Always looking for new, weird ways to promote, self-promote and promote some more, Major League Soccer and Twitter are joining together to create one crazy marketing ploy for Friday night’s El Trafico between the LA Galaxy and LAFC.
The third ever meeting between these city rivals should be a memorable one, back at the pitch where Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced himself mayor of L.A. with a stunning brace to rally the Galaxy to a wild win. The second match this season was a 2-2 draw, so newbie LAFC will be eager to even the series.
To get more fan engagement — really the World Cup trophy of marketing — MLS and Twitter have joined together to create a fan-operated sideline camera during Friday’s El Trafico.
For the first in sports history, @Twitter users can operate a sideline camera during the @MLS rivalry match between @LAGalaxy and @LAFC.
— SportTechie (@SportTechie) August 24, 2018
Essentially, every time someone tweets with the hashtag #LALookIn, the sideline camera will take a photo and immediately send it back to the tweeter in a reply.
According to SportTechie.com, the speed at which the camera can snap photos and send them out is limited only by the camera’s shutter speed.
It sounds like a pretty cool idea, if not totally unnecessary. The camera will be located in the corner of the StubHub Center pitch, so hopefully there’s some good action near the camera throughout the match, otherwise you’ll get a lot of photos of little tiny players on the opposite end of the field. Ideally Zlatan scores a goal and decides to moon the camera or some stupid shit.
This isn’t the first time Twitter has given users control of a camera. During the Teen Choice Awards on Aug. 12 a camera snapped photos of the red carpet every time someone used the hashtag #TCcam2018.
You tweeted, we delivered — peep your personal pic of #TeenChoice! pic.twitter.com/SosbzdItGB
— Teen Choice Awards (@TeenChoiceFOX) August 12, 2018
Cool. I guess.
It’ll be interesting to see how the internet breaks this technology, because you know it’ll try.
And the camera operator better turn the camera off when it’s done, or we’ll get a lot of pictures of a camera lens cap after the match.