Wasps Pick AXS As Ticketing Partner

AXS has announced a new agreement with Wasps Holdings, which will see it become the exclusive ticketing partner for a wide range of live events at The Ricoh Arena in Coventry.

The four-year deal will cover Wasps Rugby, Wasps Netball, concerts, exhibitions and other live events at the venue from October 2018.

AXS will implement state-of-the-art technology solutions to ensure a frictionless purchasing and entry experience for ticket holders. These new innovations will include Fansight, AXS’ virtual reality seat maps which will provide an opportunity to choose seats online and view the whole of the stadium in high definition before purchase.

“This partnership with Wasps is a major landmark as we move to expand our fan-friendly ticketing experience to more venues in the UK,” said AXS SVP & MD Europe, Rob Byrne.

“AXS technology puts the fans back at the centre of the experience – where they should be.”

AXS will be providing Wasps with AXS Mobile ID, its innovative identity-based digital ticketing platform, allowing fans to buy tickets and enter the stadium using their mobile devices for the first time and providing Wasps with better information about who is actually in attendance.

Also being introduced is ‘Fan Account,’ a new portal that allows ticket purchasers to create a friends and family group, giving them permission to purchase on their behalf and view their “Buzz Points” – loyalty tokens which can be accrued when buying tickets and merchandise.

Fan Account will also have branded sponsorship areas for key sponsors, enabling them to sign into their own portals and manage their ticket allocations. This feature will also be available to community rugby clubs, pubs and societies that partner with Wasps for cashback on ticketing sales.

Stuart Cain, Managing Director at Wasps said: “Having the right ticketing solutions in place is crucial regardless of the event. We need to make it intuitive to book a ticket and we’ve worked closely with AXS to come up with an enhanced online experience that beats anything else we’ve seen in the market. We look forward to building a long-term relationship with them.”

Part of this new package also includes AXS Intelligence, which is a dedicated real-time business intelligence platform providing detailed insight and analytics into the data surrounding ticket purchases.

To ensure a smooth transition over to the new systems AXS will provide full technical support and will have one of their own senior technical managers embedded within the Wasps ticketing team to help manage and oversee the day-to-day operations of the new platform.

Giles Bayliss, Business Development Director at AXS, added: “AXS is delighted to announce this new partnership with Wasps and the Ricoh Arena. We share their long-term vision for ticketing live events and are looking forward to working closely with them to deliver on those requirements. Our shared mission is to enhance the ticketing landscape not only for the venue but for the fans who buy tickets to constantly improve their customer journey.”

Baseball Local TV Ratings Rose In Regular Season

Major League Baseball enjoyed a 2% uptick in local primetime TV ratings during the so-called regular season from March 29-September 30 to counter a fall in attendance (which we reported last week).

Ratings for games in primetime on regional sports networks from March 29-September 30 rose slightly across the 29 teams based in the USA, according to Nielsen (which does not cover Canada, so the Toronto Blue Jays are excluded from this count).

According to data compiled by Maury Brown of Forbes, baseball ranks number one in primetime on cable in every U.S. MLB market except Miami, and 12 of those networks rank number one in their markets in primetime.

The strength of MLB on TV was underlined on October 4 (in the so-called post-season), when the National League Division Series game between Atlanta and Colorado starting as early as 5 pm on Fox drew 2.459 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic, just behind the primetime (8:23 pm kick-off) audience for NFL Thursday Night Football (Indianapolis vs. New England) of 2.788 million.

Leading the regular season this year were the St. Louis Cardinals on FOX Sports Midwest.

The Boston Red Sox on NESN were second with ratings up 26% over 2017, and the Cleveland Indians on Sports Time Ohio came third, despite a 26% drop from 2017.

In last place were the Chicago White Sox on FSN Chicago, with the Oakland A’s on NBC Sports California next to last and the Miami Marlins on FSN Florida third from the bottom.

The Atlanta Braves showed the biggest increase from 2017, up 79% on FOX Sports South, while the Baltimore Orioles declined the most, by 56% on MASN.

THE SPOT Sets 2019 Dates

Following the success of the inaugural edition in May of this year, THE SPOT – the international event aimed at fostering innovation in sport – will be back in Lausanne from May 28-29, 2019.

The SwissTech Convention Center will again be transformed into a buzzing open space full of content and interaction enabling delegates to draw inspiration from innovative people, ideas, products and best practices in sport and technology.

