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ISSUE 15 | AUTUMN 2017THE MAGAZINE OF SPORTS MARKET INTELLIGENCE

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OTT AND THE CHANGING FACE OF SPORTS CONSUMPTION

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TALK DIRECT

Jonathan RestEditorSportcal Insight

Disruption.It’s fast become the ‘mot du jour’ in the sports

media industry. No longer pejorative in meaning, it’s now the

go-to description for the change in the broadcast market brought about by over-the-top (OTT) viewing.

It’s been two decades since Clayton Christensen, the renowned Harvard Business School professor, defined the concept of ‘disruptive innovation’, a principle whereby a dominant product or service provider could have its leadership position disrupted by smaller rivals offering simpler and/or cheaper solutions.

It’s a concept that has played out in the transport (think Uber) and travel (Airbnb) industries. Digitisation has certainly taken its toll on the music and entertainment sectors. Remember cassette tapes - CDs even - and Blockbusters, anyone?

In linear TV, live sports remain one of the last bastions, having been relatively unscathed by the advent of digital.

For how long?In the fast-moving OTT space, predictions are the

job of the brave. Or stupid.So here goes: the mainstream media will buy

the story in the weeks and months ahead that the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google will mount serious challenges to the incumbents Sky and BT Sport for domestic Premier League rights when they hit the market.

There’s no-one quite like the Premier League at engineering an auction for its rights. After all, both BeIN Sport and Discovery Communications were used in recent cycles to provide the illusion of competition.

But let’s be honest, even the dip-pocketed Amazon will not go from a £10 million ($13.5 million) a year outlay on ATP tennis rights in the UK to the billions of pounds needed to wrest control of the richest league in soccer.

And I’m not sure the Premier League will jump in two-footed either.

The Premier League may well carve out a package of rights, something Simon Brydon alludes to in his excellent analysis on page 31, but there’s no way it will put all its eggs in one basket at this stage.

As it stands, it appears the big digital media companies do not value live sports rights quite as much as traditional media companies do.

The very threat of them bidding, however, is enough to set off a stream of obituaries: ‘OTT is killing broadcast.’

That’s a misnomer.OTT is value adding… at least at this moment in

its lifecycle. Almost every deal done with a digital platform has been in partnership with a major broadcaster – whether it’s streaming network-televised sport or complementary second-screen programming.

The PGA of America talked a good game when, having ended a deal in the UK with Sky ahead of the 2017 US PGA Championship, it said it was heading to where the youth reside: to Facebook and Twitter.

And it did. But it also signed a live TV deal with the BBC, that great guardian of tradition.

For rights-owners, there are of course additional revenue streams and a new, younger set of eyeballs, but ratings remain paramount.

But change is coming.In PwC’s Sports Survey, published in late

September, David Dellea, director, Sports Business Advisory, PwC Switzerland, writes: “What are sports industry leaders telling us? The message is loud and clear: the industry is undergoing more disruption than ever. Linear TV is experiencing decreasing ratings and revenues. Global tech giants are slowly but surely entering the rights market.

“These developments leave us with no doubt that big tech firms are gearing up to play in the sports rights market in earnest, either in direct competition for premium rights or through broader partnerships. The question then is, when is this tipping point going to be?”

Decade-long rights deals in USA have protected the traditional TV broadcasters, perhaps not from actually losing rights to the new digital brigade, but certainly from engaging in a bidding warfare that threatens to put greater pressure on the balance sheets at a time of cord-cutting and shaving.

Come the early years of the next decade, the picture will look very different if digital players continue to build up their portfolios, as they seem entirely intent on doing.

When researching this piece, an executive at a major sports property told me: “OTT is here now. It’s offering change, yes there are still some pitfalls, but it’s only going to get more compelling as technology advances.

“What of TV? I have no idea as to the future of linear TV in the next 10 years. I think I’d be better to invest in a lottery ticket before answering that.”

The revolution is under way.Will the revolution be televised? That’s one for the

business professors.

“‘OTT is killing broadcast’.That’s a misnomer”

[email protected] TALK DIRECT

3www.sportcal.com Sportcal InsightAUTUMN 2017


ContributorsContents

Chris Argyle-Robinson is a strategy director at RedTorch

Christian Knaebelowns Global Media Consult

Simon Brydon is a consultant with Pitch International LLP

Mike Laflin is Chief Executive of Sportcal

Jonathan Rest Editor, Sportcal Insight, writes on events, bidding and US major leagues

Callum Murray Editor, Sportcal Insight, specialises in the IOC and international federations

Krzysztof Kropielnicki Head of Sports Market Intelligence

Martin Ross Online news editor, is a broadcast rights and sports agencies expert

Simon Ward Deputy editor, Sportcal, specialises in sponsorship and Asian market

News analysis06 A change in the organisation of the

Commonwealth Games08 Rugby World Cup 2023 bids12 Creative thinking needed in soccer14 PGA Tour’s London aims

Opinion16 Chris Argyle-Robinson on getting

the fundamentals of OTT right17 Christian Knaebel says there’s no

time to lose

Murray Barnett20 The Formula 1 sponsorship chief on

the changing face of the series

Cover Story26 As over the top viewing disrupts

the way sport is consumed, are rights-owners ready to make the ultimate leap?

World Boxing Super Series34 Weighing up the commercial prospects

for the $50-million competition

Major League Baseball38 The latest North American league to

grow its London presence

Sponsorship42 The brands battling for supremacy

in elite tennis

Index48 Key information on the events, people

and deals driving the sports business475


Contributors


InsightAutumn2017End of road for men from Del MonteThe recent establishment of CGF Partnerships, a joint venture of the Commonwealth Games Federation and Lagardère Sports, marks a major step change in the organisation of the games.

By Callum Murray

Time was when the CGF used to hand over all of its marketing and broadcasting rights to organising committees of Commonwealth Games, along with a list of milestones and obligations that they were expected to achieve, from bid to legacy, and then leave them to get on with it, albeit with some guidance and support.

“The men and women from Del Monte would occasionally come in to inspect the fruit,” is how David Grevemberg, the CGF’s chief executive, characterises the process.

Now that’s all changed.In an exclusive joint interview with

Andrew Georgiou, Lagardère Sports’ chief executive, Grevemberg tells Sportcal Insight that the appointment of an agency had “been on the books for two and a half years,” ever since the publication of ‘Transformation 2022’, outlining the CGF’s “vision, mission, values and strategic priorities” in 2015.

“We needed to change the delivery model,” Grevemberg says. “We need to make the games far more efficiently and effectively run, to be far more innovative but also more affordable. We need to be the controllers of our own destiny, by

doing two things. Firstly, by responding to the market, and the reality that under current market conditions hosting events is a real challenge for all sports and entertainment in general. We need to be more fit for purpose.

News6 Analysis

Autumn2017

“Our sponsors are global brands. We need to be where they are” Thierry Pascal, PGA

“It’s about maximising revenues and going to the host city to say we can reduce the overall cost.” Andrew Georgiou, Lagardère

“We need to make the games far more efficiently and effectively run” David Grevemberg, CGF

“Secondly, we want to be the industry thought leader. We want to be regarded as an innovator of the industry because of the complexity and distinctiveness of the Commonwealth Games.”

The appointment of Lagardère was “not really an appointment,” Grevemberg adds (both parties have a stake in CGF Partnerships, albeit the CGF is the majority shareholder). “We’ve worked with Lagardère on various games over 20 years,” he continues. “It’s not a typical agency-federation relationship; it’s truly a joint venture.

“We felt that a partnership with an agency like Lagardère would have the robustness to go beyond one games. It addresses our needs in terms of an overall asset pool that is available to each games. The delivery of the games we firmly believe can be done very efficiently.”

In the first instance, CGF Partnerships has been contracted to support the delivery of the next three major Commonwealth Games cycles up to 2030, but with a view to the new partnership delivery model being the foundation behind all the CGF’s major sporting events in the future.

A key priority for CGF Partnerships is to reduce the cost and maximise the value of the games for hosts. In a bid to achieve this, dedicated CGF Partnerships delivery teams will be fully integrated with host city teams, providing enhanced support, knowledge and expertise on the delivery of the games.

Georgiou says: “One of the things we see as an organisation is almost a crisis in relation to major multi-sports event

cities, with increasing costs versus value return. We see that as an issue based on the specific knowledge and expertise in our organisation, which is almost unique in our business.”

Lagardère was involved in Rio de Janeiro’s successful bid to land the 2016 Olympics, and has been moving more into the event and bidding area since acquiring Event Knowledge Services, the Switzerland-based company well-versed in Olympics bids, in 2015.

EKS, run by Craig McLatchey, once of the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Games Knowledge Services, is now part of Lagardère’s Olympics and Major Events team and was appointed by Budapest to work on its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games, which was withdrawn in February.

Lagardère is also well-known within the Commonwealth Games movement, as its Australian subsidiary Sports Marketing and Management marketed sponsorship rights for Delhi 2010 and Glasgow 2014 and is doing so for Gold Coast 2018.

Georgiou says: “For me, the bit that makes this joint venture almost unique is in relation to the delivery model. There are other games where the federation controls the marketing and broadcast rights. We think we can maximise revenues by doing that, but it’s not necessarily unique. The really unique part is the deployment of internal resources to sit within the organising committees, and transfer knowledge, insight, technology and software that allows them to improve their knowledge faster, with less wastage and improved output.

“We become an active participant. We won’t stop organising committees making decisions about how and where to spend their money, but it gives them ammunition based on previous games, so they don’t need to re-invent the wheel – benchmarking what it costs, the ability to really manage costs. Hopefully, the value proposition will start to improve to the point where there is a reversal of the trend and more and more cities will want to participate and more varied cities will be able to afford to.”

Although a competitive bidding process is currently under way for the 2022 Commonwealth Games with Birmingham having been chosen ahead of Liverpool as the possible candidate city for England and perhaps Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and a city in Australia also in the race- this only came after Durban in South Africa was stripped of hosting rights by the CGF for failing to meet some hosting criteria.

Durban had, itself, been awarded the games unopposed when Edmonton, Canada pulled out, and Manchester (2002) and Melbourne (2006) were also unopposed in bidding to stage the games.

Now, Georgiou says, the CGF is saying, “we want to have more influence and control over the commercial rights, and not just assign them to the host city. That means we can go to the host cities with pre-secured revenues.”

But is there a concern that the CGF’s plans for reorganising the allocation of rights, in order to become the ‘controller of its own destiny’, might actually have the unwanted effect of


deterring potential bidders, on the basis that cities will regard it as an erosion of the rights they have traditionally enjoyed?

“It’s not about the Commonwealth Games Federation keeping the revenues,” Georgiou replies. “It’s about maximising them and going to the host city to say we can reduce the overall cost. There are commercial partners who would like to engage on a multi-games basis, and we’re already talking to sponsors. There’s also an opportunity to give longevity to broadcasters. At present, everyone does a one-games deal, and there’s a temptation to do as little as possible to maximise the return but they won’t promote the next games because it might not be them [broadcasting the games].”

Traditionally, the national broadcaster in the host country has acted as the host broadcaster of the games, but under the new structure CGF Partnerships

becomes the host broadcaster, with Lagardère providing the resources.

Returning to the issue of the allocation of rights, Grevemberg says: “The ultimate aim is not for the CGF to sit back and keep 100 per cent of everything. It’s about who’s in the best position to maximise revenues. We can add value to the host city by creating a more efficient, affordable model.”

The CGF has already held talks with the cities that have expressed interest in hosting the 2022 games, Grevemberg says, adding: “Getting the host cities up to speed on the partnership approach is critical to its success. It’s structured to generate and invest back into the games themselves. We’ve been working hand in hand with the cities to give clarity and reassurance on this model. It’s very much in keep with the direction the entire movement wants to go. The detail is evolving and 2022 is an opportunity to solidify the transformation.”

World in UnionWhat are France, Ireland and South Africa offering in their bids to stage the 2023 Rugby World Cup?

By Florence Lloyd-Hughes

On 15 November, World Rugby officials will meet to elect the host country for the 2023 World Cup, the tournament the governing body proudly exclaims to be the third biggest sporting event around.

Following the commercial success of England 2015 and all indicators pointing to another financial windfall from Japan 2019, the pressure is on for France, Ireland and South Africa to prove their value.

FRANCE With the 2024 Olympic Games now

secured for Paris, the county’s major event hosting drive continues with the FFR’s bid to stage the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

France is aiming to solely stage the World Cup for a second time after hosting it in 2007 and staging some games from the 1991 and 1999 World Cups, alongside England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The FFR, much like Paris’ successful Olympic Games bid, points to the country’s existing infrastructure and modernised stadia as a reliable and sustainable option for World Rugby.

Of the 12 stadiums proposed to stage games, all of them already exist and five were newly built or renovated for soccer’s Uefa Euro 2016.

France invested €1.7 billion ($2 billion) on soccer stadium renovations and construction for the European Championships, and Uefa estimates that hosting the tournament boosted the French economy by €1.2 billion.

The CGF insists that, despite the origins of the Commonwealth Games in the British Empire Games and questions over their role in an increasingly crowded international sports calendar, the relevance of the games is increasing, not decreasing.

