<\/p>\n
Zalgiris Kaunas had an amazing opportunity to have a couple of their home games this season played with
\ntheir sixth man \u2013 the inspiring fans, who\u2019ve been beating season attendance records in this pandemic-
\nimpacted world.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the rise of new cases didn\u2019t elude Lithuania, which pushed the country back
\ninto quarantine for the larger part of the month. Since the 7 th of November, games are being played
\nwithout spectators, much like in most European arenas.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been obvious that the fans would fill up Zalgirio Arena not just to watch the game, but to feel and add
\nto the emotion and the remarkable feeling of unity. The club knew that the fans deserved to feel at least a
\npart of this, and thus ideas turned into a new project \u2013 a virtual game experience, which connected and
\nunited fans online.<\/p>\n
The fan experience starts with Zalgirio Arena\u2019s energetic presenter, Andrius Ziurauskas, who became the
\nhost of the virtual experience, bringing out the team presentation straight from his home and welcoming
\nthe teams with as much energy as you could expect.<\/p>\n
Fans were involved in other activities as well, including a Zalgiris quiz before the game and during half-time
\nwith sponsors\u2019 prizes, short quizzes between the quarters, a lottery for one of the virtual ticket holders, and
\nan online meeting with a special guest after the game. Fans had the chance to ask questions and talk to
\nZalgiris Kaunas GM Paulius Motiejunas and Patricio Garino so far, while they were also given the chance to
\nprovide questions for the head coach in the press conference after the game.<\/p>\n
Another amazing part of it was that the fans had a chance to connect and communicate with each other.
\nThe chat function was very popular throughout the entirety of the virtual event \u2013 fans discussed about the
\ngame, socialized, wrote chants and sent their support from behind the screen. The poll showed that 40% of
\nthe participants were watching the basketball game alone, so this allowed them to band together and
\nbecome a part of a big Zalgiris community.<\/p>\n
A good number of activations were included in the package, with the game broadcast not being one of
\nthem, as fans watched the broadcast live on their TVs.
\nThe reaction from the fans was overwhelmingly positive. Zalgiris Kaunas uses a platform that is limited to
\n1000 participants, and the tickets, priced at 10 euros apiece, were sold out quickly to the first game. The
\nsurvey after the game showed very positive numbers:
\n– 30% of the attendees were Lithuanians living abroad and they felt it was a unique experience for
\nthem to support the team, as they would normally not be able to participate in the games in
\nperson;
\n– The organizational part was rated 4.5 out of 5 stars, entertainment \u2013 4.3 out of 5;
\n– 90% noted that they would most probably purchase a ticket to the next virtual game and 87%
\nwould most probably recommend this activity to their friends;
\n– Fans also provided many suggestions on how to fix the small challenges they experienced and were
\neven more involved into suggestions how to improve the content. Among their suggestions were
\nproposition to make virtual attractions in away games as well and continue this idea post-pandemic
\n(especially suggested by emigrant fans).
\nAfter implementing some of the improvements, the club continued virtual activities for the second home
\ngame and is planning to continue the project at least until the end of the quarantine, as longs as the games
\nare played without spectators. Virtual tickets have not only kept fans engaged, but also allowed them to
\nfeel close to the team in these times when keeping distance matters so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The reaction from the fans was overwhelmingly positive. Zalgiris Kaunas uses a platform that is limited to
\n1000 participants, and the tickets, priced at 10 euros apiece, were sold out quickly to the first game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[611],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-185430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-euroleague","tag-zalgiris-kaunas"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185430"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=185430"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=185430"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=185430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}