Junior football teams like the Regina Thunder don’t have all the opportunities to get noticed by a large audience like university football teams.

The Thunder is a junior football team in Regina, Sask. Why is it important for these junior football teams to have a media team? The biggest reason, current and former members of the organization say, is being noticed by a large audience. 

For example the University of Regina Rams has TV advertising as well as advertisements  from the university. Right there The Rams already have a large following with all the students who attend the university. As well as everyone who follows sports through Canada West media.

“Media is important for us to build our presence in the community and create a sense of ownership in sport fans in the Regina area.” said Brin Werrett, President of the Regina Thunder NFL lotteries in a text. “We want them to connect to the stories and the people around the team and find a reason to follow the team’s success.” 

All social media platforms help promote these teams, and advertise the fundraising work they are doing. 

Every year the Thunder hosts NFL lotteries. They follow the entire NFL season, week by week, as a way to give back to their fans, as well as helping the team with funding to stay on the map.

“With many of our players coming from small towns around the province, our media efforts help get these stories out to small town newspapers and radio stations, especially when they have an opportunity to spotlight one of their own and how they are making out with the team,” says Werrett.

Small towns and small newspapers are a start at promoting the team. Especially if someone from that small town is highlighted in the paper. This helps grow an audience and gets people talking about the team. 

“If we didn’t have our own media team we would have little to no engagement from the local media,” says James Henderson, who is part of the Thunder media team. “Furthermore, social media has grown to become more powerful and have a greater reach than traditional local media.”

This has led the Thunder to recruit young journalism students from the University of Regina to help out with their media team, and to help get more media coverage.

“Overall, it’s all about connection and having the public hear the name Regina Thunder on a regular basis,” says Werrett.

A team like the Thunder needs a lot of reliable connections as junior football in Canada doesn’t get the air time other sports do, this is including other football teams in different divisions. All these CanWest teams have the advantage of big games being aired on TV for anyone to access.

“The benefits of social media are that you can reach a large amount of people very easily simply by creating a shareable post that others can continue to share past the first post. You can literally reach thousands of people in a matter of minutes,” says Chris Latimer, former coach for the Thunder.

“There are not a lot of downsides to using social media in this way. In many cases, this is the only way people find out about these things.”