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20th December 2016
12:18am GMT
Modern sports broadcasting is as fast paced as the sports and athletes themselves. Gone are the days of working up to a Saturday afternoon fixture with one big show, or a mid-week review program with features and highlights; today's sports fans want more and they want it more often.
That's meant as broadcasters it's time to change tact, not only do we worry about the TV screen in your living room or the pub, but the computer screen in your office, the smartphone during the morning commute and the iPad instead of the newspaper being taken into the toilet… The challenge with sports fans wanting more comes when trying to be creative about delivering the content, at Sky Sports originality has always been at the heart of production.
In 2012 an All Blacks side, unbeaten since lifting the Rugby World Cup trophy a year previously, visited Twickenham. It would've been easy to put out a minute's highlights of the best historic England v New Zealand clashes, rugby fans lap that stuff up; but Assistant Producer Tim Dale wanted to play on one of the most exciting elements of an All Blacks visit… so the Haka Flashmob was born.
At this time our social media following wasn't huge, but as this promo travelled the world, being embedded on other rugby sites and blogs we saw it grow, and the public's thirst for more stuff like this has only grown…
Now each week, all of the bits we produce go up on the Sky Sports website, from feature interviews to 'Big Hits' montages and tries of the week, fans want rugby anywhere at any time. The growth of sites like, RugbyDump and Balls.ie to name but a few just show the public's hunger for this. This leads us to thinking more about what stands up as purely online content. Short, funny, entertaining packages that are quickly retweeted, forwarded as emails and picked up by other outlets.
This week I cut 'Adam Jones' Drop Goal Masterclass' the concept for this was borne out of his attempt at the posts against Munster earlier this season, and an almost instant idea for what we hope will become a viral internet hit. Check it out below, and if you laugh forward it on, that's the point right?!
Laura-Jane Jones began her rugby career at Cardiff Blues and worked for the Welsh region for 4 years whilst studying for a degree in Public & Media Relations at the University of Wales. In the summer of 2010, weeks after graduating she took a job at Sky sports; her role her takes her to rugby pitches all over England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France and most of her work can be seen on Sky Sports' Rugby Club. LJJ combines her role in sports broadcasting with social media work and writing for a number of different media outlets.
