ESPN, Google & World Cup Highlights in Search Results

Yesterday, Google and ESPN combined to deliver real-time video highlights directly into Google search results via Google's homepage, World Cup related search queries and Google's new World Cup page, and so on. This integration will be live during the entire 2014 World Cup - meaning soccer fans can find their highlights.

- on ESPN.com & ESPNFC.com, ESPN's suite of mobile apps - on social media through integrations like Twitter Cards that play directly in-line and are sharable and embeddable - and now on Google and directly within search results

At ESPN, our mission is simply to serve sports fans, anytime and anywhere. This is another great, big step in that direction with our partners at Google.

World Cup 2014 Google and ESPN

Press coverage (as represented by Techmeme):

Chris Welch / The Verge: Google and ESPN partner to put World Cup highlights in search — If you're stuck in a cubicle at work and unable to watch every minute of the World Cup, Google and ESPN will at least help you keep up with the latest highlights. The two companies have teamed up to pair both in-progress …

More: The Official Google Blog, Re/code, GeekWire, The Next Web, eWeek, LAPTOP Magazine, Gigaom and Quartz

googlesearch world cup

Nike Soccer's Interactive Campaign, Live During World Cup Finals

For the World Cup Finals, Nike Soccer took over ESPN.com with a big, interactive campaign asking fans "Who are you behind?" When clicked, users arrived at their Facebook application and were able to submit "headlines" for the game and their favorite players... which are of course published to Twitter (#NikeFuture) and Facebook. More interesting though is that the ad shows results of their poll: "Who are you behind?" The screenshot below was taken just after Spain's Iniesta won the game and, as such, its predictable that he led the vote 63% to 37% (over Sneijder).

It is a clever campaign that runs concurrently with a major, live event... and includes real-time results both in the unit and via the fans' Twitter / Facebook publishings. The campaign's look, messaging and action changed as the game developed and ended.

Minutes after the Spain won the World Cup, the Nike ads changed from "Who are you behind?" to "The future has been written". Rather than polling users and focusing on Facebook and Twitter (though still available - screenshot also below), the ad drives users to NikeSoccer.com:

Again, after the World Cup's conclusion, the interactive component of the campaign was relegated to the sidebar square: