Best in Sports in Social Media - Shorty Awards

13th Annual Shorty Awards Categories

The Shorty Awards honor the talented agencies, brands, and industry leaders behind the best and most innovative work on social media and digital channels, campaigns, websites and applications.

From the 9th Annual Shorty Awards Best in Sports

Sports teams, athletes, leagues, networks and services are eligible for this award. Objectives include engaging current fans, driving traffic, expanding fanbase and educating viewers and followers.

See previous winners and honorees here.

Winner

On June 12th, the City of Orlando changed forever. The Pulse Nightclub shooting shook the city to its core and that included the players and staff of Orlando City SC. When Orlando City SC woke to the news, calls and texts immediately came in from their entire digital staff - people wanted to help.Orlando City had a mid-week U.S. Open Cup match, an…

Finalists

#FlyTheW: Chicago Cubs are World Series Champions!

The Chicago Cubs are a franchise steeped in tradition. The famous Wrigley Field Marquee welcoming millions of fans each year. The ivy lining the outfield walls. The organist. Day games. The hand-operated scoreboard. And the iconic W Flag that has flown above that scoreboard after each win since the 1930s. That W Flag is a symbol our fans treasure …

Big Ten Network's Minifigures

With the launch of a new Saturday morning pregame football show, BTN Tailgate, in the Fall of 2016, Big Ten Network (BTN) knew it would have to rely on new, custom, innovative, and 'snackable' content that was easily shareable in order to drive awareness for linear/streaming viewership and on-site attendance throughout the Fall. By developing a cr…

Exceed - Beyond Limits

As a bike manufacturer our planning normally focuses around specific bike model launches. These occur throughout the year. However, we always look to extend the promotional period beyond just the initial launch. For the launch of the Exceed CF SLX we wanted to really involve our community and create something fun, insightful and engaging for th…

When adidas signed James Harden, basketball's most enigmatic star, interest in his new signature shoe was white-hot. But there was one problem… it wasn't ready yet.Our challenge: Build hype for the Harden Vol. 1 with the 15 year-old hoops fan for three months straight. Get them excited. Keep them engaged. Without ever actually showing the shoe. Re…

Team USA - Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Team USA fans around the world engaged with and experienced the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in numbers never seen before, consuming the Games on multiple social media platforms, interacting with athletes, and setting records for media consumption. Through the social platforms of the United States Olympic Committee, the Rio Games reached …

Nominees

There’s Playoffs In Every Play

With this work, our goal was to promote the importance of the 2016 NFL Playoffs, and in doing so, raise excitement, interest and awareness of the NFL's most exciting time of the year. After a season filled with media speculation around declining interest in the game, we were tasked to stem the tide of this ratings trend. Especially important would be to re…

Social media's impact on sports television has been huge. Every day, audiences react to their favorite games and studio shows on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Those messages are retweeted, shared, and liked by millions. Sometimes, they're even featured on TV.Although sports television clearly drives social conversation, that conversation passe…

Our goal for #ThankYouKobe was to celebrate Kobe Bryant and to encourage fans worldwide to share their favorite memories of the Black Mamba.

Barstool Sports

This year the Chernin Group acquired Barstool Sports. Founder, Dave Portnoy appointed Erika Nardini, formerly the CMO at AOL, as CEO and built a 7 figure office in New York City. The 4,000 square foot office operates with new state of the art technology and as a 24/7 wired studio and production office – from a podcast studio, radio studio and soon to be TV…

Behind The Book Web Show

MGM Resorts International launched a first-ever weekly Facebook video series that provided an insider's look at sports betting in Las Vegas. @beatingthebook podcast host Gill Alexander and MGM Resorts Vice President of Race & Sports Jay Rood came together each week for 22 weeks and chatted betting lines, sports news updates and "bookie" lingo to help educat…

Brita. Splash Studio.

A 2013 study in the journal Pediatrics showed nearly 80 percent of the food endorsed by top athletes was "energy dense and nutrient poor," while 93 percent of beverages endorsed got 100 percent of their calories from added sugar. Last year, Brita, the maker of water filtration products, and Stephen Curry, one of the biggest names in sports, teamed up to buc…

Capital One's March Madness #RoadToOne Campaign

As a Corporate Champion Partner of NCAA's March Madness tournament, we set out to be the most famous, talked-about brand across the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament. Our goal was to create an engaging experience that broke through the March Madness media frenzy. Our #RoadToOne social media campaign focused on creating a seamless experience for college baske…

First NFL Team to Engage Fans Through In-Stadium Snapchat

Stadium display boards are constantly evolving to be more than just a highlight machine or call for crowd noise. However, these massive screens now compete for attention with the smartphones fans turn to during any given game break, making it more important than ever to provide fans with innovative and interactive content to attract and keep attention on th…

Football is Family

Despite being America's favorite sport for several decades, the NFL is consistently trying to reach a new, young audience to adopt the game. More and more, younger generations are turning away from live TV and focusing on other more curated forms of entertainment. In addition, the last several years have seen the league challenged with player and game-rela…

Jordan Breakfast Club Training Chatbot

In an effort to connect with elite athletes, Jordan Brand took a page from the history books, looking back to when the Chicago Bulls became one of the greatest teams to ever play basketball. The Bulls' success during Michael Jordan's time can be partly attributed to their dedication to training – Jordan and other members of the team improved their strength,…

How do you say goodbye to one of the greatest athletes of all time? Kobe Bryant's iconic NBA career has garnered an intensely polarized reaction. People love him. Or they hate him. There's no room for neutrals in the Kobe camp. Mamba Day is a campaign that sought to bring this to light. To celebrate Kobe's biggest fans and give a soapbox to his biggest detr…

Meeting the Moment > Real Madrid Global Champions League Final Campaign

When Real Madrid qualified for its record 11th Champions League final in June 2016 we set out to captivate and unleash our passionate global fan base across the world of social media with only one objective....to create the most successful organic one week social media campaign in sports history.

Russell Athletic Defends Team Sports With #SettleYourScore

Russell Athletic is a 100-year-old athletic apparel and uniform brand needing a rebirth. Over the last two decades, Russell has lost its market share to large competitors. Unable to match their multi-million dollar marketing budgets and celebrity endorsements, Russell Athletic got lost in the arms race for sports apparel dominance.As Russell fell from the r…

Spalding 125th Anniversary of Basketball

Spalding and basketball are synonymous, and the game itself had an anniversary coming up. 125 years. The Spalding brand wanted to celebrate the anniversary of basketball and bring attention to the game in a way that only Spalding could. This would have to be done with a very limited budget, hardly any media spin, and launched during the holidays, where the …

Thursday Night Football on Twitter

The NFL wanted to offer fans a new touchpoint to consume live football, for free, anywhere. Not only did the league recognize the significant increase in mobile usage during TV broadcasts, but also that the amount of social content created (specifically on Twitter) during NFL game broadcasts was increasing year-over-year. NFL needed to tap into this passion…

The Minnesota Vikings partnered with award-winning artist Ian Padgham to create unique content in a variety of mediums throughout the 2016 season. Whether it involved claymation, water color painting, stop-motion or illustration, the Vikings were able to create engaging short-form content for a variety of social platforms. While Vine was the main vehicle fo…

In the world of WWE, the show doesn't end once the final bell rings. The conflicts and controversies continue across WWE's digital media platforms, which operate 24/7.Our WWE Digital and Social Media teams are comprised of a 50-person group of editors, producers, designers and photographers creating content for WWE's flagship website and App, WWE's hugely p…

WWE WrestleMania 32

WWE WrestleMania is the premiere annual event for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), bringing hundreds of thousands of the WWE Universe – our worldwide fans – to our host city to celebrate the culmination of WWE's storylines at our largest, grandest showcase of the year.WWE WrestleMania 32, held April 2, 2016, was the most attended event in WWE history, p…

Whistle Sports is a global sports media company that is re-imagining sports, together with our partners. With a network of 320 million fans and followers, which is growing by 3.7 million per week on average, and over 470 social sports influencers, we entertain, engage and empower the world with real, cool, fun and unexpected content and activations.

About the Shorty Awards

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media.

Millions of people participate in The Shortys to recognize individuals and organizations producing great content on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, Snapchat, and the rest of the social web.

winners have been announced. follow us to see who won!