time. And so I think that is very important, because when you try to target audiences, you're going to target different audiences. Some audiences only care about the beautiful story behind the successful athletes, but a lot of them care about, you know, the statistics behind this performance, and they can let you know, you know, whether this athlete is very successful or not, you know. So a lot of time you do have to try to incorporate those statistics in order to target those readers.
John Bailer
So how do you weave in, kind of these statistical aspects of this incredible performance in the last 50 meters of a race, or other characteristics that you think is going to help bring in an audience?
Bo Li
Yeah, definitely. I’ll give an example, in 2012, when I covered the London Olympic Games. So the swimming competition was really dramatic at that time. So there was a Chinese swimmer. Yes, she won at 16 years old. She competed in the women's 400m, so she set the world record. So everyone said, oh, that's a great performance, because that's a record, right? Not just because she set the world record, her last 50 was even faster than Ryan Lodis 400m men's race. So that really shows how fast she swims. So when you're able to show that data to the readers and audience and they say, Oh, she's just incredible. That's an incredible performance for athletes. So that can really justify and enhance that accomplishment the athlete delivers and the competition.
Rosemary Pennington
Is there a particular story that came out of either the Beijing or London Olympics that you are particularly proud of reporting or how you wrote about it or shared it?
Bo Li
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of things we are really proud of, like, because I was covering the Olympics for Chinese media. So obviously the Chinese audience really cares about, you know, who's going to be the first athlete to win the gunmetals? So in China, they really care about first, you know, you win the first ever gold medal in the event, I'll win the first ever gold medal for the Chinese team. So that was a very important moment for Chinese athletes. So usually they have a schedule. We had a schedule like, Okay, who is going to win the first gold for China? This, this sport could be in diving, could be in shooting, it could be in some of the sports. So I went to the 2012 Olympic Games. So that was a shooting event, an event that was the first ever gold medal to be delivered. So I happened to be there in that event, and a Chinese athlete when they got a medal. So that was very big news in China at that time. And also the IOC President, Jack Logger, was also there in that event, because he had to deliver the medal to the winner. So, because the shooting venues are very small, when the venue was finished, everyone tried to, you know, talk to the IOC President. I was just very lucky. I got outside of the shooting venue and he would just like, in front of me. I was, oh, they couldn't find better. And then I was there, like, three or four reporters with their people were like, should I talk to him or not? I didn't even think about it. I just put my microphone there and say, Hey, President Jack, how do you think about a performance? What do you think about the Olympic Games? You know? What do you think about the opening ceremony last night? And, you know? So that we will be able to get first hand information, able to talk to these high profile officials and athletes, so that would make our story become very appealing, and people happy about that.
John Bailer
So in your coverage, were you doing video coverage, audio coverage, print coverage, I mean, sort of, the whole package?
Bo Li
Yeah. Like you can see the chain of the media has been changing the last few years, like, because I work for our website. So the website, at the very beginning, emphasizes more about writing articles, just a Latin newspaper, you know, taking photos, right? Like newspapers, but later and started to care more about video, right? I guess, because, you know, people just want to watch something, athletes talk, or something that really, can really help. People can just get, help us get more readerships, more clips on the website. So we have to do a lot of different things. So nowadays, particularly when you see sports journalism being changed, like journalists in the past may only ask you, okay, you just go there to write a story. So when we cover a tennis event, for instance, like if you work for a newspaper, right, you only need to be in the venue for three hours and then finish a story and submit it, right? But I think there was 2013 when we covered, you know, French opens. I've seen a lot of reports for the New York Times. They're gonna sit there for the entire day, because they're not just writing a story for the newspaper, but also writing for a website as well. So they have to sit there all day, maybe have to write, you know, six or seven stories. And so I think that really changed the expectation for audiences. Right, nowadays with social media becoming so popular, a lot of journalists try to develop that brand on social media, so you're not just using that platform to break news, to share your personal opinion, so people also want you to share your content. A lot of content might not be available on their media platform, but social media provides them with the platform where they can disseminate more information. So yeah, because they can only have, like, one hour interviews done with athletes, maybe only 30 minutes will be broadcasted. Also good question that you don't want to waste it and you possibly want to share it on your social media to target a certain audience.
