The 2021 BCL competition presented the perfect opportunity for FMS to share elite European basketball with our passionate coaching community.
As the global standard for basketball coaching software, we’ve made a commitment to serve coaches everywhere. And that means covering basketball everywhere, including at the recent Basketball Champions League Final 8 competition.
We employed a multi-pronged approach, starting with one of our most valuable assets: TeamFastModel. This collection of dedicated coaching contributors is a group that we’ve recruited, developed and unleashed not only as brand ambassadors for FMS, but also as basketball ambassadors with the goal of growing the game as far and wide as possible.
Share the game, grow the game
TeamFastModel contributors are the basketball junkies on the front lines for us. They’re constantly watching games and film, coaching their own teams, training the next generation of players and more. They know what’s trending in basketball, and what the next trend will be before it arrives.
This is how we’ve covered events that our followers are familiar with such as March Madness, Final Fours, NBA Drafts and more. We like to say we give the people what they want, and coaches across the world know they can count on FMS for quality hoops content.
So with TeamFastModel assembled, we embarked on a two-week campaign to deliver our coaching audience key insights from the elite European competition of the BCL. Here’s how it all went down.
2021 BCL Final 8 Content Campaign
Our more than 33,000 followers have come to expect the best XsOs filling up their timelines on a daily basis 365 days a year. This didn’t change with the BCL, as Twitter was the main channel we used to highlight the competition as games were happening live. We were able to generate conversations around the contests, XsOs and coaching decisions with this medium – granted the games were taking place in the mid-morning for most of the U.S. timezones.
We even created the hashtag #BCLXsOs to connect all the play diagrams from us and our contributors, as well as anyone else wanting to jump into the conversation on social media.
Playbank
We published more than 50 BCL plays submitted by FMS contributors to the Playbank, and the site earned over 345,000 page views during the two-week campaign! Coaches anywhere can access these plays for free, and with an active subscription they can download as many as they like directly to their FastDraw library for customization and use with their own team.
In a perfect example of sharing the game and coaches studying each other all over, Hapoel Holon head coach Txus Vidorreta dialed up this SideLine Out of Bounds called “Butler Winner” that was made popular by Brad Stevens when he took the mid-major Butler Bulldogs to back-to-back NCAA men’s Final Fours. However, Vidorreta added his own “twist” to this set with the rip screen for 4, resulting in an easy layup. Click the diagram to watch live video of the action.
Blog
Full circle back to where we are now. We posted an Intro to the Final 8 teams of the BCL, along with team previews on and Lenovo Tenerife and the eventual champions, Hereda San Pablo Burgos.
When this blog launched in 2014, we set out to make it a hub for coaches to learn and develop by sharing the latest offense, defense, special situations, practice concepts and more on the court strategies. And we’ve succeeded in that.
Yet what has been just as impactful, if not more, for coaches is our content that goes beyond the court: building relationships, developing a staff, ensuring clear communication, maximizing the off season, developing a game model, keys to building a program, how to adapt your program and things of this nature. Contributor Radius Athletics has created a popular blog series around mental biases that apply coaching but can just as well translate to any profession or area of life.
Our Plays of the Week email reaches nearly 60K coaches every week as we collect the best plays and drills and deliver them directly to coaches’ inbox. If you’re not on our list, get subscribed now!
Of course, these emails were heavily focused on BCL content during the Final 8 campaign. We created and delivered them to our audience at each crucial stage of the competition – at the start, ahead of the semifinals and final, and after the champion was crowned. View these examples below:
- Plays of the Week: BCL sets to study
- Blog Roundup: Preview of the BCL Semifinals
- Plays of the Week: How Burgos won another BCL Title
A success for the BCL and FMS
The versatility of our BCL coverage was certainly a strength. Just like with offensive systems or defensive strategies, coaches all have their own preferences on how they like to consume coaching and professional development content. Some prefer the short bits of social media, others like the long form blog post breakdowns; some enjoy browsing the Playbank via the web, while others like to read emails at the time of delivery. Casting a wide net and repurposing content for different channels allowed us to connect with coaches where they were and when they wanted it.
Covering the BCL was a mutually beneficial endeavor. We spread awareness of the competition and shone a light on its elite talent, from the court to the sidelines. We also gained new international coach followers and subscribers ourselves to grow the FastModel Family!
That’s what we like to call a win-win.
Read about the FMS x
FIBA partnership.
If you’re an international coach who’s interested in seeing how FastDraw and FastScout can help improve communication and workflow efficiency with your staff and players, reach out.
We’d love to show you the full power of our programs that can help automate your data and aggregate your information into one place.
Click to learn more and email sales@fastmodelsports.com to connect with an FMS team member.
How do coaches use FMS products to enhance their programs? Here’s an example:
Program Spotlight – How the Leicester Wolverines Use FastDraw to Build Pillars of Performance
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