The CGF says: “Post-Brexit and various other inward-facing regime and policy changes around the world, there is renewed importance to the economic and social value of the Commonwealth.” (stats from Commonwealth.org)

HALF OF THE TOP 20 GLOBAL EMERGING CITIES ARE IN THE

COMMONWEALTH: NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, NAIROBI, KUALA LUMPUR,

BANGALORE, JOHANNESBURG, KOLKATA, CAPE TOWN, CHENNAI

AND DHAKA

$100 TRILLION

GDP, 14% OF THE WORLD’S TOTAL

52MEMBERS COUNTRIES;

2.4 BILLION POPULATION (A THIRD OF THE WORLD’S TOTAL), OF WHICH MORE THAN 60% ARE

AGED UNDER 30

BILATERAL COSTS FOR TRADING PARTNERS IN COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES ARE ON AVERAGE

19% LESS

THAN BETWEEN THOSE IN NON-MEMBER COUNTRIES

MEMBERSHIP STILL GROWING, THE LAST COUNTRY TO JOIN THE

COMMONWEALTH WAS RWANDA IN

2009

News8 Analysis

Lille, Lens, Saint-Denis, Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nice, and Marseille are all slated to host matches, with 10 of those cities having staged games a decade ago.

Alongside promises of a participation legacy, sustainability and economic growth, the FFR’s most enticing offer and standout bid promise to World Rugby is a financial guarantee above and beyond what is expected.

The FFR has submitted two guarantees to World Rugby, totalling €407 million, of which the first guarantee from the French Federal government, is for €171 million, exceeding the £120 million ($158 million) hosting fee stipulated by World Rugby and the FFR’s rival bidders.

The second guarantee, from an unnamed “large private French bank”, is for €236 million to “cover commitments in terms of the organising costs of the tournament.”

The FFR’s ambitious commercial claims for the tournament include projected revenues of €477 million, of which €373 million will come from ticketing.

By comparison, organisers of England 2015 generated over £250 million in ticketing monies, delivering an £80-million surplus to World Rugby and a £15-million surplus to the Rugby Football Union to be invested into the development of rugby. IRELAND

Unlike France and South Africa, Ireland has never hosted the World Cup

on its own, but it staged five games at the 1991 tournament.

The country is fresh from hosting a record-breaking Women’s Rugby World Cup in August which saw sell-out crowds for all the pool games in Dublin and impressive attendance for the knockout matches at Belfast’s Kingspan Stadium.

The Women’s Rugby World Cup has been a blueprint for the Irish Rugby Football Union’s plan to stage games in the 2023 tournament across northern and southern Ireland.

Of the 12 venues that the IRFU proposes to host matches in 2023, three are based in Northern Ireland and in its bid book, the team points to the “unifying” role that rugby can play for Ireland, despite a troubled history between the north and south.

Eight of the stadiums are home to Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association and the federation is in line to benefit from stadium upgrades for all the venues, which will be paid for by the Irish governments.

Like France, all of Ireland’s venues are already constructed but the Irish bid hasn’t taken its rivals option of a lucrative hosting fee but instead its government has agreed to underwrite just €320 million, which is made up of the €139 million hosting fee and other tournament costs.

Ireland 2023 has said it will “deliver the biggest commercial return in Rugby World Cup history” through a “record offer” that will enable “unprecedented global grassroots investment.”

The bid’s ambitious commercial programme hints to potential tie-ups with brands from Dublin’s tech sector, where eBay, Airbnb and Apple all have their European headquarters.

Ireland is also hopeful of enticing World Rugby with the engagement of its global diaspora, which it estimates is made up of 70 million people across the world.

Ireland 2023 claims it will “unlock significant new audiences for the game” in “new and developing rugby markets”, specifically, North America, which is home to around 37.5 million people that identity as Irish, and where World Rugby believes a World Cup in the near future will be held.

The IRFU believes its planned legacy programme will engage an untapped audience in North America, using the competition as “a platform to grow rugby” and signifying a “key moment for the sport’s growth in an important strategic market.”


SOUTH AFRICA South Africa is hoping it will be fourth

time lucky in its attempt to host the World Cup again after failed bids in 2011, 2015 and 2019.

The SARU is confident that the 2023 tournament could reignite some of the historic memories from its hosting of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which was the first major sporting event the county hosted after the end of apartheid.

However, its journey to bid submission has been a tricky one, after the government had temporarily banned sporting federations from bidding to host events because they had failed to meet targets on transformation in the post-apartheid era.

When the ban was eventually lifted in May, the country’s cabinet approved the request for guarantees totalling R2.7 billion ($202 million). The SARU boldly claims that “unlike other mega-sporting events” it would “profit” from hosting as it promises a “low-cost, high-return” tournament. According to Jurie Roux, SARU chief executive, hosting the tournament would be “a marvellous, inspirational nation-building moment to recapture some of the excitement of 1995, but it would also have enormous practical benefits for our country.

“Hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2023 would have a R27-billion direct, indirect and induced economic impact on South Africa; R5.7 billion would flow to low income households; 38,600 temporary or permanent jobs would be sustained and there’d be an estimated R1.4 billion tax benefit to government.”

Grant Thornton, the professional services network that carried out a feasibility report for the SARU, estimated that Durban alone, which would host games in the Moses Mabhida Stadium and Kings Park Stadium, could benefit from R4.5 billion economic benefits.

The SARU plans to use eight existing stadia in seven cities, with the final taking place at Soccer City in Johannesburg - the showpiece venue from the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

South Africa spent R40 billion on building six new stadiums and upgrading airports and transport links for the 2010 World Cup but the country’s international team and domestic clubs have so far failed to build on the legacy of the event. However, the country has fond memories of the 1995 Rugby World Cup and is less sceptical about the potential economic benefits of hosting again in 2023.

News10 Analysis

Teams must think as brandsOctagon believes soccer clubs need to be more creative to stand out from the crowd

By Simon Ward

Leading soccer clubs are being encouraged to make greater efforts to develop their own brands in order to differentiate themselves and make them more attractive to audiences and sponsors, with agencies able to play a key role in the process.

Octagon, the international sports and entertainment marketing agency that is a significant player in soccer, has evolved in recent years from a company that predominantly works with brands on contract negotiations and activation to one which also offers consultancy services and analytics to rights-holders, including Uefa, England’s Premier League and elite teams, on how best to exploit their assets.

It is also now making a return to the media rights market, with the establishment of a new consulting practice based in USA.

However, amid competition from rival sports agencies and potential challengers moving into the sphere, Octagon, which is owned by advertising giant Interpublic Group (IPG), is already eyeing other opportunities, and can see a major one in using its knowledge and resources to empower clubs to project themselves to the worldwide commercial marketplace.

On the back of huge rights deals such as the English Premier League’s three-year domestic live TV contracts worth over £5 billion and the global popularity of soccer, European clubs have been getter richer and built up their profiles and international following.

However, there is a sense that this has not been accompanied by growth in creative thinking on how they can stand out from the crowd off the field and offer a more attractive platform for commercial partners.

Phil Carling, head of football at Octagon Worldwide, tells Sportcal Insight: “Most football clubs and rights-owners within the football space are brands, but they’re brands almost in spite of themselves. They’ve become brands without any conscious

knowledge or effort to identify, propagate and develop what that brand actually is.”

He adds: “The commercial analysis a rights-owner has to do and how it positions itself to the marketplace actually has to start with an understanding and articulation of what their proprietary difference is.

“You could see presentations from, for example, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, and, if you took the branding off, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between those three propositions because they’re all selling the same thing effectively – the signage, the exposure, the tickets, association with a great club, association with a great sport.

“It’s all very good, but there’s nothing that differentiates those propositions from each other. Our contention is that the primary piece of thinking needs to be ‘what is it that makes Bayern Munich different, special and unique compared to any other football club in the world?”

Carling claims that, from the extra income generated from media rights, teams in the Premier League and beyond should be investing in creative concepts alongside “brand doctors”, and that Octagon is already working with several partners in this area.

While acknowledging that live matches remain the most compelling product, he stresses that soccer is now much more than the 90 minutes, but “365 days and 24/7 on a global basis” and that brands and rights-owners need to fully exploit platforms outside the collective deals, notably online, to engage with their audience.

He continues: “I think that over the next five years this is a very exciting area for agencies to move into. You still need the data, the knowledge and the analytics to underpin and to build the packages that justify the commercial case, but if you can add to that a unique creative territory and articulation of what your club or property stands for as a brand, that’s powerful.

“We know with the brands we work with that what they like more than anything is finding a property that provides them with a rich, creative territory in which to tell their own brand story, and if you can bring those two things together then that’s really strong.”

Established clients of Octagon in soccer, among other sports, include global brands such as MasterCard, one of the main sponsors of the Champions

League, AB InBev, a Fifa World Cup sponsor, and Mars, a partner of England’s Football Association.

Carling claims that the sums involved mean it is increasingly important for sponsors to justify their outlay on teams and competitions, and that rights-holders can play a key role in helping them achieve that.

He says: “There is recognition on behalf of the clubs now. They have to give the clients the opportunity to make a return on their investments because you take something like a Champions League sponsorship and we’re talking €50 million to €60 million a year just in rights.

“It does give you a certain amount of media value, but that’s not so valued these days and the activation that goes behind it is way more important. More often than not that activation sits within non-linear media and that’s going to be a big challenge for the elite rights-owners, particularly those products that are most predicated on media value for the justification of the fees.”

Carling anticipates that Octagon’s “proprietary position” in soccer

Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos celebrates scoring his team’s third goal during the Uefa Champions League group match against APOEL Nikosia

News12 Analysis

marketing consultancy, backed up by its experience in the field and acquisitions such as Futures Sport & Entertainment, the data, technology and analytics company, will be challenged by the major professional services firms.

He continues: “The difference is that we come from the sports marketing arena and therefore we have unique insights which McKinsey and Deloitte do not have. When we talk about the value of a Champions League or World Cup deal, the chances are we’ve done a deal for or on behalf of a client in the last six months and therefore our knowledge is much more current and it gives us a competitive advantage.

“But it won’t last forever. I think potentially the McKinseys and Deloittes will buy sports marketing agencies to integrate into their packages.”

This explains the need to find new revenue streams, notably in the shape of soccer clubs, and Octagon is also branching out with a consultancy practice advising clients on how to maximise media rights assets across various platforms.

Octagon Media Rights Consulting, which launched in New York in August, is headed up by Daniel Cohen, formerly managing partner, senior vice-president for the Americas at MP & Silva, and has a mandate to provide strategic consultation to domestic and international rights-holders, broadcasters, digital platforms and sports investors.

The move was motivated by demand from existing clients seeking evaluations of media rights, plus the growth of new distribution channels for content, including digital and OTT platforms.

Simon Wardle, Octagon’s chief strategy officer, explains: “It’s a non-traditional business for us because we’ve been focused on non-broadcasting consulting. But the same things are happening in the world of media. Our sister business Futures Sport, which I run, showed the need for this business is acute.”

While the launch does not represent a return to the buying and selling of media rights, a market that Octagon exited when it sold CSI to rival IMG Media in 2006-07, it does demonstrate the

growing integration with the sponsorship sector, and the increasing reliance on data and analytics.

Cohen says: “Rights-holders and content creators are not just looking for a consultant to bridge a gap or get a deal done, but to wrap themselves around software and bring in an outside party that can support them.”

The initial focus is on USA and the rest of the Americas, but the media rights arm is intended to be a global offering, with the support of Octagon’s 50 international offices and audience data from Futures Sport.

Potential clients include leagues, governing bodies, teams, traditional broadcasters, digital platforms, content creators, telecoms companies, OTT providers and media buyers, plus private equity firms, venture capitalists and technology companies.

ONLINE: Sign up for daily news alerts on technology innovation atwww.sportcalcom/news


London CallingAnalysing the motives behind the PGA Tour’s central London hub.

By Jonathan Rest

A 9-iron it may be from MI6 headquarters but US golf’s PGA Tour insists this is no secret mission, as quiet as it has been since setting up base in London.

The PGA Tour’s Vauxhall Bridge office has been operational since May, but only in mid-July did it really speak out, inviting the great and the good of the sports industry to a lavish reception at the National Gallery.

Publicly, the Tour insists its permanent presence on the ground in London should not be seen as an aggressive move on the European Tour, headquartered at Wentworth Golf Club, located on the south western fringes of the capital.

Thierry Pascal, senior vice-president, international media at the PGA Tour, insists it is purely a “good business sense” decision.

Pascal is based in the Tour’s Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida-headquarters, but has spent much of the past three months crossing the Atlantic to establish the London presence and build-up the team.

London has been a hot topic at the Tour for a number of years, but why make the move now?

He tells Sportcal Insight: “There is a growing recognition of how important international is. Are we a global company or product that just happens to be based in the US? Or are we a US business with international operations? We should be the former but we have been the latter. We are recognising the need to change that.

“We are becoming increasingly international. We now have events in Canada and Mexico, and we’re in Asia with tournaments in Malaysia and the WGC-HSBC Champions in China, and this year we’ll be adding an event in South Korea, so we’ll have a real Asian swing.”

It is the Tour’s third base outside of USA, with offices in Beijing and Tokyo (described as its Asian HQ), and while London is a small sales operation at present with three permanent staff, growth is anticipated.

“There’s a new business element, a focus on rights sales, on sponsorship

sales but also on servicing existing clients in that space. It’s time we were on the ground,” Pascal says.

“We have a growing number of international media partners and sponsors. It is imperative to build and foster those relationships with partners locally, and not from several time zones away.

“While we have managed to do that for many years successfully from Florida, there comes a tipping point when you need to be on the ground, and there’s only so much travel you can do. We have as many media partners in Europe as any other big sporting entity, so we want to be talking to them and supporting them, while helping them to build their audience.”

In the UK, the PGA Tour has a long and established broadcast relationship with pay-TV operator Sky. That deal runs to 2021 and Sky recently moved to strengthen its golf offering by scrapping its numbered channels and rebranding them as sport-specific destinations, in this case Sky Sports Golf, which customers can individually subscribe to.

“We have a terrific relationship with Sky, and now we can work more closely with them,” Pascal notes. “We are always looking to strengthen business

opportunities. London is a media hub. Being on the ground, having lunch with an agency, or a broadcaster, or even another league, because it’s all about building the knowledge base – we’re competitors for eyeballs, but we are all in the same business – is vital. It is hard for us to do that from America.