John Bailer
So you've covered the Olympics and World Cups, yeah, and other kinds of events. What are the big differences when you think about covering the Olympics, which are very concentrated in space as well as time, and the World Cup, which has just seemingly years of qualifying and then, and then a very full month of competitions. What are some of the differences?
Bo Li
Very, very different. The World Cup is more relaxing.
Rosemary Pennington
Okay, because it's not relaxing to watch.
Bo Li
World Cup play, because World Cup matches have been hosted in multiple different cities, so you have a chance to travel, so you only cover one game, right? So you're gonna cover one game and pregame press conferences and when the game's finished, the second day you travel to a different city. So you got a chance to travel to many different cities, meet a lot of different people, and you have a very easy schedule, because you only need to work for four or five hours that day, but the Olympic Games is a very, totally different story, 16 days in a row. You basically don't expect yourself to have any break, right? Because I feel like when we watch the Olympic Games, there are a lot of exciting moments, but when your reporter is covering the game, you cannot really digest this exciting moment, just like athletes, like when they win the medal or it was, like, hard for them to really digest the moment of accomplishment. It only takes them, like, two days, three days or four days. Just realize, you know how great the performance was. The same when you cover the games, because, like, you cover swimming, these are five medals being delivered today, right? So all of great performance, you just have no time to really, you know, digest every single moment. But when you cover the FIFA World Cup, it is different. It's only one game, you know, you could really digest that moment and the great goal, and you'll be happy about it. You can watch the replay multiple times, but you just don't have the opportunity when you cover the Olympic Games.
John Bailer
You're listening to Stats and Stories. Our guest today is Bo Li. You know, it seems like your research now can continue elements of sports reporting. You know, although the reporting is now touching on how audiences respond to and interact with sports and with other fans. So, can you talk a little bit about, kind of, some of your interests now, as a researcher into sports?
Bo Li
Yes, speaking of my research, at the very beginning, my research was focusing on media, because I'm very familiar with the film, but also when I start really looking at how fans started to watch it, consume sports, and also realized there's a trend that social media, digital media, really change how we watch sport. Right? In the past, we just turned on the TV and watched it. But right now, you have streaming services like the past Olympic Games. I know a lot of people may subscribe to Peacock. You can watch any sport you like on Peacock, anytime, right? That's very convenient. And also, if you're not big Olympic fans, you can also just go to Twitter, or go to other social media platforms. You can watch the highlights. You can go to YouTube to watch the highlights. Interesting thing, like when I watch when we started in 2024, the Olympic Games, we find a lot of people go to YouTube to watch these, like highlight videos, that one minute, two minute video, but they consider that is a lie. So you see a lot of comments there. They say, hey, NBC, don't spoil the result. Just don't say who won the medals. We just want to pretend that we're watching live in this video. It's interesting to see how fans like watching sports. Like in the past, we prefer watching live right now. Like, you know, you got it very easily for you to get resolved, but people will still like to have that atmosphere. So you can also see the athletes and also the sports organization take social media and digital media very seriously. Because in the past, if any big news they wanted to break, they usually would go through the media, but right now, they have the power to control the information. So if you look at all these well known athletes in the last few years, when they announced retirement, right? So they will never talk to the media directly, right? In the past, they were just like, let's have a sit down interview, talk to the media. Let the media break this news. Now this is like, Okay, I found out a particular time I want to break this news to the entire world, let everyone know that I'm retired from the sport. So I think that's a big change, and it also made my research start to look at more about how they use things like this, digital media, social media, to develop their brand and control that information and also enhance the interaction between them and the followers and the fans.
Rosemary Pennington
It's interesting because, as you were saying that, I was thinking back on that, I think the last big sit down sports breaking news interview that I can remember is LeBron James saying he was leaving Cleveland, yeah, and going to the Lakers. And I don't remember since then. You know, as a Cavs fan, that was heartbreaking. But I can't remember another moment where an athlete did something like that with a journalist and I, and again, had not recognized that until you just now brought it up. I wonder, how else are our athletes using social media? Because, I mean, I'm now on Tiktok, and sometimes they show up in Tiktok in interesting ways. How are athletes sort of using that space? Are they? Is it about branding? Is it about connecting to fans?
