The New Rules of marketing and PR - is this percolating down to sport management?

In looking at social media and marketing I came across a new-ish book (pub. 2006) called 'The New Rules of marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott (http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Rules-Marketing-PR-Podcasting/dp/0470113456/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216037893&sr=1-2) .In this book Scott tries to show how the new tools of web 2.0 have and are transforming the relationship both between Marketing and Public Relations, and, perhaps more importantly, the relationships between companies and their customers. The arrival of new ways of communicating with customers through blogs, podcasts, and web releases that by-pass traditional media to go straight to target customers are a few of the better known techniques he describes with lots of good examples of them working successfully. However, every example comes from traditional industries and there is not one example linked to sport. Is this because sport based marketers are behind the curve of innovation? Or is it because the nature of the sport product and its consumption makes it more resistant to new styles of consumer marketing? It might be argued that sport fans need little incentive to support their team, and are hardly likely to have attitudes changed by the appearance of sports blogs from their favourite team, or that wikis (collaborative knowledge creation tools) are likely to be attractive to sports fans. However we know that almost every professional (and many community/amateur sporting clubs) have web sites, and use these to communicate with fans. And we also know that many use chatrooms and message boards on the web where fans can exchange news and comment, or even arrange for ways to get to games.
In their book The Elusive Fan (2006), Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Ben Shields argue that sports marketers are essentially failing to spot trends that will lead to reduced personal consumption of sport among the current and future generations of sports supporters. In short, the argument is that sport will be crowded out of a marketplace where there are many other attractions vying for the potential sports ' fan's cash. One issue they highlight is that sports is opened up to media intrusion and publicity on a scale that most managers in sport have never experienced before. This often results in poor publicity for the sport as players coaches and management are exposed in the press, television and on-line. The effect on reputation can be destructive, and maybe this is sowing the seeds of future disaffection. Yet, and this is my point, we rarely see sports organisations handling publicity well, or intervening successfully in PR issues. The recent examples of from the cricket world of the rather ostentatious promises of wealth from 20/20 (a short form of the game) cricket has divided the cricket administrators and players, and led to wonderful scenarios that are more likely to be settled in a court of law than on the playing field. One can argue many cases of player misbehaviour in soccer reported in the tabloid press are also examples of potential PR disasters. Administrators of sport are notably reluctant to open up to fans who voice opinions and comment on various unofficial web sites.

It seems to this interested student of sport marketing behaviour that the model has rather settled down to sell tickets and sponsorship and let the fan or supporter go hang. In other words there is no desire to get involved or intermediate between the fans and sporting organisation, despite the plethora of tools available. In addition one might even make the argument that the web can help intermediate between the organisation and its sponsor.

In research I did personally with sports marketing managers in the UK, it was quite amazing how they helped the supporters' opinions more or less in contempt - in some cases refusing to host a chat room or message board because of the 'nutters' amongst the fans. One club refused to think about monitoring the rooms and boards for comment and rumour. others did so only to prevent possibilities of legal action. very few thought of them as a channel to communicate the clubs or organsiation's position.

I wonder if there are any counter examples? I note that Sport England have just put out a tender for consultancy on use of social media- is this the beginning of a trend?