“Sure I can pick up the phone to Barney [Francis, managing director of Sky Sports] but ideally you want be deep in the weeds.”

Sponsorship business from London is being headed up by EMEA vice-president Phil Kennard, most recently commercial manager at Land Rover BAR during the Ben Ainslie sailing team’s Americas’ Cup exploits.

The implication is that the PGA Tour is seeking to court sponsors who might otherwise be attracted to European Tour events.

Given the global nature of the sponsorship market, Pascal insists (again) that a London presence is “sensible.”

“Our sponsors, whether it’s a title sponsor or commercial partner, are global brands, the likes of Rolex, HSBC and BMW. We need to be where they are.”

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Global OTT TV and video revenues will hit $65 billion in 2021, more than double the 2015 figure. But how much of this eye-watering figure will go to sports rights-holders?

The OTT world is set to become increasingly competitive as sports battle for audiences.

To succeed, rights-holders need to rethink the fundamentals of marketing and revisit ‘The 6 Ps of marketing’ to answer one simple question: Why would someone pay to watch your sport?

PEOPLE 1. How much disposal income do they have?

This has a huge impact on willingness to purchase, especially as fans are still reluctant to replace traditional TV bundles with OTT offerings that are often disjointed and cost-heavy.

2. How much time do they spend watching TV? Time spent watching TV is the single biggest prize for competing live sports. For example, US adults watch TV an average 3.3 hours per day. An average sports broadcast for this market lasts over 2 hours, so, to reiterate: Why would someone pay to watch your sport?

PRODUCTHow fans experience your sport in the digital

space goes a long way to determining success. The key is to deliver digital-first, platform- and audience-specific narratives that engage people emotionally. While this process takes time, it is essential as the quality of narrative will determine how many people watch – and continue to watch – your competition.

PRICEEnormous TV revenues are distracting, and

rights-holders would do well to ignore them when pricing for OTT.My three top tips:1. Perform a cross-genre price comparison: not

just with sport.

2. Understand your audience: competition intensifies when other genres are introduced into the OTT mix.

3. Price competitively: do your research. A recent summer Olympic sport’s World Championships were available on the federation’s native OTT platform, but were at least 60 per cent cheaper on Eurosport Player. Is this effective pricing?

It’s understandable to want to generate TV-level revenues, but OTT is a different market and requires different expectations.

PLACEWith people increasingly choosing to watch

content on mobile, 3G/4G quality will have a huge impact on audience acquisition and retention. Put simply, broadband speed will go a long way towards determining if your OTT offering is a roaring success… or a catastrophic failure.

PROMOTIONThe biggest challenge (by far) with emerging

OTT platforms is simply that most of them are not set up for e-commerce. Whether it’s lack of a holistic CRM system, or an in-house team with no OTT-specific experience, the basic structures are not in place.

There seems to be a focus on integrating new technology without understanding how most effectively to use it to acquire audiences. Why? Because audience acquisition is expensive.

Expectations must be managed: the amount you spend on audience acquisition will determine the size of audience you acquire.

PERFORMANCEOTT platform success is measured by high

average view time, low churn rate, and the ability to attract and keep new customers.

It’s not clear which sports will benefit from the OTT boom, or the exact size of the revenue-generating opportunity, but if ‘the 6 Ps’ are at the heart of everything you do, your sport will stand more chance of grabbing a piece of the OTT pie.

Chris Argyle-Robinson is strategy director at RedTorch, the independent data-driven digital communications agency specialising in sport.

‘Why would someone pay to watch your sport?’

Columnist16 Opinion

wwwsportcal.com/news LEADING INDUSTRY VOICES FEATURE DAILY AT

Why should you enter the OTT jungle now?

I’m often approached by people not typically entrenched in the TV industry, but who have access to great content. Especially in the sports business, there are hundreds of such players, large and small, yet they always ask me the same question: ‘should I launch my own OTT TV service?’ I always give the same response, a big YES.

Now is the right time to launch an OTT TV service. The opportunity has never been bigger and shinier, especially for sports content. This is even truer if you are offering niche sports content. The big players such as Disney/ESPN, Discovery/Eurosport, BeIN Media and Sky are all taking the lead in this arena. It is about occupying shelf-space and customer-relationship.

It is another step towards a business environment where more and more content creators get into a direct relationship with content consumers, thus shortcutting the distribution and aggregation platforms. Most notably it will undermine the TV content resale business of cable operators and telcos. It’s all about distribution.

The future of TV and video is with apps. The future TV universe is going to be a world of various apps. Consumers can choose freely on which service they’d like to spend their dollar - no cable operator, telco or channel bouquet as a bottleneck. You can now distribute directly to the audience, and you can use all types of content. Finally, you can make use of your archive, too, and be able to distribute it, moreover, monetise it.

When you think about launching your OTT TV service, there are a few issues to consider though. Too often I see companies fail by not thinking the project through and not applying the proper expertise. While it seems to be an easy endevour to launch an OTT TV service these days, there are numerous pitfalls to be wary off.

On the one side, technology is not a limiting factor anymore. There are various technology vendors and service providers that offer a one-stop-solution or managed services for your

OTT TV platform. All you need to provide is your content and you can start. And most of all, technology is affordable.

Budgets should not be a limiting factor either, especially when you consider the huge upside of generating various revenues out of your OTT TV service. But, in any case, you would be wise to have a generous budget and invest in a state-of-the art solution. Do not fall for the snake oil salesmen promising a cheap entry into the OTT TV sphere with their platform - you will pay dearly later on, if things fail.

Make sure the project has top priority among your team and leadership - and make all necessary resources available. Most new OTT TV services fail for one of two reasons (or both): lack of sufficient funding and lack of operational support. Budget enough money to sustain a long enough start-up phase and do not expect large ROI too early. Have a good service team that supports your project: targeted marketing, excellent customer service and experience, and knowledgeable content curation are the three key areas to focus on.

Think about the user often. Your own OTT TV service gives you the unique opportunity to engage directly with the consumer. There is nothing between your content and the audience any longer; no cable operator, other TV channel or editorial gatekeeper to deal with. You are in full control of the relationship with your fans and the entire brand experience. So make an impact.

Your own OTT TV service gives you much more muscle in the ever-so-hard sports rights negotiations. You can negotiate better with rights buyers because you now have your own outlet to broadcast and distribute content. It will also give you leverage to acquire content, because there are content owners who would rather work directly with a niche service than deal with a behemoth like Sky or Discovery.

The jungle is just starting to grow. It is up to you whether you want to be a tiger or cricket in it.

Christian Knaebel owns Global Media Consult, a leading international consulting boutique for TV, Media and Creative Businesses. He consults clients of all sizes on launching TV and video services, distributing or aggregating TV content, developing TV platforms and entering new markets. Clients include Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Liberty Global, NBC Universal, SABC and Vodafone.

“Do not fall for the snake oil salesman promising cheap entry into the OTT TV sphere”


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TERRITORYANALYSIS

DRIVINGCHANGE

Murray Barnett talks to Jonathan Rest about his plans for the commercial evolution of Formula 1 under the series’ new owners

It’s the world’s fastest sport that for too long was accused of standing still under Mr Formula 1, Bernie Ecclestone.

But since the changing of the guard brought about by Liberty Media’s completion of its $8-billion takeover of Delta Topco, Formula 1’s parent company, in January, the pace has been relentless.

An influx of hires to bolster the senior management and a new headquarters in the heart of London’s fashionable West End have changed the face of the organisation, with plans now being formulated to attract new fans, and sponsors, after a decline in audiences in recent years.

“We call it the 60-year old start-up,” Barnett, Formula 1’s first-ever head of sponsorship and commercial partnerships, tells Sportcal Insight. “In many ways it feels that way and if you talk to any of the people that have been here a long time they’ll tell you it’s like working in a brand new organisation.”

Barnett is one of the newcomers, having joined in late April from World Rugby where he was first head of broadcast, commercial and marketing, and then chief commercial officer.

His remit, quite simply, is to build on existing partnerships and attract new sponsors, something the series has struggled with over recent years.

His appointment coincided with CAA Sports, the division of USA-based entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency, being brought in by the Formula 1 management team to exclusively represent its sponsorship rights worldwide.

That was intended as a short-term deal to “use an American term, get some points on the board quickly,” while Barnett built his team, which is now six-strong and expected to double in size within a year.

“There is much to do in the space,” admits Barnett, who reports into another of the new guard, managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches, formerly a senior executive at sports broadcaster ESPN.

“Although Mr Ecclestone did an amazing job of building Formula 1 to what it was, he had two main focuses: high race fees and strong TV revenue. So the commercialisation of the events and the series itself was very much an afterthought.

20 Interview Murray Barnett: Driving Change

21Sportcal InsightAUTUMN 2017www.sportcal.com

“The combination of there not being much precedent and having new ownership who have a very broad view of how it should be approached and no pre-conceptions, meant I was starting with a blank slate to really look at the development of the sport.”

At time of writing, Formula 1 has six global partners and two suppliers.

Barnett knows three of those global partners inside out, having worked closely with Emirates, DHL and Heineken during the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups when they were worldwide partners (they are all also signed up for the 2019 edition).

World Rugby has traditionally had six worldwide partners, and Barnett says he sees value in limiting top-tier availability.

“We have six global partners right now. At the top level, we will probably grow by three or four at the most,” he notes, with financial services and technology two categories thought to be under consideration.

“But the next level down is a little more infinite. The only thing which we are limited by is the [amount of] trackside signage. Above and beyond that we are growing exponentially our digital properties and what we can do with fans.”

Barnett concedes that sponsorship was “somewhat forgotten about” in the pre-Liberty era, but that provides the opportunity to build flexibility into the new commercial model.

He explains: “When you look at the [Uefa] Champions League or World Rugby, it is quite a fixed package. So if we had a sponsor drop out it was about approaching a brand in that category and saying ‘here’s what a package looks like, how much are you willing to pay for it?’

“What we are doing at Formula 1 is trying to tailor-make something that meets a sponsor’s objectives. There are some brands who are not interested at all in track-side signage. They want more access to our database or ability to reach our consumers off the track, so we are then able to construct a package that suits them much more. Not every sponsor has to have the same inventory.”

In late June, the new owners of Formula 1 announced they would be seeking a 30:70 ratio in terms of free-to-air and pay-television coverage of the sport in future rights deals, albeit it will honour an exclusive six-year, £1 billion contract with Sky in the UK from 2019.

Bratches told the FIA Sport Conference in Geneva: “Free-to-air is

critically important to us. My vision as it relates to media rights is a hybrid of free-to-air and pay. Our plan is to balance the two but have a prominent, over the year, free-to-air voice.

“That is important from a fans, sponsors and relevance standpoint. There is the cauldron full of cash on the pay side and on the other side of the scale you have brand and reach.

“My view is a 30:70 model of free-to-air to pay, where you have a number of grands prix to be on free to air and then we can play and toil with the pay side to generate revenue that we can reinvest back into the sport.”

Does a stated preference for pay-TV, therefore, make Barnett and his department’s job more difficult? After all, the promise of fewer eyeballs is not exactly a selling point to prospective brands.

“It’s difficult to give a generic answer because it’s different in every market,” he notes. “For example we will be going exclusively pay in the UK at the expiration of the Channel 4 deal, so that’s going to be difficult situation there. But when it comes back to engagement versus exposure, you could argue that the audience, albeit lower that you’ll get on Sky compared to Channel 4, is

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22 Interview Murray Barnett: Driving Change

a much more highly-engaged audience and, from a sponsorship perspective they’re the people that are actively involved.”

On his first day in office at the turn of the year, new Formula 1 chairman and chief executive Chase Carey, a long-time understudy of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, outlined ambitious plans for the sport, envisioning 21 grands prix with the “excitement and buzz” of NFL American football’s Super Bowl.

“They should be week-long extravaganzas with entertainment and music, events that capture a whole city,” he told international media at the time.

That is music to Barnett’s ears.He says: “The concept is that

Formula 1 is the fulcrum for this huge entertainment platform that will cover fashion, music, food, eSports and education. So F1 comes into town on a Tuesday or Wednesday prior to the race weekend and there will be a whole bunch of activities throughout that part of the week. In fact you may not interact with the race itself at all, but you will interact with many other parts of the F1-related activity. So it gives me a great opportunity to sell MasterCard as our music partner, Martini as our fashion partner or whatever it might be. That’s not to say some brands won’t sit across multiple strands of that.

“Let’s fast forward a year from now. There should be no excuse for a brand to say to me ‘because you are motorsport I’m not interested in you’. I should be able to say ‘oh, you’re interested in fashion, well we’ve got this’ or ‘you’re interested in music, we’ve got that’.”

In the week leading up to the British Grand Prix in July, Formula 1 offered fans a snapshot of what race weekends could come to look like with the staging of London Live, a show in the heart of the city, featuring teams, drivers and cars, alongside a host of stars and headline music acts.

For Barnett, it was “the first tangible example” of the ‘new era’ that Liberty and the senior management had talked so much about.

“We put our hands in our pockets to put on an event and didn’t ask the teams to pay up [it cost them through the logistics of supplying their cars], we didn’t ask the city of London to put money in and we didn’t ask our sponsors to pay extra. That event itself did more to show people that we are thinking about things in a very different way than anything else.

“We had Little Mix, Kaiser Chiefs and Bastille playing. If you take away the car part of it, that probably gives you a flavour of how we would see a city centre activation happening in the future, where during the day it can be used for educational purposes, or more experiential things, like taking part in a tyre challenge, and then in the evenings you might have bands playing or a fashion show.”

