When The Athletic was sold to the New York Times for $550m the other day, the valuation prompted a few comparisons to other sports properties, specifically European football clubs. The same thing happened when MLS team Real Salt Lake (average attendance 15,000) was acquired for around $400m, with Newcastle (av. attendance 51,000) going for a … Continue reading Fans, followers and football club valuations
The PGA Tour just announced a tie-up with Netflix to produce a behind-the-scenes series, along the lines of F1: Drive to Survive, which gets credited for exposing F1 to a new, younger audience. Golf does slightly suffer from the same challenge as F1, with not that many opportunities to really get to know the players, … Continue reading the PGA TOUR and netflix
Pretty big news in the world of golf yesterday, as the European Tour announced a long-term partnership with DP World. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ3Td-foqx0 This deal means the tour will now be called the "DP World Tour", and aside from anything else it's a handy way to reposition the 'European Tour' as a much more global entity (it … Continue reading The European Tour and DP World
Ear To The Ground is an agency with a really valuable consumer insight platform called the Fan Intelligence Network. This is a collective of over 11,000 sports, esports and gaming fans from all over the world - all plugged into what's going and with a finger on the pulse of local culture. It's a powerful … Continue reading The fan intelligence index 21/22
With NFTs gaining traction pretty rapidly in sport, and crypto platforms also getting involved in sponsorship, there's some quite interesting data here from GWI's recent Zeitgeist survey (Sep '21), looking at awareness and attitudes to all things crypto. I've compared people in the UK with an interest in watching sport, with the UK general population. … Continue reading UK sports fans & Cryptocurrency
I wrote this piece for the Unofficial Partner blog, but thought I'd share it here as well because it's quite fun and hopefully useful too. Sport loves a cliché, Brian. And, at the end of the day, sports marketing is no different. In fact, quite a lot of the discourse and strategic thinking that surrounds … Continue reading Let’s play the sports marketing cliché game!
The Commonwealth Games made a few headlines this week by announcing that, after 2022, only two sports will be mandatory: athletics and swimming. Future hosts will get to decide for themselves which events to include, with a recommendation of 15 in total. A lot of this is about making it viable for more cities to … Continue reading So, what events should be in the commonwealth games?
A big part of how I work with clients in sport is to help them gain a deeper understanding of their audience through data, leading to insights that provide the foundation for building a marketing and engagement strategy. One of the most useful external data sources I use is Global Web Index, a quarterly online … Continue reading The UK SPORTS AUDIENCE: SEP ’21
Emma Raducanu winning the US Open as a qualifier, in only her second grand slam event. Stories in sport don't get much more fairytale than that, and for my money it was one of the most incredible and uplifting things we've seen in years. On the back of these type of things happening we get … Continue reading Can Emma get more people playing tennis?
As if we needed it, the IPCC report should be a huge wake up call to all of us to urgently tackle climate change. This will continue to be one of the top things on the agenda for sporting organisations and sponsors in the coming years, and most sports can take comfort that the majority … Continue reading Sport and the climate emergency
Kudos to Simone Biles for prioritising her mental health over simply "pushing through" and performing because that's what everyone expects her to do. It really does feel like things have changed recently, with top athletes being more open about the pressures of doing what they do. None of us can really imagine what it's like … Continue reading The pressure of being a superstar athlete
It's Pride Day today so I thought I'd take a look at how the LGBT+ community in the UK engages with sport - from both a fan and participant perspective. It's fair to say that many sports are still failing to successfully engage LGBT+ people, but there is quite a marked difference between men and … Continue reading Sport and the LGBT+ community
The youth audience is a big focus for many brands and rights-holders in sport, with an eye on engaging young people that could be fans and consumers for decades to come. 16-24s are often the demographic that we think about, but it's a tough crowd to reach, with multiple interests competing for their time, and … Continue reading A snapshot of UK 16-24s
On the back of the Ronaldo/Coca-Cola issue this week, and also NZ Rugby/Ineos, I've seen quite a lot of chat about how sport needs to adapt to a "Gen Z" or "Millennial" audience that is increasingly concerned about environmental issues and social responsibility. Thought I'd check out the data on this. I've broken the 16-24s … Continue reading Are young people more concerned about social responsibility?
With the market for digital banking, finance and payments become ever more competitive, and an increasing number of brands using sport as a platform for growth, I've taken a look at how sports fans in the UK interact with the sector. Using GWI data, I've looked at UK-based fans of football, cricket, rugby, golf and … Continue reading FinTech x Sport
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