Earlier today we had the opportunity to take part in a conference call with Timberwolves Sr. Vice President of Marketing & Communications Ted Johnson and web-guru Jonah Ballow about this Sunday's multi-platform Fan Forum extravaganza during the game against the Thunder:
The Minnesota Timberwolves today announced that the team and Verizon have partnered to provide Wolves fans with a commercial free broadcast of the Timberwolves vs. Oklahoma City Thunder game this Sunday (Feb. 21) at 6 p.m. on KSTC-TV Channel 45. Not only will this be the first-ever Wolves commercial-free broadcast, but it will also be a first-of-its-kind, live fan-interactive broadcast featuring unprecedented fan involvement via various media and social networking platforms.
Throughout the game, timberwolves.com will host "Fan Forum" - live web chats in which Minnesota fans will have the ability to ask questions to Wolves owner Glen Taylor and President of Basketball Operations David Kahn. Both will share their thoughts on the current season as well as what they see for the club in the future. Fans should log on to timberwolves.com to participate in the chats, which will be integrated into the broadcast.
This event is, to the best of our knowledge, the first of its kind and it will afford Wolves fans the opportunity to interact with Papa Glen and PoBO Kahn during the game. It really is a fantastic idea. Seeing that it is the first event of its kind, we here at Hoopus want to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible (and is as beneficial to fans as possible) so that more fan-interactive broadcasts can happen in the future.
In order to make this happen, we want to focus on three specific aspects of the event:
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YouTube. The team has asked fans to "plead their case to Wolves basketball boss David Kahn about who the team should draft by submitting a video through YouTube". Simply head on over to the team's YouTube channel and submit your entry. We have a lot of draft speculation throughout our site and this is the perfect opportunity to let the POBO know who you think the team should draft. Don't waste this opportunity. We urge as many Hoopus members as possible to head on over to the team's YouTube channel and submit their video suggestions. The winning video will be shown during the television broadcast. BTW: Feel free to mention Hoopus as many times as possible during your entry ;)
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Twitter. The team will also be hosting a live @MNTimberwolves Tweet-Up during the game where several participants will be asked to submit their questions live via Twitter to PoBO and Papa Glen. Hoopus will definitely be there to participate. Fans at home or in-arena can submit questions to Taylor or Kahn through Twitter by using #Twolves. For those of you not rote in the ways of The Twitter, we will create an open thread where you can submit your questions and we will do our best to submit as many good ones as we can.
- Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. This Fan Forum is going to be something of an experiment. The team wants to know what does and doesn't work and we here at Hoopus share that motivation. This is a fantastic opportunity to blend new media experiences into the coverage of our favorite basketball team and we think it's is in fans' best interest to be productive partners in ensuring that as good of a product as possible gets put out there on the interwebs. We ask all of you to take part in this Forum and then let us know what you liked and did not like about the experience. We'll open up a feedback open thread after the game.
That about does it. We'll have more information this Sunday.