In the same week, Formula 1 unveiled a partnership with Snapchat, the photo and video messaging app, marking its first commercial collaboration with a major digital and mobile-first platform.

Throughout the remainder of the season, exclusive content has been pushed through Snapchat’s ‘Our Stories’.

It is a collaboration few would have envisaged when Ecclestone was in power.

While the 86-year old promoter was widely credited for turning the sport into a multi-billion-dollar business, he was increasingly regarded as out of touch, at a time when Formula 1 has to compete for attention with other sports and entertainment products.

Ironically, in April 2016 Ecclestone banned prominent British driver Lewis Hamilton from filming footage for his Snapchat videos inside the F1 paddock.

“That was F1 then with Bernie. And this is F1 now after Bernie,” reflects Barnett on the sport’s new digital-friendly approach.

“One of the first things that Sean Bratches and Chase Carey did when they joined was to tell the teams ‘so long as it’s not during practice, qualifying or the race, you can do whatever you like at the track with your social media’. That has seen a massive explosion in what

the teams have done in that area and we actively encourage the drivers to talk about what they are doing at the track for people to understand it a bit better.”

Barnett believes loosening the reins will reap commercial benefits for all involved.

“The new positioning of F1 is that it should be at the nexus of entertainment, sport and cutting edge technology. To reinforce that we have to have the most advanced digital media platforms, they have to be the most engaging platforms, but they still need to have the sport at the core.

“So it’s very much about how do we achieve those objectives through engaging with new consumers through digital media, through making interesting and engaging content and through trying to bring the teams and the drivers along with us in terms of understanding that mission.

“This is such an untapped asset. There is so much opportunity for the sport to evolve and grow.”

What then, can Formula 1 aspire to?“If you want to look at reference points

for Formula 1, certainly what the NFL and NBA have done internationally, and what the NFL does when they are in a Super Bowl city. The top US leagues do sports marketing much better than most other leagues.

“The Super Bowl not only has a whole bunch of activities in the week leading up to it, but it is actually ambushed by non-sponsor partners looking to feed off that crowd.

“I think that is a measure of success for us if, all of a sudden, we find our Grand Prix weekends significantly ambushed by brands.”


RD

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201723

17056_PUB_SPORTCAL.indd 1 22/09/17 10:40

26 OTTMedia

OTT

THE LINEAR STARBy Jonathan Rest

27www.sportcal.com AUTUMN 2017 Sportcal Insight

Scudamore’s declaration that the Premier League will be “technology-neutral” when the new domestic rights tender hits the market early next year was either, to steal a cliché from the soccer transfer window, a ‘come and get me plea,’ or, more likely at this stage of the OTT journey, a clever ruse to create the illusion of a serious challenge to incumbents Sky and BT Sport.

Not that the major digital players haven’t offered encouragement.

Amazon and Facebook have already shown their cards, while Apple and Google/YouTube are topping the media analysts’ ‘ones to watch’ lists.

Then there are the new players, the likes of DAZN, Eleven Sports and Sportsfix operating in territories worldwide.

And not to be outdone, Eurosport, the Discovery-owned, pan-European broadcaster, US sports networks ESPN and Turner and the UK’s Sky have been making big strides in the over-the-top market in the last 12 months.

For that quartet – and there are many others – while the vast majority of their revenues come from subscriptions and advertising, there is a realisation that revenue from digital streaming services will grow exponentially.

After conquering the music and entertainment industries, Silicon Valley has turned its attentions to sport, initially dipping its toes then plunging head first into the water over the past 12 months.

The next big rights to hit the market will be the domestic tender for the Premier League, with an auction set to be concluded in early 2018. Sky and BT will fight hard to retain the rights that they collectively shelled out over £5 billion ($6.6 billion) for ahead of the 2016-17 campaign.

Indeed, analysts believe the competition, or illusion of it, from these deep-pocketed tech firms could force Sky to pay a 45 per cent premium on

the £4.2 billion it spent in the current cycle to retain the lion’s share of matches.

Thomas Singlehurst, an analyst at investment bank Citi, predicts: “The base case consensus [of Sky analysts] is that payments go up by £600 million a year from the 2019-20 season.”

However, the chances of a major package of Premier League matches going to a digital player in the UK at present remains unlikely, as Singlehurst notes: “They are incredibly expensive and UK only. As a standalone offer they would be a loss leader for Sky or BT, but they are able to cross-subsidise to make it work with broadband, TV, landline and mobile. None of these new competitors can cross-subsidise to the same level to make it work, even Amazon. And they tend to prefer global content deals to make it work across a much bigger base.”

Marc Watson, the executive chairman of international pay-TV broadcaster Eleven Sports, and a former executive at BT Sport, believes the Premier League remains some way off for these digital players.

He told Sportcal Insight Online recently: “The Premier League is a big

chunk of someone’s profit margin if you want to buy all of that out

and I don’t see that happening any time in the short term but in the long term, who knows?

“Nobody’s made a big move yet and I’m not sure whether they will or not. My

guess is that what’s important to them is that their customers

have access to content, and if they have that on a reasonable basis

then I’m not sure whether they’ll feel obliged to spend billions on premium live sports content.”

In USA, however, they’ve not had the chance to flex their muscles, with domestic major league rights locked up until the early part of the next decade.

This is giving some digital players more time to build a strong sports offering.

“We envisage anybody, really, being able to come along and bid for those rights. We would need some distribution criteria and to make sure it was readily available across platforms and everything else, but as long as it was widely available and distributed properly, we wouldn’t rule those out.”

Richard Scudamore, Premier League executive chairman, speaking on the eve of the 2017-18 season.

28 OTTMedia

Speaking to leading sports properties at the 2017 Global Sports Summit in Aspen, Colorado, Rich Greenfield, managing director, media and technology analyst at New York-based BTIG, said moves by Amazon and Apple to “change the definition of a media bundle” will present major challenges to the established linear sports broadcasters in USA.

“We always think about the cable bundle, in with your phone and broadband. But the bundle is changing. With Amazon Prime, you get free shipping, prime video and catalogue music. There will be more Amazon Prime subscribers in USA in 2021 when they bid for [NFL] Monday Night Football than there will be ESPN subscribers. It won’t even be close.

“Apple is building a new bundle as well, video content in with Apple music. They’re trying to build a bundle of services that add value to the consumer, so I don’t think it’s crazy to believe that either of these two companies could be an aggressive bidder for MNF or other big sports rights over the course of next few years.

“Each of them is in a really strong position to use sports as a battering ram to have a much larger subscriber base.”

It is a sentiment shared by Lee Berke, a US sports media consultant, who runs HB Sports, Entertainment & Media.

“Nobody is saying here in the States, from an ESPN, Turner or CBS standpoint, ‘we are going to place everything over the top’. However, I think they are going to reach that stage in the next three to five years if pay-TV subscriber numbers continue to shrink as they have been,” Berke tells Sportcal Insight,

“Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and Google/YouTube, these are all players for major

sports properties that become available in 2021, 2022, 2023.”

Oli Slipper, the former joint chief executive of digital sports content and media group Perform, which has its own OTT offering in the shape of DAZN, tells Sportcal Insight: “I don’t think you’ll see a global bid or a pan-European bid for the Premier League because it will not want all the eggs in one basket.

“But in the US, you will see some of the bigger players take on the existing pay-TV operators for sure. The long-term rights deals in USA have been very good for the likes of ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC in terms of keeping them out. Over the next five years, these new companies have the chance to really build up their media strategies.

“I think it could open the floodgates in terms of a mega-funded player. Nothing will hold it back.”

Twitter’s decision to pay $10 million to live stream 10 NFL Thursday night matches for free globally in 2016 raised eyebrows. It was a significant enough outlay, considering the games were still aired in USA on CBS and NBC.

The rewards, for Twitter, were eyeballs - it attracted an average of 3.5 million unique viewers for its Thursday games.

Fast forward 12 months, and those same rights – 10 non-exclusive matches - are now held by Amazon, the retail giant but at a price of $50 million (it is charging advertisers $2.8 million a package, with matches available to members of its $99-a-year subscription service, Amazon Prime Video).

Twitter, Facebook and the YouTube all bid big sums for the package.

Greenfield calls it a “seminal moment” for the OTT market, a sign that the “new boys” are willing to pay big to take on the status quo.

He says: “These digital players are starting to realise that, in sport, you can have massive penetration of business simply by putting up money. And their balance sheets are huge. These would essentially be pimple investments if they want to be in this space.”

Robert Kraft, owner of the reigning Super Bowl champions New England Patriots, is in no doubt that for the NFL, “the future is OTT.”

Speaking at the Cannes Lions festival in June, Kraft said: “We’ll be very interested to see how Amazon goes as it’s behind the paywall. The thing we have to be careful of is millennials. They don’t watch TV, they don’t have TVs or subscribe to cable. So we have to bring that audience in. … over-the-top is a great opportunity.”

Amazon hasn’t stopped there. It will become the exclusive broadcaster of men’s tennis’ ATP Tour in the UK from 2019, replacing Sky in what represents its biggest sports content deal outside USA (paying around £10 million a year), while it is said to be planning audacious swoops for two of the biggest sports properties in Oceania – Australian Rules football’s AFL and matches of the All Blacks, the New Zealand national rugby union team.

Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival in September: “People love sports – it’s big, it’s engaging, it really motivates people, so I think that’s a good opportunity. I think it’s definitely an opportunity we’ll explore.”

Amazon also bid unsuccessfully for Uefa Champions League rights in Japan (it lost out to DAZN) and took an early interest in the next cycle of Twenty20 cricket’s Indian Premier League, buying the invitation to tender documents, but like ESPN Digital, Twitter and Yahoo it did not subsequently make offers for rights, which were awarded in early September.

Facebook did, however, bid. In fact it offered the most money, Rs39 billion ($608 million), for the digital rights package in India for the next five years, only to lose out as global IPL rights went to broadcasting giant Star India for an incredible Rs163.5 billion.

It was the first tangible evidence of Facebook making a pitch for exclusive rights. Much of its work in the area to date has been to partner with existing rights-holders, in doing so streaming games from MLB, Major League Soccer and Mexican soccer’s top-tier LigaMX across USA.

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It recently agreed a deal to show coverage in USA of European soccer’s Uefa Champions League in a partnership with rights-holder Fox.

Facebook says its sports model to date has been about “engaging community experiences.”

It is a similar approach adopted by Twitter, which has been offering complementary services to rights-owners since its NFL experiment. It still works with the NFL, showing breaking news, analysis and video highlights, plus a 30-minute live show five a days a week during the season.

It also streams out of market MLB and NHL games, and in August struck a live streaming deal with US stock car racing’s Nascar, with an in-car camera in place for all 10 Monster Energy Nascar Cup Series Playoff races. The main action was broadcast live and in full on NBC Sports Network, the national broadcaster’s cable offering.

This year’s US PGA Championship, one of golf’s four majors, was live-streamed on Twitter and Facebook in various territories. In the UK, organisers decided against renewing a deal with Sky, the dominant golf broadcaster, saying they wanted a partner involving “all platforms.”

While there was a live stream on the Facebook page of Give Me Sport, the UK-based youth-focused platform, and by Twitter’s coverage of “marquee groups,” a deal was surprisingly penned with the BBC, the public-service broadcaster.

It was a sure sign that the market was not quite ready for a major property to go ‘all in’ in a key market. For the PGA of America, its tournament got more than two million viewers on the BBC. Linear, it seems, isn’t dead yet.

Greenfield does not see Twitter as a major acquirer of rights, but believes it will thrive as sports go-to second screen.

He explains: “Twitter doesn’t have the subscriber numbers, but it hits 100 million people worldwide on a daily basis. Everyone in the sports business should be thinking about a Twitter as a mobile-first destination for content. It’s like sports radio. It’s about conversation and engagement.”

One player that the traditional broadcasters need not worry about is Netflix, after chief executive Reed Hastings categorically stated that the platform is not getting into live sports.

He told this year’s media and technology Code Conference that

sports is “really good in the moment” but the “afterlife of a given show is quite small.” In short, you cannot binge watch a sporting event.

He continues: “It’s hard to transform sports with the internet. I mean, you can carry it over the internet, but what does that do for you? So think of it as the internet doesn’t yet add much value to the sports experience.”

Alex Kaplan, executive vice president, commercial at Eurosport Digital, is in agreement. Indeed he believes that the unique elements of sport – the live viewing experience – will keep linear on top for now.

He tells Sportcal Insight: “One reason Netflix has been so successful is that non-live content really works well in OTT. It’s binge viewing. But from a sports perspective, that is less relevant. Yes there’s data and stats that can be built in to a second screen experience, but if a consumer watches soccer matches, they inevitably want to do so when it is on the best possible screen.”

The US broadcasters are reacting, however.

Turner used the official 17 August announcement of its acquisition of Champions League and Europa League rights from 2018-19 (the deal with the Team Marketing agency was actually signed off in February) to reveal its intention to launch a stand-alone sports streaming service that will broadcast the

vast majority of the 340 games annually.Turner’s Champions League coverage

will include four live TV broadcasts each week throughout the group stage of the competition, followed by two games per week during the knockout phase. The semi-finals and final as well as the Europa League final will be nationally televised on the TBS or TNT channels.

All other matches and Europa League games will only be available to watch live on the OTT service to paying fans.

Turner president David Levy said at the time: “As a company, we are committed to ensuring that the current ecosystem remains healthy, but we are also prepared for what’s next.

“We went into this specifically thinking about an OTT product. There was just kind of an overall company strategy to innovate beyond the traditional television ecosystem.”

Turner is, of course, not alone in USA.A week earlier ESPN’s owner,

entertainment giant Walt Disney, ramped up its plans to offer OTT services to consumers by acquiring a majority stake in BAMTech, the live streaming technology company.

