• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 14, 2012

Some activities are made for social media integration, and spectator sports are high on the list: team loyalties are inherently communal, and fans celebrate (and commiserate) together in stadiums, sports bars, at home -- and now online. Social media also gives fans a chance to interact with athletes, which became one of the central features of the Summer Olympics in London.

With this in mind, Access Sports Media is offering advertisers a variety of social media integrations through a new service called Access Sports Connect, which gives them the ability to feature their brands in the social and mobile marketing messages of professional sports teams nationwide, including franchises in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, Minor League baseball, and NCAA basketball and football leagues.

Examples of marketer-supported promotions enabled by Access Connect include photo sharing, flash ticket giveaways, player-of-the-game voting, and behind-the-scenes player access.  These promotions can be coordinated with messages on Access Sports’ digital out-of-home network in sports venues, which includes 20,000 digital displays of varying sizes at 200 properties around the country.

Access has partnered with 60 professional sports teams, as well as 50 of NCAA football and basketball programs. The company is expanding its reach at sporting venues with the creation of a Minor League Baseball Network serving over 90 venues with a cumulative attendance of over 30 million.

In July Access announced a partnership giving it access to advertising inventory from the College Gametime Network, which operates sports venue video and information systems for over 30 colleges and universities nationwide, including the Universities of Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as Syracuse University and Boston College. The CGN network reaches about 15 million college sports fans per year through a network of over 7,000 screens. It is slated to expand to 10 more schools by the end of next year