Bo Li
That's a very good question, because one of the recent research projects that we're working on is to study the top 100 athletes at the Paralympic Games. How do they use different types of social media, including Twitter, including Instagram, and including tea talks and Facebook? And not surprised that not many of them are using Facebook, right? Because Facebook, it just takes longer for them to really create those contents. You cannot just create short content right now. On Facebook, you have groups, you passively need to write long things over there to create good videos in order to target audiences. So like a lot of athletes, you know, you find out interestingly when they're using Twitter, they're more likely to share their opinion, right? So I support these athletes, great performances. I've made a lot of comments on Twitter, but when they're using Instagram, they use more about branding, right? So I have sponsors. We just had a great, you know, TV interview with NBC. So for instance, I would like to share the same stories with my audiences on Instagram and to talk more about entertaining, right? So you look at some of us when she won the Olympic gold and she recorded multiple different very entertaining content that mainly shared it on Tiktok. Obviously the content has also been shared on Instagram, because of the Instagram story function, but you see, finding out a lot more content on Tiktok is very entertaining. Is spontaneous content they usually create. So you find out they're using social media very differently and strategically, and they understand, you know, what kind of thing the audience is looking for on this platform. So they started to create that content, particularly for that platform.
John Bailer
You know, in one of the papers that you shared with us before we chatted, you mentioned the magic bullet technology, yeah, and this idea that there is an over the top service that allows for the audience to be engaged with each other while they're also engaged with viewing this sport. Can you talk a little bit about that? And then what kind of questions were you trying to answer when you looked at these types of interactions?
Bo Li
Yeah, that's a very interesting one. So the bullet is very popular in China and Japan. So how this whole thing started was, like in Japan, there are many people watching animation at home. So when you watch animation at home, you should always feel lonely, right? So you want to have that communication with someone who's also have a similar interest. So that created that technology where people were able to share the comments and then you'll be able to interact with each other with the content. So now, more and more sports have been broadcasting live on streaming services we call over the top service, and then the same service, same technology has also been applied in these kinds of contents as well. So for instance, when we watch NBA games, so when we, three of us, watch NBA games, we might all be at home. We don't know each other at all, but we all have an interest in watching these games a lot of the time. We might have a lot of questions. So for instance, it's my first time watching this game. So there are a lot of players. I don't know if the Lakers will get a new player to play. I would say, Hey, who is this player? I've never seen him before, as someone like John, possibly pretty knowledgeable about it, John would just say, okay, these players, blah, blah, blah, provide some inside information about it. So like, when we're watching the game, we don't feel like we're alone. We feel like, Oh, we've got company from so many people together, right? So when, but when we look at these contents, some of them, a lot of them, there's a charge to talk, right? So I support a certain team. I hold this team lost. So they will come in a lot of these, right? Because of this comment, you won't be able to see the user's ID. So basically, give them bigger freedom. They're able to talk more about things they want on that platform. So I think that it is an interesting technology to definitely enhance the engagement. So like, for instance, that's the same game that is also available on TV, available on this platform. People will say, Oh, before watching from this platform, because I can talk with someone who is also watching this game. So I think that's a cool technology that we'd be able to do. It's actually interesting to study too.
Rosemary Pennington
It's interesting because during, you know, big sporting events, I am a terminally online person, and I'm, you know, I'm often, like, bouncing between, like Twitter and Reddit, sometimes they will have, like, live threads of sporting events to kind of see, because I love sports, and people in my house do not love sports, and so it's nice to be with people who are enjoying the sport too. And I am trying to imagine what that would be like to sort of experience that overlay of sort of being with these people as I'm watching the screen, having it all be on the screen together at the same time, and having to toggle back and forth.
Bo Li
Yeah, it's interesting. But also sometimes could be very frustrating, because you will see a lot of negative comments as well, right? Because you can see users ID, so they give them the freedom to have a lot of, like, worst chat talk over there. You know, maybe you're supporting one team and someone else really doesn't like the team, and you could have tons of trash talk over there that can really impact your experience watching that as well.