Having acquired a 33-per-cent shareholding in BAMTech last year for $1 billion, Disney agreed to pay $1.58 billion to secure an additional 42-per-cent stake in the company born out of MLB Advanced Media.

30 OTTMedia

Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said: “This acquisition and the launch of our direct-to-consumer services mark an entirely new growth strategy for the company, one that takes advantage of the incredible opportunity that changing technology provides us to leverage the strength of our great brands.”

ESPN’s planned OTT streaming service will feature more than 10,000 events in its first year, including MLB and NHL games and Grand Slam tennis. But it will not include NFL or NBA contests that are the big ratings drivers for ESPN’s cable channels.

So linear remains the driving force, at least for now, according to Berke.

“Nobody in major sports is saying ‘I’m exclusively offering up my content only on OTT’. It hasn’t reached that level of maturity, that level of popularity yet,” he cautions. “But you’ll reach that point where people will say all platforms are equal, we want to be on all of them simultaneously, and that point I think happens around the time when all these big contracts become available.

“The priority is still where you are getting the most money from. And they’re continuing to get the most money from linear, whether that’s broadcast, cable or satellite. They’ll still look to maintain those for as long as you possibly can.”

However, it seems that for both rights-owners and rights-holders, a combination of linear and OTT is quickly becoming the go to model.

DAZN chief executive James Rushton tells Sportcal Insight: “Will major rights holders cut ties with traditional broadcasters completely? Probably not. Will there be a time where sport is only shown on OTT services? I highly doubt it. But, that’s the beauty of OTT; it’s complementary as well as competitive.”

DAZN operates in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Canada and Japan, and Rushton says more markets are likely to come on board next year, with the location “depending on the environment. That includes the rights on offer, how connected a country is, how much they already use OTT services and what the pay-TV penetration is like.”

In the German-speaking countries, DAZN holds exclusive Premier League rights, while the Japan business launched with a 10-year deal with domestic soccer’s J.League said to be worth Y210 billion ($1.91 billion), to be supplemented with Champions League coverage in the country next season.

On the reasons for the booming success of OTT, Rushton replies: “It’s not about taking sport away from the TV… it’s ultimately about giving fans the choice and watching sport on their terms, where and when they want to.

“And it’s not just about flexibility and accessibility either; OTT services are more affordable. Fans are fed up at the price of watching sport, especially when there are cheaper alternatives to be found online and they don’t want to be charged an extortionate amount of money to watch them.

“Lastly it’s about content, and lots of it. OTT services don’t have the same restrictions as linear TV.”

In Germany, Eurosport had championed its acquisition of exclusive Friday night Bundesliga rights as a major win for Player, its OTT offering.

Yet before the season started, an agreement was signed with HD+, a subsidiary of satellite operator SES, to televise the games. In addition, talks continue with cable operators to get the games out on their platforms, while a carriage agreement with Sky is not out of the question if financial terms can be reached.

Simply put, the market was not quite ready for pure OTT for such a major property as Bundesliga.

And technical problems in the first few weeks of the season - DAZN’s initial NFL coverage in Canada and Premier League streaming in the German-speaking countries suffered similar teething issues – will hardly fill the market with confidence.

But a major exclusive OTT deal is inevitable, according to Kaplan.

“We have seen bigger properties out there that have been playing on the margins, but offering non-exclusive rights. Those leagues and properties are interested in monetising their rights, but also making sure that as many fans as possible have access,” he says.

“I’m quite confident, whether that’s next year or several years down the road, that if they feel the money is there, and those platforms are at a point where they won’t be keeping viewers away from seeing their content then it’s only a matter of time.”

If and when that does happen, particularly with one of the major North American leagues, well that, for Greenfield, spells doomsday scenario for linear TV.

“If you want to disrupt television the single best way to do it is to buy all the big sports. If you do that TV shatters, there is nothing left. If Apple buys Sunday night baseball rights from ESPN in 2021, if somebody buys Monday Night Football, if any of these tech giants want to literally bring linear television to its knees, then taking sports away is the way to do it. That will make TV bleed fast. It is the only thing keeping it together.

“If Apple goes at sports, for example, and turns Apple Music into a bundle that includes sports, I think TV is done. The mass TV break point is in the early part of the next decade when all of these sports become available.”


By Simon Brydon

In 2002, I set up a business with a simple ambition. The company was called Cycling Television and it would deliver professional cycling to a global audience of cycling fans.

The rationale was straightforward: the sport of cycling had a large global fan base that was not served by traditional linear TV broadcasters. In great swathes of the world some of the greatest sports events produced for TV distribution were not broadcast at all. In USA only the Tour de France was broadcast live every day.

In short, the broadcast media model did not work for fans or rights-owners.

The business was hardly radical. We’d behave exactly like a traditional broadcaster: fully live plus highlights, no compromise on live output because this was the internet and a subscription- and ad-funded model, so premium and free content.

I remember my first Sportel. Certain broadcast professionals (no doubt now

experts at digital sport) laughed at the idea. They could laugh at me, that would be understandable, but to laugh at what seemed the most obvious thing in the world, even in 2003? All media content would one day be delivered over this thing called the internet and therefore TV, as the industry then understood it, was dead. If only someone could sort out mobile… oh, thank you Apple, so that’s now mobile sorted too.

So that was the principle and, overall, we delivered on it, offering some 220 days of live cycling in 2006 and 2007. We made mistakes for sure, but the business worked; it worked technically, it worked commercially, it worked for rights owners and it worked for fans. And if it worked in 2006 imagine how it could work in 2017.

Finally, the real revolution is here. The fundamental change is happening and that throws up enormous challenges for agencies, sponsors, rights owners and, of course, broadcasters. Delivery over internet now has a catchy new

name: OTT, which is an acronym for ‘The Netflix of Sport’. Okay, bad joke, but I am sure you’ve heard about the launch of at least 10 ‘Netflixes of Sport’ recently.

The point is important: OTT delivery now represents the slow and inexorable death of the old linear sports channel model. Which means the old model wasn’t working as expected. And mainly it wasn’t working for the broadcasters. Or should I say they’re not giving up on it, but their customers are giving up on it and this has forced broadcasters to finally change.

Linear broadcasters’ ratings are falling and subscribers are cutting the so-called ‘cord’ in favour of OTT sport and entertainment. This ‘cord-cutting’ is a mixture of: ‘cord-shaving’ (cost-cutting the bundle); cord-cutting (severing the cable/satellite totally); and, most dangerous, cord never-connecting. That’s a whole new generation brought up in the connected world, who have no need for the inflexibility and rigid cost of cable or satellite TV.

THE REALCONNECTED BROADCASTING REVOLUTION

32 OTT

There are many examples of these changes across global broadcasters; here, I am using ESPN as an extreme case to illustrate this shift. ESPN operates on a cable affiliate model, meaning agreements with cable and satellite operators that ESPN must be included in a percentage of all media packages. ESPN gets $7.86 per subscriber per month, by far the most for a channel.

But from 2011, and a peak of 100 million subscribers, ESPN has fallen to 87 million subscribers at the end of Q1 2017. That’s still impressive, but on current ESPN cable pricing that is a drop of $1.225 billion a year. In 2014, ESPN agreed a $24-billion nine-year renewal of its NBA agreement. Since 2014, ESPN has lost 9 million subscribers (a drop from 96 million to 87 million).

If ESPN budgeted in 2014 at circa 97 million subscribers and if it didn’t churn another single customer as of today’s date, it is now about $6 billion down against projections to the end of the NBA deal.

So, firstly, ESPN with 87 million subscribers at $7.86 a month is still an impressive business. But clearly, with billions of dollars of declining revenues and rights owners’ ever-rising fee expectations, someone is going to be disappointed. It is clear that the numbers are going in just one direction, and consumers and their consumption habits have been revolutionized.

The simple fact is this: in a world of internet and LTE / 4G / 5G connectivity, all parties face fragmentation and disruption and, finally, sports broadcasters have decided to pursue OTT direct-to-consumer sports services as their priority and not as a second thought or small additional revenue stream. It also means that new providers have launched to challenge the existing broadcasters.

Major market moves in the past year have included: Perform’s DAZN launch in Germany, Japan and Canada; ESPN’s investment in MLB Advanced Media and the creation of BAM Tech; Turner Sports and its OTT subscription platform to be launched in 2018, featuring Uefa rights and much more; NBC Sports’ launch of its OTT service NBC Gold; and the launch of Eleven Sports in various markets.

We are seeing broadcasters selling content direct to consumers on a new, unprecedented scale. The restructuring of Sky Sports in the UK with its channels now being created in sports verticals (Cricket, Golf, Action, Football) is paving the way for selling individual niche sports directly, rather than as a multi-sport linear offering.

And what of the Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Twitter? To some extent they’re doing a bit of fence-sitting right now. Yes, they’re in, but they’re largely playing their hands close to their chests. Amazon’s small one-year deal for a few Thursday night NFL games does not a strategy make. Still, Amazon seems likely to be the most aggressive, having recently acquired ATP rights in the UK. It can afford to experiment for now, having the cash reserves and market capitalisation which allows it to play the long game.

This revolution is fundamentally different from the past 30 years of pay-TV and the past 15 years of ‘digital’ sports broadcasting. For rights owners, leagues, federations and sponsors the dangers are enormous. Content needs to ‘wash its face’ with paying subscribers, so rights will start to develop specific values against exact consumer demand on either a national, regional or global basis. Sports broadcasters in the OTT world need to know and understand various complicated markets, including local consumer habits and cultures, but they also need to know what sports in which markets can drive how many paying subscribers.

Meanwhile, rights owners need to understand their media rights values better than ever before; they need to know their consumers… not just in their own markets, but globally. For broadcasters, the game just changed too. Smaller rights properties that can drive a significant volume of dedicated paying customers now have potentially more value than before, and some other blue-chip sets of rights might find this new world order difficult. There is a difference between casually watching sport on a linear service because it is on and proactively going to buy it on an OTT service. Broadcasters need to find large committed niche audiences that can be aggregated into a volume play, as well as finding sports properties with mass appeal.

How long before the English Premier League sells globally direct to consumers or sells globally to a company such as Amazon? In theory, the financial model works commercially better than the current distribution model. Some of the potential numbers are eye-watering in their scale. If the English Premier League’s sole remit is to return revenue to its stakeholder clubs then perhaps we’ll see some changes to the model in the next sales cycle.

Do certain rights owners such as the EPL now need to develop a more ‘hybrid’ model: a package of games for broadcasters country-by-country, as currently sold, and a reserved rights package to be sold globally direct to consumer via OTT, either by the league itself or by one of the big global players?

And what of the majority of sports properties? Many smaller sports have been neglected by larger broadcasters and have already developed their own consumer service. There are decisions ahead for everyone as to what is the optimum commercial model: pay-TV, OTT subscription-only, direct-to-consumer, free-to-air, or any number of permutations of the options.

Agencies, rights owners and broadcasters all need new commercial models and they’re going to need new skills and a new understanding of commercial and consumer realities to best serve their stakeholders.

The last 15 years of connected sports broadcasting has been a warm-up; now is the time for the new world order to emerge.

Simon Brydon is a consultant with Pitch International LLP

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High-profile promoters and leading executives from the broadcast and sports agency world gathered in New York in March to unveil a product that would “change the world of boxing.” Six frenetic months later, the World Boxing Super Series made its debut in Berlin, complete with spectacular lighting and a Champions League-style pre-match anthem.

The venture, launched by Comosa AG, a Swiss company founded in early 2015, was years in the making, and brings together industry heavyweights such as Modern Times Group, boxing promoters Kalle Sauerland and Richard Schaefer, former MP & Silva chief commercial officer Roberto Dalmiglio and Highlight Event and Entertainment, the company spun off from Team Marketing.

The simple (yet radical) format for the series has sparked criticism from some of boxing’s diehards, while some in the sports business industry have questioned whether there will be a commercial return on investment on the $50 million in prize money (and other costs) as fighters seek to land the Muhammad Ali Trophy.

What is apparent is that the stakeholders signed up to devise and commercialise the venture look better

placed for success than the doomed ‘Super Six’ series, held between 2009 and 2011 but plagued by the withdrawal of several participants.

Nonetheless, while those behind it tread carefully around the comparison to the Uefa Champions League and its seemingly endless commercial success, the World Boxing Super Series – perhaps unfairly – seems destined to be judged on whether it can echo soccer’s premier competition and deliver healthy media and sponsorship revenues over three-season cycles (albeit at a lower level).

Fighters in the classes of cruiserweight and super middleweight classes are taking part in the inaugural edition, comprising two concurrent elimination tournaments, the draws for which were made at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum in July.

The tight turnaround left Comosa and MP & Silva, the agency hired to sell international broadcast rights, with challenges going to market, but key deals were signed in the likes of Germany and the UK, and MTG, as a backer of the series, is committing to handling the broadcast production and showing the fights in the Nordic and Baltic territories.

Investors and marketers behind the new World Boxing Super Series have not been without their sceptics within the sport as they seek to reshape its commercial structure. But what chances of success?

Martin Ross investigates.

Events34 Boxing

BOXING CLEVER?

Roger Lodewick, who left Team Marketing to take up the role of chief commercial officer, tells Sportcal Insight: “We started selling something from a piece of paper which we’ve been working on for a very long time and which is rocket proof. But it’s always the challenge to convince people of something new and to convince them this is really the best of the best fighting each other. It takes a bit of time, but having ProSiebenSat.1 and ITV now on board is a massive statement that those big companies buy into this concept.”

