On August 12th at Edgbaston, home of Warwickshire County Cricket Club and the location for one of the UK’s first test events in the Spring, I enjoyed a smorgasbord of sports tech insight.
PTI’s Sportsbiz 2.0 began with Ben Wells, CCO serving up a cold starter of reality. A tapas of facts presented an industry at a crossroads, with a clear didactic message: innovate or die. Facts flew fast and furious: £1 billion lost by the Premier League & EFL; £0.25 billion lost by Premiership Rugby; the average age of a rugby season ticket holder - 57, with cricket even older (The Hundred seems to be doing a great job to address this one). Live sport knows it needs to engage with younger audiences (a charge being led by the IOC by embracing new sports like Breakdancing, Speed Climbing, Surfing and Skateboarding- and you don’t write that every day!). With other screen distractions dominant during Covid, Wells warned of the dangers of complacency. “Things will never be the same again” he explained, citing concerning research emanating from Australia which shows that, after an initial fix, crowds did not come back to sport in the numbers that they had once supported live events; for whatever reason: the home experience now being too good; the hassle too great; alternatives too attractive. And in the UK we have not yet really felt the full impact of Furlough fall out. Sports brands around the world are encouraged to return from their isolated Zoom existence to huddles of creativity.
There was a small amuse bouche provided by Yanni Andreopoulos, CC&MO from the nascent electric powerboat series, E1. His plan to have early adopters as part of the genesis of the series- including recruiting for pilots via eSports and running competitions with the fans for livery design-, echoed earlier advice to ‘listen and act accordingly’ rather than ‘build it and they will come’
The main course came from an impressive collection of celebrity chefs. Together they provided a variety of more nourishing fare. Between them they presented an array of business areas that can be transformed with technology to improve the bottom line: digital ticketing; cashless venues; click and collect; app marketing; digital signage; improved business intelligence; NFT’s. All can be used to prise out the large pool of cash which Covid has helped us all save. There will be lots of competition for that disposable income however, and the Chefs’ advice was double edged:
Stuart Cain, CEO at, Edgbaston explained that “Covid- gave us the gift of time to transform digitally” Warwickshire CCC’s first priority had been an app to drive customer experience and insight. Once PTI had got the technological infrastructure and a strategy for the education of the fans in place, Cain took the brave step to make the app the only way to secure a test event ticket- leading to 48,000 downloads for the first event! This allowed Edgbaston to increase the monetisation of F & B by 30%- as well as improving the customer experience by reducing queues.
The app also had the advantage of facilitating streaming and there were 250,000 sign- ups for the first Blast Game, extending the reach of the game in terms of numbers and also geography; leading to increased sponsorship revenues as well as access to a whole lot more pockets and the intelligence on how to empty them.
Stephanie Bax, MD European Operations, CAA Icon (who are project managing the fitting out of OVG’s Coop Live Manchester Arena) has the advantage of starting with a clean sheet of paper. Even then she spoke of cash registers having to be “ripped out” to accommodate an increasingly cashless fan experience. She made an interesting point that the fan’s desire and acceptance for increased safety and security could lead to a more permission-based approach to data gathering- which could subsequently be used for commercial purposes. She recommended planning for a more immersive environment by embracing AR. Perhaps a hologramatic image of your team’s superstar to welcome fans? She warned of the dangers of ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ citing thermal scanning that was a ‘thing’ and then quickly was not! And of the need to personalise the experience based on the entertainment hosted by your venue, your demographic, your location and, most importantly, the needs of your fans.
Adam Pearson, Commercial Director at the O2/AEG Europe also picked up on Cain’s app adoption point, illustrating how most of us in the UK had become used to using the NHS app as an access passport just to get to the pub. He quoted figures from the Brit Awards pre and post Covid which showed a 3000% increase on app purchase with just 33% of the audience! (“admittedly, from a very low base” he explained).
Charlie Boss, CCO The Jockey Club provided a Ted Talk of a dessert. He spoke of a “content arms race” which sport was entering with the likes of the mega giants such as Netflix and Disney. There is a move from the autocracy of the all-powerful broadcast networks to digital democracy. “The power has moved from the transmitter to the receivers.” Fans want to consume content how they want it and when they want it- and that will include sport. ‘Live’ should be an option, particularly because of its unscripted nature, but should be part of a larger menu. What does this mean for sports properties? The need to capture, listen to and act on user preferences. Amazon started with book preferences- what can you start with?
Boss illustrated best practice with examples from the Derby Festival which will be central to the Queens’ Platinum Jubilee Celebrations next year. He quoted innovations such as:
Throughout the day it became clear that all experts felt that content, although clearly still part of the court, was no longer king- but that data now wears the crown. All sports properties should be moving from telling a story, and hoping it engages, to asking fans what sort of story they want to hear- and then crafting it.
Mike Bohndiek, CEO PTI provided coffee (literally and metaphorically) and couple of minted observations by way of a summary:
These themes will be picked up at MEI’s UK Events Summit at the Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester on 15th December. If you are involved in running events and want to do so more efficiently, safely and profitably, or you supply event organisers with the means to do so, save the date.
- Andy Rice, COO. MEI