John Bailer
Yeah, you can build and destroy a community depending on the tone that you take. Yeah. So you also talked about, in another piece, that we were looking at the attitudes towards naturalized athletes competing for, you know, yeah, their home country, yeah, where the home country might be their parents, country of birth, or some other other connection, yeah. And I thought that it was interesting as you did. Part of this, you did a sentiment analysis and a thematic analysis of this kind of experience. Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you did and some of the insights that maybe emerged from that?
Bo Li
Yeah, definitely. One of the studies during the 2022 winter Beijing Olympic Games was to study how Chinese audiences actually look at so many athletes. They were born and raised outside of China, but they have Chinese citizenship right before the Winter Olympic Games to compete for China, and how they react to that changes, because that's very uncommon in Asian countries. Because most of the Asian countries, including China, Japan, Korea, we barely have the athlete who were born race outside of the country and compete the country at the most important sports events in the world, at the Olympic Games, and also in 2022 Olympic Games happened to taking place in Beijing. So that means the attention of the Winter Games are much, much, much higher compared to previous winter games. So one example is Alin Gu who was born and raised in the United States when she was 15 years old, changed citizenship to China, competed for China and won three medals for China at the Olympic Games. So we'd like to see how people comment on this athlete, because it's very different, because in the past, you see only athletes that were born and raised in China speak foreign Chinese. Obviously, compete for China and talk about it, but now you're totally seeing a foreigner. But they also wear Chinese team jerseys and barely speak some Chinese, but compete for your country house. The people's reaction to it was interesting to study about this. But obviously every country is very, very different from the US, but you see very, very common efforts to change citizenship but compete for the United States. But in China, it's very different because we got only one nation, one nation, everyone should look the same so that they can represent China and compete. So it was interesting. You could see, when athletes win medals, they have great success. People recognize that, right? You met from a different country, but at this time, as you compete for China, you win a medal for China, that's the most important thing, but if the athlete did not have a very good performance. So people start a question of, why are we spending money to, you know, ask this athlete to change that nationality to compete for us? So because people will say, Well, we have our own athlete as well. When we use this athlete to compete, basically just jeopardize opportunity for our own athletes, right? It's not going to be good for the future. So a lot of debate on that as well. So actually, it's a very interesting study for us to look at.
Rosemary Pennington
I have one last question. I'm going to pull the John and ask the question, the last question before we wrap up, John mentioned this in the introduction to the episode, but talked about some sort of thing. Snoop Dogg was kind of everywhere at the Olympics, and then, you know, Leslie Jones has been sort of involved, officially, unofficially, for NBC, sort of commenting and social media. And then you had Flava Flav this Olympics, who was like, propping up a lot of women's sports. How important is it for celebrities to sort of be in that space to sort of, how do they impact the profile of particular sports, are they and are we going to see more of this moving forward and related to other sports, perhaps down the road?
Bo Li
Yeah, I think that's one very interesting thing about how you see the Olympic Games, because we conducted a study in the last three Olympic Games to see how the American audience sees the Olympic Games. What is the biggest motivation for you to watch the Olympic Games? Interestingly, entertainment is actually the number one motivation for American audiences to watch the Olympic Games. In the last three Olympic Games, right? In other countries they show different motivation, like China, patriotism the number one motivation. So when people think about the Olympic Games, it's like, a great festival for you know, 816 days we'll be able to watch so many different sports but you'll be able to, you know, feature so many celebrities. And in the Olympic Games, the coverage can really trigger people's interest, right? People, a lot of them. Maybe you never watched the sports before, but because celebrities come here and watch the game, have interaction with athletes, and suddenly people were just like, oh, this is interesting. I want to learn more about it, right? So I think we could see that happen again more often in the future, particularly in Olympic coverages or other sports coverages.
John Bailer
Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this conversation today. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Bo Li
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. And had also talked with you guys about sports and statistics.
John Bailer
Stats and Stories is a partnership between Miami University’s Departments of Statistics, and Media, Journalism and Film, and the American Statistical Association. You can follow us on Twitter, Apple podcasts, or other places you can find podcasts. If you’d like to share your thoughts on the program send your email to statsandstories@miamioh.edu or check us out at statsandstories.net, and be sure to listen for future editions of Stats and Stories, where we discuss the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics.
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