The likes of Lodewick, Dalmiglio and Peter Nørrelund, MTG’s sports chief, have helped to sculpt the commercial offering, and the close involvement of experienced promoters like Kalle Sauerland has been key in providing sporting nous and working through boxing’s matrix to sign up 16 fighters across nine promoters (plus reserves).

Sauerland, the son of renowned promoter Wilfried, is well versed in hyping up a fight and adopts the same approach when discussing the World Boxing Super Series, a project he says has been met with cynicism among his peers as to whether it will reach a second season.

He stresses: “The broadcaster response has been unbelievable. They have all been waiting for a format. A broadcaster can’t [normally] rely on boxing [for scheduled programming], on output deals and on getting that regular consistency in its programming because boxing by its nature is an opportunistic sport…

“…[but] Forget Super Bowl, forget the FA Cup final, the Champions League final. In terms of revenues, nothing touches boxing when it works. There’s no product in the media world – on the entertainment or sporting side – that touches boxing.”

A revenue share on pay-per-view sales in key markets will drive much of the series’ commercial income, but the ticketing sales also promise to provide sizeable returns as and when the property takes off. “You tell me something else that gets you $75 million gate receipts from 16,000 people,” notes Sauerland in clear a nod to recent money-spinning bouts fought by Floyd Mayweather.

He points to “the biggest boxing deal” he has ever seen in Turkey (with Tivibu, Türk Telekom’s digital pay-TV platform) as evidence that broadcasters grasp the World Boxing Super Series concept.

Like the competition format, the broadcast ethos behind the series is clear. Deliver slick appointment to view TV throughout the year to ease scheduling headaches in a fragmented sport (encouraging long-term deals in the process). The walkout time for headline fights remains the same (11pm CET for European fights and 11pm EST for US fights), the associated shoulder programming is delivered to broadcasters throughout the week and weigh-ins adhere to strict schedules.

Nonetheless, the weight classes currently offered have not enticed certain markets, with rights in some notable territories remaining unsold as the series began and a free internet stream offered by organisers instead (in USA, Japan, France, Italy and Spain).

However, a key US deal is set to be rubber stamped and consideration is being given to a lower weight class in season two to attract Asian broadcasters, while the Latin American market is another target (currently only Cuba is represented among the fighters).

Streaming of the Berlin opener was also available in the UK after ITV released the digital rights, and attracted more than 40,000 viewers despite just a few hours’ notice. Impressive figures that led the website to crash despite extra bandwidth being bought. TV viewing figures were not as remarkable – Sat.1 pulled in an audience of 1.3 million (and 7.2-per-cent share) in Germany – but with such a short lead-in time that comes as no surprise and ratings are sure to improve.

The Marco Huck-Oleksandr Usyk

opener in Berlin attracted 5,890 fans, while the Callum Smith-Erik Skoglund fight in Liverpool was far from a sell-out, but the presence of local Latvian favourite Mairis Briedis has ensured a bumper crowd at the Riga Arena. With a lowest ticket price of £35 for the Smith-Skoglund fight, organisers have food for thought over the necessary price point to fill its venues.

Attending a World Boxing Super Series highlights some of the ground-breaking changes implemented.

A rousing pre-fight video and anthem, unmistakably evoking aspects of the Champions League, pre-empts the entry of the boxers. A circle of lights surrounds the ring and seats are set back to leave space for the gladiatorial entries and podiums on which both boxers stand. The set and grandiose lighting is de-rigged after each fight and moved on to the next venue.

It’s a ‘big global concert tour’ or ‘Game of Thrones meets boxing’, according to Sauerland.

A radical shake-up of how boxing has been presented, but will it lead to commercial success? And just when is it fair to judge the measure of success (or failure) given free-to-air broadcast exposure key to any hefty sponsorship is still being built up?

Adding a third weight class in season two will be a clear sign of the commercial model taking off, the stakeholders feel.

Dalmiglio is bullish when asked about when the $50-million prize fund and costs can be recouped, saying: “We have very strict rules respecting the budget.


We have a three-year plan that is very clear. In all honesty, we believe that from the second season you could see good business results, meaning that if we go to the books, there is a positive Ebita.

“If you look at the development of the media product and how it is embraced within the media environment and how we can expand the brand then I think year one will already be a good one.”

The challenge will be persuading broadcasters and sponsors alike to sign long-term deals to commit to the series, especially with TV networks accustomed to signing up only for individual bouts featuring fighters of local interest.

“We’re looking for partners who buy into boxing being a business model,” Lodewick remarks. “If you want to do that then you’ll do deals where a partner says they love the World Boxing Super Series and they want to have it for a multiple amount of years. I definitely see that happening. After the quarter-finals, I think we’ll start having discussions about the next couple of seasons, because broadcasters will be able to see the story-telling element in which you can invest not only financial but also editorial means.”

Dalmiglio reveals that, in certain situations, Comosa has recommended just one-year deals so as to protect the true value of the property.

He says: “There is a total trust in the quality of the product and we strongly believe from a business perspective that there is a lot to do around boxing. We are delivering a media product but we want to be careful in the way in which we monetise and not really rush. We have a very strong shareholding structure and they totally trust the job that has been put on the table. We don’t run behind easy money.”

The venture is certainly not alone in launching without sponsorship inventory sold (look no further than the European Rugby Champions Cup’s search for partners) – and, in fairness, the sponsorship sales can only be evaluated after the broadcast platform is properly established.

Three tiers of centralised sponsorships have been devised, but only StubHub, which is paying a rights fee and providing ticketing services, had been signed up (at the third tier) as the competition began. Two local sponsors – a German holiday booking website and a Ukrainian betting operator – were signed up for the Berlin premiere only, but organisers opted against such local

deals for the second fight in Liverpool.“We don’t want to devalue our

product by selling it on the cheap,” Lodewick notes. “As soon as potential partners see what this is, it will generate definite interest. The commercial concept is for long-term partners, not just because of the financial element, but also for the overall promotional element and having partners that see that this is different than [sponsoring] individual fights.”

So expect a mix of local and centralised agreements in season one as Lodewick and his team strive to stick to lofty prices attached to the top sponsorship category.

And what of the Champions League association? Marketers and fighters alike have dropped in the name of sport’s commercial behemoth to drive interest in the series, and the similarities in presentation are undeniable. Two fans talking to me in Liverpool ask why the branding looks like European football’s illustrious competition.

The executives behind the series shy away from too much of a direct link, however. And you can see why.

The topic is a sensitive one given Highlight Event and Entertainment was spun out of Team Marketing to allow Highlight to pursue other sporting projects and protect itself against ever losing its Uefa business. While helpful in attracting attention, the comparison also brings with it perhaps unrealistic expectations of weighty commercial sums flowing in to the series over three-season cycles.

Sauerland feels that it would be “foolish not to look at the Champions League with its most successful IP in

sport and not take elements from it,” while Lodewick admits you’d be “silly not to look at top brands like the EPL, Champions League or UFC,” but warns you can’t just replicate what works in soccer into boxing.

The Dutchman continues: “You learn from all the properties that are out there. Obviously if I look at my own background then of course a lot of the things I try to do is from my experience at the Champions League.

“We’re the World Boxing Super Series and what we’d like to promote is that we’re the greatest prize in boxing.

“We are focusing this season on two weight classes, next season potentially three weight classes, but there are 17 weight classes in boxing. We are sitting a little bit above the current ecosystem and that is what the Champions League does as well.”

Dalmiglio notes: “We don’t intend to replicate any type of set-up. Of course we want to deliver the best. What we believe is that boxing has been a little bit mistreated in the past. Our answer is creating a proper media product that will deliver the best of the best.”

Having gone live in September with gaps in broadcast distribution and a paucity of sponsors, the series is unlikely to have shaken off all of its critics. But the time has not yet come to judge a fledgling project that is radical in its approach and supported by years of commercial preparation.

Convincing some broadcasters, sponsors and traditionalists that it is “changing the world of boxing” will take longer.

36 Events Boxing

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The attraction is mutual with London mayor Sadiq Khan having met with both Manfred and the owner of the New York Mets to push the city’s credentials while on a trip to USA 12 months ago.

In late July, the league unveiled plans to stage 13 regular-season series in cities outside of North America between 2018 and 2021. Mexico City, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were on the list, as, to the delight of Hill, was London.

A series has been pencilled in for June 2019 and it will return a year later, with the likelihood that the fixtures will become a regular sight on the UK sporting calendar.

MLB: PITCHING FOR LONDON SUCCESSFrom caps, to summer festivals to live action, Charlie Hill, Major League Baseball’s managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, outlines how the MLB is enhancing its presence in the region. Jonathan Rest reports.

This autumn, American football’s NFL is staging a record four regular-season games in London. In January 2018, the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers will descend on the UK capital for the NBA’s eighth game at the O2 arena.

A year later MLB is, finally, expected to join the party.

Since taking the reins in early 2015, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has made no secret of his desire to follow in the footsteps of the NFL and NBA by growing the league’s brand, with designs on Europe, specifically London.

Staging matches overseas is nothing new for MLB, with Asia, Latin America and Australia having all played host, but it has yet to take the plunge in Europe, which does not have the same baseball tradition.

MLB, under Manfred’s rule, has been in regular talks with representatives in London about staging regular-season games - the Olympic Stadium has even been sized up, literally - but plans to play those matches this year were shelved due to talks over a new collective bargaining agreement as well as spring’s World Baseball Classic.

38 Major League BaseballEvents

Much of the work in getting those games on the discussion table has come from MLB International’s London office, and EMEA headquarters, which Hill has headed up since December 2015.

It’s a role that encompasses media sales, licensing, sponsorship, special events, and relationships with local baseball federations and governments across EMEA.

It’s perhaps fitting that MLB’s London office is situated in Holborn, or ‘Midtown’ to give it the Americanised name dreamed up by marketers a few years back to attract businesses.

Hill says it is “the worst kept secret” that MLB wants games in London, but stresses the importance of taking the right approach at the right time.

He tells Sportcal Insight: “The central idea to how we approach this is to avoid forcing a foreign sport on a new market. First, we have to understand the sporting landscape and culture of a new market and ask ourselves how the sport we know and love from the US makes sense in the UK, for example. We have to be willing to adapt to engage a new audience.”

One innovative way to engage a new audience occurred in London’s Hyde Park on 4 July – Independence Day, of course – with ‘MLB Battlegrounds’, a free festival of food, music and baseball.

To give it a local flavour, England cricketers Jos Buttler and Alex Hales joined retired MLB stars including Carlos Pena, Shawn Green and Cliff Floyd in a ‘home run derby’ hitting contest - a battle to score the most home runs against the clock.

Hill called it an “exciting statement of intent for Major League Baseball in Europe” and the numbers suggested it was a success: one million online viewers worldwide for the home run derby and more than 16,000 people attending the event in Hyde Park.

“It was a valuable opportunity to showcase aspects of our sport and the culture of baseball,” Hill reflects. “We learned a lot about how to build a relationship with new audiences outside the US and we will continue to bring new, innovative experiences to audiences around the world.

“Events and activities like the event in Hyde Park are important learning opportunities for us to see what aspects of our sport help build a connection with a new, uninitiated audience.”

Off the diamond, the league has been quick to tap into the merchandise interest in its franchises. MLB, perhaps

more than any of the other major North American leagues, sees itself as a fashion brand.

It has operated a store in London’s Covent Garden tourist trap, baseball’s first standalone retail space in Europe, for the past year, selling caps, jerseys and memorabilia of all 30 teams, and in the days leading up to MLB Battlegrounds launched an online store in Europe, the league’s first geographically-focused online store.

It expects to replicate that business model throughout EMEA.

A well-worn phrase from NBA commissioner Adam Silver is that “probably 99.5 per cent of our fans are never going to have the opportunity to go into an NBA arena.”

With that in mind, how can MLB hope to capture and retain a European audience?

Hill says: “Live content is always going to be key to engaging a new audience. But timing of games in the US is obviously an issue, so adapting formats to create compelling live content – like the Home Run Derby in Hyde Park – is

something we look at seriously.“We continue to build out an

aggressive international plan to bring competitive games to new parts of the world.”

As it stands, London will get its first glimpse of competitive games in the summer of 2019.

So, does MLB feel like it is playing catch-up with its major league brethren?

“We don’t consider that our competition comes from major US sports leagues, specifically,” Hill says. “Most sports are – or aspire to be – global, and that’s the same with MLB. We have to consider our proposition in relation to all sports and entertainment properties outside of the world of sport.”

“Again, I would reiterate that we need to be open-minded to the idea that what makes us a compelling proposition in US, or Japan, or Mexico might be different in UK. Same for any global business, we have to look at all of the aspects of what we provide and recognise what is most relevant in certain markets.”

39AUTUMN 2017www.sportcal.com Sportcal Insight

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When it comes to endorsement deals for the top

20 men’s and women’s players, who’s acing it

and who needs to work on their returns?

By Matt Nichols and Christian Fizia

42 Tennis BrandsSponsorship

When comparing all deals for the men’s and women’s top 20 tennis players, the men have 37 per cent more than the women. On average each member of the men’s top 20 has six sponsors, compared with less than five in the women’s section. This is unsurprising considering that the men’s ATP Tour still retains a higher profile worldwide than the women’s WTA Tour in terms of TV and media coverage.

PLAYER SPONSORSHIP DEALSKEI NISHIKORI 16

STANISLAS WAWRINKA 12

ROGER FEDERER 10

RAFAEL NADAL 9

SERENA WILLIAMS 8

PETRA KVITOVA 8

The picture is the same when looking at the number of brands: there are 46 per cent more brands sponsoring the men’s top 20 than women’s.

