Let's take a look at what we can take away from the 2016 Rio games and what it tells us about the direction of sports marketing and media.

In a spring and summer filled with the Olympics, presidential conventions, Pokemon Go, Brett Favre's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, LeBron James leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA title and the return of Guns N' Roses, it takes some marketing moxie to stand out from the crowd.

When a game is in full swing, no other brand can match a sports club for fan engagement. But as football legend Emmitt Smith wisely said, winning isn't about one moment; it's about every moment.

We are in the midst of what some bill as the greatest spectacle in all of sports. Sports and research are both my vocation and avocation. Why, then, don't I care about the Olympics?

You can't flip on a TV for more than 30 minutes without seeing some kind of Twitter integration, and it feels like practically every blog post these days has at least one Tweet embedded. On top of that, Twitter is the de facto social network for live commentary, giving it a sort of reciprocal relationship with live broadcast with no remuneration to Twitter.