It is interesting to note that Japan’s Kei Nishikori and Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka come out ahead of leading players like Roger Federer and Serena Williams in terms of total deals. Nishikori has been able to use his popularity in his home country, as well as a Japanese sponsorship culture that accepts a high number of sponsors, to attract 16 sponsors in total, 10 of which are Japanese brands. Similarly half of Wawrinka’s 12 sponsors are Swiss. This trend is also present in the woman’s game: 50 per cent of Petra Kvitova’s eight deals are with Czech brands.

PLAYERS WITH THE MOST DEALS

MEN’S TOP 20 VS WOMEN’S TOP 20

126

86

37

92

59

30

TOTAL NUMBEROF DEALS

MEN’S TOP 20WOMEN’S TOP 20

NUMBER OF BRANDS

NUMBER OF BUSINESS SECTORS

lt does not have any high-profile tennis athlete endorsements, however, instead focusing on sponsoring tournaments.

Alcohol brands, traditionally heavy sponsorship spenders, are also absent from the top 10, and are only responsible for three deals, all with male players. The presence of supplements and sports nutrition and fashion brands might explain the absence: tennis has a reputation for grace and athleticism, not a natural fit for some alcohol sponsors. Moreover, as an individual, not a team sport, a player might not wish to be associated with alcohol as it might deter other brands.

BRANDS ARE LOOKING TO THE NEXT GENERATION Perennial sponsorship big hitters Nike and specialist tennis

kit manufacturer Wilson are the most active brands, with Adidas rounding out the top three. Four car brands are also in the top 20, along with two watch brands.

Major tournament sponsors are prominent in this list as they regularly use athlete endorsements to dovetail with their major events sponsorships. For example, Jaguar has used its endorsement of Andy Murray to promote its partnership with the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Similarly, Kia has used Nadal in the activation of its deal with the Australian Open. In total, 11 of the most active brands across both the men’s and women’s top 20 are currently sponsors of one of the four tennis grand slams.

In the men’s game, with the big four of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, plus Wawrinka, all aged over 30, brands are starting to look to the next potential great of the game.

Out of all the brands, Peugeot has been the most prominent in supporting new tennis talent. The French car manufacturer, as part of its ‘Next Generation, New Sensations’ campaign has sponsorship agreements with Alexander Zverev, David Goffin, Lucas Pouille and Pablo Carreno Busta, all in the top 20, and all aged between 20 and 26.

While brands are looking to the future in the men’s game, they are missing a trick in the women’s game. Eight of the top 20 women’s players have only three sponsors or fewer. The women’s game is not dominated like the men’s game by the same set of players every year, and by choosing the right athlete, brands could gain worldwide exposure at a lower cost than sponsoring a male player.

BRAND DEALSNIKE 15

WILSON 15

ADIDAS 12

BABOLAT 10

HEAD 6

ROLEX 6

YONEX 6

LACOSTE 4

PEUGEOT 4

ASICS 3

EVIAN 3

BUSINESS SECTOR DEALSSPORTS EQUIPMENT 41

ATHLETIC 40

FINANCE 22

CARS 17

WATCHES 15

FASHION 10

SUPPLEMENTS & SPORTS NUTRITION

6

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS 5

SOFT DRINK 5

COSMETICS & TOILETRIES 4

BUSINESS SECTOR WITH THE MOST DEALS

BRANDS WITH MOST DEALS

WHO’S ACTIVE AND WHO’S MISSING?There are some notable omissions. Despite the travel

requirements of a professional tennis player, there is no place for airlines. This might be due in part to the dominance of Emirates in the sport. It is the main sponsor of the ATP World Tour, as well as a sponsor of the Australian Open, French Open and US Open, making it more difficult for another airline brand to cut through to a mass audience.


RANK MEN NATIONALITY KIT SHOES RACKET1 Rafael Nadal Spanish Nike Nike Babolat2 Andy Murray British Under Armour Under Armour Head3 Roger Federer Swiss Nike Nike Wilson4 Stan Wawrinka Swiss Yonex Yonex Yonex5 Novak Djokovic Serbian Lacoste Adidas Head6 Alexander Zverev German Adidas Adidas Head7 Marin Cilic Croatian Fila Li Ning Head8 Dominic Thiem Austrian Adidas Adidas Babolat9 Grigor Dimitrov Bulgarian Nike Nike Wilson10 Kei Nishikori Japanese Uniqlo Nike Wilson11 Milos Raonic Canadian New Balance New Balance Wilson12 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga French Adidas Adidas Babolat13 Roberto Bautista Agut Spanish Lacoste Mizuno Wilson14 David Goffin Belgian Asics Asics Wilson15 John Isner American Fila Fila Prince16 Jack Sock American Nike Nike Babolat17 Nick Kyrgios Australian Nike Nike Yonex18 Tomas Berdych Czech Adidas Adidas Head19 Pablo Carreno Busta Spanish Joma Joma Wilson20 Lucas Pouille French Adidas Adidas Prince

RANK WOMEN NATIONALITY KIT SHOES RACKET1 Karolina Pliskova Czech Fila Fila Babolat2 Simona Halep Romanian Adidas Adidas Wilson3 Garbiñe Muguruza Spanish Adidas Adidas Babolat4 Elina Svitolina Ukrainian Nike Nike Wilson5 Caroline Wozniacki Danish Adidas Adidas Babolat6 Angelique Kerber German Adidas Adidas Yonex7 Johanna Konta British ASICS ASICS Babolat8 Svetlana Kuznetsova Russian Qiaodan Nike Head9 Venus Williams American EleVen Nike Wilson10 Dominika Cibulkova Slovakian Lacoste Nike Babolat11 Agnieszka Radwanska Polish Lotto Lotto Srixon12 Jelena Ostapneko Latvian Adidas Adidas Wilson13 Kristina Mladenovic French Adidas Adidas Wilson14 Petra Kvitova Czech Nike Nike Wilson15 Serena Williams American Nike Nike Wilson16 Madison Keys American Nike Nike Wilson17 Anastasija Sevastova Latvian Yonex Yonex Yonex18 Elena Vesnina Russian Nike Nike Babolat19 Caroline Garcia French Nike Nike Yonex20 Daria Gavrilova Australian ASICS ASICS Yonex

TOP 20 MEN’S SUPPLIERS

TOP 20 WOMEN’S SUPPLIERS

WHO’S SUPPLYING WHOM?Part of the reason that athletic and sports equipment brands are so prevalent in

tennis sponsorship is that athlete supplier deals in tennis can be broken down into three sub-sectors: kit, shoes and racket.

Each of these three sectors provide brands with an opportunity for year-round, worldwide activation. Moreover, the individual nature of the sport means much of the media coverage is directed towards the players, offering brands greater exposure if their client is kitted out head-to-toe in their gear.

A broader analysis can be found at www.sportcal.com/Insight/Sponsorship

Although she only has four deals, beaten US Open finalist Madison Keys provides one of the biggest opportunities for sponsors, as she is American, with the two most high-profile US tennis players, the Williams sisters, approaching the end of their careers. Brands partnering with Keys could be in line to receive an increased level of exposure when they become the focus of USA’s tennis media coverage.

Likewise, Jelena Ostapenko, the 20-year old Latvian ranked 12th in the rankings, could be a target for new sponsors as the youngest player in the top 20. Ostapenko won this year’s French Open to become the first player from Latvia to win a Grand Slam, and the first unseeded player to win at Roland Garros since 1933. Her stock is high.

Lucas Pouille celebrates his third round victory in the 2017 US Open

44 Tennis BrandsSponsorship

KITTING OUT THE ELITETen different brands are active in

the men’s top 20, nine in the women’s section, and a total of 13 different brands are active across the two rankings. Adidas and Nike dominate, each accounting for 28 per cent, while the remaining 44 per cent of kit deals comprise 11 different brands, with seven of those having just one kit deal.

Adidas has deals with the two youngest players in the top 10, Zverev and Dominic Thiem, both tipped to be the ‘next big thing’, while Nike has established partnerships with ageing stars Federer and Nadal. The long-term nature of these partnerships has led to both players using their own logo in conjunction with the brand on various clothing ranges. EleVen, the clothing brand owned by Venus Williams, is the only player-owned brand in the analysis.

Under Armour has established itself as one of the largest sportswear makers in recent years, but despite its growing presence elsewhere, it has been slow to sign tennis athletes. Murray is its sole representative in the top 20 rankings. The Scot moved from Under Armour’s rival Adidas in 2015, citing a focus on innovation from Under Armour to help improve his training and performance as the motivation.

Given the individual nature of tennis, as well as its high profile and mass appeal, tennis players are in a unique position to enhance their own personal brands more than perhaps other athletes in predominantly team sports. One successful run in a grand slam can be a career-defining moment, both on and off court. The opportunities afforded to players as brand ambassadors mean there are some very lucrative opportunities for those players to cash in on success.

In the field of athlete endorsements, the men have the edge on their female counterparts, thanks to the higher levels of exposure offered. However, in a trend that seems to reflect the wider sporting world, the women’s game is finally being seen as providing real, tangible benefits to brands that enter into partnerships with the athletes.

For the top five female players, the number of endorsements is a direct reflection of their success in the sport, showing that brands are now looking for

TOP 20 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S KIT SUPPLIERS

11

11

3

3

3

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

ADIDAS

NIKE

ASICS

FILA

LACOSTE

YONEX

ELEVEN

JOMA

LOTTO

NEW BALANCE

QIAODAN

UNDER ARMOUR

ambassadors that serial winners. For the brands themselves, it is no

surprise that those that have a natural affiliation with tennis and performance are the most visible, with Wilson, Nike and Adidas all having a strong presence among the top 20 players. But it is also, perhaps, a reflection of the audience that follows tennis that fashion brands such as Uniqlo and Lacoste feel comfortable being involved in endorsement deals in tennis, as opposed to any other sport.

What is perhaps surprising is the lack of ‘category’ partners for the athletes outside their equipment suppliers.

This suggests that there is still a great deal of untapped potential for athlete endorsements, something that the next generation of athletes could seek to maximise through new digital and social channels.

*ATP and WTA rankings correct as of the start of the US Open on 28 August, 2017.

Madison Keys during her Women’s Singles finals match of the 2017 US Open


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Sports calendar

STAY UPDATED. DAILY CALENDAR UPDATES www.sportcal.com/calendar.

CALENDAR 48 SPONSORSHIP 49 MEDIA DEALS 50 EVENTS 51 MARKET MOVES 52 CONFERENCES 53

NO

VEM

BER

OCT

OBE

RD

ECEM

BER

DATE SPORT EVENT LOCATION TV DISTRIBUTOR ORGANISER

15 - 22 Archery Hyundai World Archery Championships 2017 (outdoor)

Mexico City, Mexico

World Archery Federation

Federacion Mexicana De Tiro Con Arco

18-22 Cycling - track

European Elite Track Cycling Championships 2017

Berlin, Germany

European Cycling Union German Cycling Federation

20-22 Table tennis Liebherr Men's World Cup 2017

Liege, Belgium

ITTF, Lagardère Sports, SECA World

Royal Belgian Table Tennis Federation

08-12 eSports eSports World Championships 2017

Busan, Korea

International e-Sports Federation

International e-Sports Federation

9-12 Trampoline Trampoline and Tumbling World Championships 2017

Sofia, Bulgaria

International Gymnastics Federation

Bulgarian Trampoline Federation

18-19 Canoeing ICF Ocean Racing World Championships 2017

Hong Kong International Canoe Federation

Hong Kong Canoe Union

28 Nov – 05 Dec

Weightlifting World Weightlifting Championships 2017

Anaheim, USA

Lagardère Sports USA Weightlifting

30 Nov – 06 Dec

Games IWAS World Games 2017 Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal

International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation

International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation

27 Nov – 03 Dec

Squash Men's World Team Championships 2017

Marseille, France

Total Sports Asia French Squash Federation

01-17 Handball Women's World Handball Championships 2017

Various, Germany

BeIN Media Group, Pitch International

German Handball Federation

01-09 Floorball Floorball Women's World Championships 2017

Bratislava, Slovakia

International Floorball Federation

Slovak Floorball Association

05-06 Taekwondo World Taekwondo Team Championships 2017

Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Spring Media Ivory Coast Taekwondo Federation

14-17 Table tennis ITTF Seamasters World Tour Grand Finals 2017

Astana, Kazakhstan

ITTF, Lagardère Sports Table Tennis Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan

STAY UPDATED. DAILY CALENDAR UPDATES www.sportcal.com/calendar.

Index48 Sports calendar

ONLINE: Up-to-the-minute information on 75,000 sponsorship dealsand 15,000 brands at your fingertips at www.sportcal.com/sponsorship

Sponsorship deals

SPORT EVENT/TEAM/ORGANISATION

SPONSOR CATEGORY TERRITORY PERIOD

CRICKET Cricket Australia Magellan Financial Services Australia 2017-18 to 2019-20

CRICKET Indian Premier League Vivo Telecommunications: Mobile

India 2018-2022

GOLF European Tour and 2018 Ryder Cup

Emirates Travel: Airlines Europe 2018-2021

MOTOR RACING

Mercedes Formula 1 Team

Petronas Energy & Utilities: Oil & Petrol

Global 2019 onwards

MOTOR RACING

Formula E Allianz Financial Services: Insurance

Global 2017-18 to 2021-22

OLYMPICS Olympic Games Intel Technology: Computers & Software

Global 2017-2024

OLYMPICS PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games

KEPCO Energy & Utilities South Korea 2018

OLYMPICS Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games

Yili Food: Dairy China 2022

RUGBY UNION English Premiership Aviva Financial Services: Insurance

England 2017-18

SOCCER Euro 2020 Volkswagen Automotive: Cars & Trucks

Europe 2020

SOCCER Uefa Europa League Kia Automotive: Cars & Trucks

Europe 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Major League Soccer Adidas Apparel: Athletic North America

2019-2024

SOCCER FA Cup Emirates Travel: Airlines England 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Liverpool Western Union Financial Services England 2017-18 to 2021-22

SOCCER Tottenham Hotspur Nike Apparel: Athletic England 2017 onwards

TENNIS US Open IBM Technology: Computers & Software

USA 2017-2021

TENNIS Wimbledon Evian Beverages: Water UK 2018-2022

VARIOUS Air Canada Centre Scotiabank Financial Services: Banking

Canada 2018-2038

Dominantbrands in

tennis, p42C$800M

Estimated value of Scotiabank’s 20-year

deal for naming rights to current Air Canada Centre

$700MReported value of Adidas’ extended

six-year deal with MLS

RS22BNVivo’s successful bid to remain IPL title sponsor for the next five years


Media deals

STAY UPDATED. DAILY UPDATES ON MEDIA DEALS www.sportcal.com/media.

SPORT EVENT BROADCASTER/ AGENCY

TERRITORY PERIOD

ARCHERY World Championships (Outdoor)

NBC Sports Network USA 2017 to 2020

AMERICAN FOOTBALL

NFL DAZN Canada 2017-18

ATHLETICS IAAF World Athletics Series EBU* and ESPN* Europe and sub-Saharan Africa

2018 to 2023

BASKETBALL FIBA competitions StarTimes Sub-Saharan Africa 2017 to 2021

CRICKET England home internationals and domestic cricket

Sky and BBC UK 2020 to 2024

CRICKET Indian Premier League Star India Worldwide 2018 to 2022

CYCLING Tour de France EBU* Europe 2020 to 2023

EQUESTRIAN FEI events UPC Switzerland Switzerland 2017 to 2022

GYMNASTICS FIG World Cup events Esporte Interativo Brazil 2017 to 2020

ICE HOCKEY Kontinental Hockey League Lagardère Sports* Worldwide (excluding Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan)

2017-18 to 2020-21

OLYMPICS Olympic Games ARD and ZDF Germany 2018 to 2024

OLYMPICS Olympic Games Kwesé Sports Sub-Saharan Africa 2018 to 2024

RUGBY UNION European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup

BT Sport UK and Ireland 2018-19 to 2021-22

SNOOKER World Snooker events Rigour Media China 2017 to 2027

SOCCER Australian A-League Network Ten Australia 2017-18 to 2018-19

SOCCER Premier League ESPN Brazil 2019-20 to 2021-22

SOCCER Coupe de France France Télévisions and Eurosport

France 2018-19 to 2021-22

SOCCER Uefa Champions League Sky Deutschland and DAZN Austria, Germany 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Uefa Champions League Sky Italia Italy 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Uefa Champions League Teleclub and SRG SSR Switzerland 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Uefa Champions League BeIN Sports Middle East and North Africa 2018-19 to 2020-21

SOCCER Uefa Champions League BeIN Sports Spain 2018-19 to 2020-21

TENNIS US Open ESPN Australia 2017 to 2021

VOLLEYBALL CEV European Volleyball Championships

Sport1 Germany 2017 to 2021

€367MAnnual value of BeIN Sports’ Champions League and Europa

League deal in Spain

£1.1BNValue of Sky and BBC’s deals for England home

internationals & domestic cricket (2020 to 2024)

$2.55BNSum paid by Star

for global IPL rights over five years

€250MPaid by ARD and ZDF in Olympics sub-licensing deal from 2018 to 2024

*Distribution/agency deal

Index50 Media deals

SPORT EVENT DATE BIDDERS BID STATUS AWARD DATEOCTOBER

GAMES Gay Games 2022 Washington DC, USAGuadalajara, MexicoHong Kong

Candidate cities 30 October

NOVEMBER

RUGBY Rugby World Cup 2023 France, Ireland, South Africa Candidates 15 November

EQUESTRIAN FEI World Equestrian Games 2022 Samorin, Slovakia Candidate city 21 November

DECEMBER

BASKETBALL FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Russia; Turkey; Japan, Indonesia & Philippines; Argentina & Uruguay

Confirmed bids 3-6 July

BIDDING

Events8

Times Lake Placid, USA has hosted the Bobsleigh

& Skeleton World Championships

$4MThe hosting fee for AIBA World Boxing

Championships

1900The first edition of the World Figure Skating

Championships

€3.2BNTotal economic impact of the

2015 Rugby World Cup in England

AWARDED

SPORT EVENT EVENT DATE WINNING BID BID AWARD DATE

BASKETBALL EuroBasket Women 2019 Serbia & Slovenia 24 June

BOBSLEIGH Bobsleigh & Skeleton World Championships 2021 Lake Placid, USA 28 June

BOXING AIBA World Boxing Championships 2019 Sochi, Russia 24 July

BOXING AIBA World Boxing Championships 2021 New Delhi, India 24 July

FIGURE SKATING World Figure Skating Championships 2020 Montreal Canada 05 June

GYMNASTICS FIG Aerobic World Championships 2018 Guimaraes, Portugal 01 Aug

GYMNASTICS FIG Trampoline World Championships 2018 St Petersburg, Russia 01 Aug

GYMNASTICS FIG Trampoline World Championships 2019 Tokyo, Japan 01 Aug

LUGE Luge World Championships Artificial Track 2021 Calgary, Canada 17 June

ORIENTEERING MTB Orienteering World Cup 2019 Poland 05 July

SPEED SKATING Combined World Sprint & Allround Speed Skating Championships 2020 Salt Lake City, USA 05 June

SWIMMING FINA World Championships (25m) 2022 Kazan, Russia 17 July

SWIMMING FINA World Championships (25m) 2024 Budapest, Hungary 17 July

TABLE TENNIS ITTF World Tour Grand Finals 2017 Astana, Kazakhstan 14 Aug

ONLINE: Our comprehensive, constantly updated global sports eventsdatabase is available to subscribers at www.sportcal.com/events


AGENCIESMP & Silva, the international sports

agency, named Chris Lencheski as head of global sponsorship. He was previously vice-chairman and chief executive of IRG Sports + Entertainment, a subsidiary of TPG Speciality Lending, which oversaw more than 1,150 motor sports, live entertainment and corporate events is USA.

Octagon, the USA-based international sports and entertainment marketing agency, appointed Daniel Cohen to head up its new media rights consulting unit. He had been MP & Silva’s managing partner, senior vice-president for the Americas.

Wang Dong quit as vice-president of Ali Sports, the sports arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, to join Desports, the Chinese sports marketing agency. Wang joined Ali Sports in 2016 after 12 years at CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, where he worked as a presenter.

Leading eSports executives at WME-IMG left the combined Hollywood talent agency and sports and entertainment company in late July to launch a new venture in the developing sector. Tobias Sherman, WME-IMG’s global head of eSports, and his team Lilia Russo, Imari Oliver and Simon Abitbol, are to set up a new eSports-related business, FIV.

BIDDING AND EVENTSJohn Kristick, the experienced sports

executive, was appointed executive director of the combined USA-Mexico-Canada bid to host the 2026 Fifa World Cup, having previously led USA’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2022 edition. Kristick had spent two years as the chief executive of ESP Properties, the global agency brand of WPP, having held the same position at GroupM, the media investment management company owned by WPP. Morocco is also bidding to stage the 2026 World Cup.

Jon Dutton was named chief executive of the organising committee for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup in England. Dutton, director of projects and people at the Rugby Football League, takes on his new role in February. Dutton, who led England’s bid to host the tournament, was operations director for the 2013 RLWC, also staged in England.

FEDERATIONS AND LEAGUESONE Championship, the mixed martial

arts series in Asia, appointed Jack Lim as chief commercial officer. He had held the same role at Mediacorp, the Singapore-based multimedia conglomerate that holds ONE Championship media rights in the country.

Roger Goodell signed a new five-year contract to remain as commissioner of American football’s NFL to 2024. Goodell has been commissioner of the NFL since 2006 and is understood to have made a total of $212.5 million in his first 10 years in the role.

Ivan Khodabakhsh left his position as chief executive of golf’s Ladies European Tour in August. He joined in 2013 from the World Series of Boxing, the annual competition for professional fighters overseen by AIBA, the international federation. A number of LET tournaments were called off this year because of a loss of sponsorship.

World Wrestling Entertainment promoted John Brody to head of international. He continues as executive vice-president, global sales, a position he has held since joining WWE in late 2015 from the NFL.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India promoted Hemang Amin to chief operating officer of Twenty20’s Indian Premier League. Amin had been assistant general manager of finance, commercial and events at the governing body, with responsibility for handling the management and operations of the IPL.

Julio Maglione, Marius Vizer and Chungwon Choue were re-elected as presidents of the international federations of aquatics, judo and taekwondo, respectively, to 2021. Vizer and Choue were returned unopposed, while Maglione comfortably saw off a challenge from Paolo Barelli, the head of the sport’s European governing body. Choue has been in power since 2004, Vizer since 2007 and Maglione since 2009.

World Rugby, the sport’s international governing body, hired Tom Hill as chief commercial officer to replace Murray Barnett, now of motor racing’s Formula 1. Hill had spent almost a decade at Manchester United in roles such as global head of sponsorship sales and global head of partnerships and operations. He previously worked for the RFU and leading English club Saracens.

OLYMPICSThe International Olympic Committee

elected eight members at its session in Lima in mid-September: Baklai Temengil (Palau); Kristin Kloster Aasen (Norway); Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul (Thailand); Luis Mejia Oviedo (Dominican Republic); Neven Ilic (Chile); Khalid Muhammad Al Zubair (Oman); Jean-Christophe Rolland (France); and Ingmar de Vos (Belgium). Lee Kun-Hee, the chairman of Korean electronics giant Samsung, ended his 21-year membership IOC because of deteriorating health.

TELEVISIONJan de Jong quit as general director

at NOS, the Dutch public-service broadcaster, to take up the same role at Feyenoord, the top-tier Eredivisie soccer club. The 50-year-old, who began his career at NOS 24 years ago, will assume the role at the defending league champions on 1 November.

Formula 1’s Murray Barnettis interviewed

p20

World Surf League, the organiser of the annual tour of professional competitions, hired Sophie Goldschmidt as chief executive and Joe Carr as chief strategy officer and head of international. Goldschmidt joined from CSM Sport & Entertainment, the UK-based sports marketing company, where she had been group managing director since March 2016. Prior to

that she was chief commercial and marketing officer at England’s Rugby Football Union.

Carr was senior vice-president of international and content at UFC, heading up its global expansion strategy and managing UFC Fight Pass, the OTT service.

Surfing makes its debut at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Market moves

STAY UPDATED. DAILY NEWS UPDATES www.sportcal.com/news.

Index52 Market moves

Conferences

ONLINE: Free-to-access database of all major congresses, conferences, exhibitions and forums at www.sportcal.com/conferences

DATE CONFERENCE WEBSITE CITY COUNTRY11-13 WBSC Congress www.wbsc.org Gaborone Botswana

13-14 The 52nd World Archery Congress www.worldarchery.org Mexico City Mexico

23-26 Sportel Monaco www.sportelmonaco.com Monte Carlo Monaco

27-28 European Running Business Conference www.european-athletics.org Frankfurt Germany

27 FIFA Council Meeting www.fifa.com Zurich Switzerland

30 - 02 TEAMS ’17 Conference + Expo www.northstartravelgroup.com Orlando USA

TEAMS: Travel, Events And Management in Sports, is the world’s leading conference and expo for the sports-event industry. Presented by SportsTravel, TEAMS ’17 will be held October 30 - November 2, 2017, in Orlando. Attendees include CEOs, executive directors, event managers from sports organizations, sports commissions, convention bureaus, corporate sponsors, event suppliers and other hospitality-industry opinion leaders.

31 - 03 2017 ANOC General Assembly www.olympic.org Prague Czech Republic

03-11 2017 World Sailing Annual Conference www.sailing.org Nuevo Vallarta Mexico

08-10 International Federation (IF) Forum 2017 www.sportaccordconvention.com Lausanne Switzerland

24-25 European Olympic Committees General Assembly 2017 www.eurolympic.org Zagreb Croatia

28-29 Host City 2017 www.hostcity.com Glasgow United Kingdom

Now in its fourth year of growth, Host City is firmly established as the largest meeting of cities and sports, business and cultural events. Alongside the VIP addresses, plenary panels and growing exhibition that are the hallmark of Host City, delegates will be able to attend streamed sessions and roundtables dedicated to practical opportunities around hosting major events.

04-06 Soccerex Asian Forum www.soccerex.com Doha Qatar

05-07 IOC Executive Board Meeting www.olympic.org Lausanne Switzerland

09 FIBA Central Board www.FIBA.basketball Nyon Switzerland

HIG

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© Sportcal Global Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. The views expressed herein are not necessarily shared by Sportcal Global Communications Ltd (Sportcal). If you want to reproduce or redistribute any of the material in this publication, you should first get the written permission of Sportcal. No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any material in this publication can be accepted by Sportcal or the author(s). While every care is taken to ensure accuracy, Sportcal and the author(s), cannot accept liability for the errors or omissions. Data included herein is published in good faith and is the best information possessed by Sportcal or the author(s), at the stated time of publication. The published data does not constitute advice and should not be relied upon by any person in making (or refraining from making) any decision.

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NFL GAMES

$50,000,000WORLD BOXING SUPER SERIES PRIZE MONEY

£120mHOSTING FEE FOR 2023 RUGBY WORLD CUP

30:70

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3LONDON IS PGA TOUR’S

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OF TOP 20 GLOBAL EMERGING CITIES ARE IN THE COMMONWEALTH2019

50%3.5m

Index54 The Big Numbers

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+ 4 4 2 0 8 9 8 7 5 5 2 2

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