The first edition of THE SPOT attracted a sell-out crowd of 700 delegates from 25+ countries and 350 organisations and companies, including more than 45 start-ups. Visitors included 100+ employees from international sports federations and the International Olympic Committee plus 50 international speakers. The Market Place and Demo Zone featured over 40 start-ups and 15 corporate stands.

The second edition will be an important platform to showcase the potential of the new sports-related start-up incubator currently being developed by ThinkSport, the Canton of Vaud, the City of Lausanne, UNIL and EPFL.

Anna Hellman, Director of ThinkSport, said: “We are really happy with the first edition of THE SPOT and received positive feedback. It was great to see how everybody embraced the spirit of the event and we will build on these positive vibes. For the second edition we are developing new exciting out-of-the-box experiences with a number of strong partners and we will allow a larger number of innovative minds to join in our adventure.”

IOC Reports Cost-Cutting Progress

The Olympic Agenda 2020’s New Norm, the plan that offers cost-efficient, transparent and flexible delivery of the Olympic Games, has saved large amounts of money in the preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Games, the IOC reports.

Application of the New Norm to Tokyo 2020 has already entailed putting 49 measure in place, while another 41 will be fully or partially applied. Savings include $2.2 billion following the review of the venue masterplan that started in 2014, and subsequently hundreds of millions of dollars in additional OCOG and non-OCOG budget savings.

At the IOC Executive Board meeting October 4 in Buenos Aires before the Youth Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission Chair John Coates confirmed that cost-cutting efforts would continue through to the Closing Ceremony.

The New Norm was partially applied for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, resulting in a reduced the number of accredited seats and elimination of the secondary International Broadcast Centre (with use of an existing building for the Main Press Centre instead).

In the lead-up to the Olympic Winter Games 2026 (whose host city will be chosen next year), New Norm measures have led Interested Cities to propose using existing venues for approximately 80% of the Games, compared to 60% per cent on average for the Candidate Cities in 2018 and 2022.

Budgets for the Interested Cities for 2026 have already come down by an  average of 15% per cent compared to the past Olympic Winter Games candidature processes.

Sky Deutschland Takes Back Premier League

Sky Deutschland has secured English Premier League broadcast rights for three seasons from 2019-20 to 2021-22.

Under the deal, the German pay-tv provider will have exclusive live broadcasting rights in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

The rights are currently held by DAZN under a three-year pact begun in 2016.

The Sky Deutschland deals covers exclusive live rights via cable and satellite as well as IPTV, web and mobile, including the Sky Go app.

Sky Deutschland Managing Director Holger Ensslin said: “Jürgen Klopp (in photo), Pep Guardiola, Mo Salah, Harry Kane, Kevin De Bruyne, Leroy Sane and Ilkay Gundogan, with several of the best players and coaches in the world and many faces that are familiar from the Bundesliga and the national team, have enabled the Premier League to gain enormously in attractiveness and popularity in recent years.”

Premier League Executive Chairman Richard Scudamore said: “Sky has an excellent track record of delivering high-quality football content to fans in Germany.”

“We know they will do a great job of making the Premier League available across the country and look forward to working with them from season 2019-20 onwards.”

Limelight Sports To Manage IMG Public Participation Events

Limelight Sports is taking over the running of the London Triathlon and two other major participation events from 2019.

The sports management firm will also manage all aspects of the Blenheim Palace Triathlon and Etape Caledonia cycling competition.

The three events are being licensed to Limelight Sports by owner IMG.

The AJ Bell London Triathlon is the world’s largest triathlon event, attracting more than 10,000 competitors and 30,000 spectators, with significant television coverage on Channel 4 and Sky Sports.

The Bloodwise Blenheim Palace Triathlon is the only event to take place in a World Heritage site and has almost 7,500 competitors.

Etape Caledonia usually attracts about 5,000 entrants racing on closed roads through stunning Scottish countryside.

Limelight Sports CEO Craig Dews said: “This is a terrific new opportunity for us, and we are very excited about getting the chance to take these events forward and further enhance their status and reputations.”

He added: “We are looking forward to working with the local communities, stakeholders and authorities to gain the appropriate support and approvals in order to fully develop the events.”

Cloud-Based Software: Insights On The Advantages

The world of software has been transformed by the shift to more robust connectivity.

Taking advantage of subscription and recurring revenue business models to deliver on the true promise of the cloud, SaaS (software as a service) organisations are changing the way that businesses and individual consumers purchase everyday services.

Services that once upon a time would have been hosted and managed locally can now live on the cloud as shared services managed externally.

This development has not only made it easier for organisations to upgrade what they use internally or for their consumer-facing platforms, it has also brought down costs.

Whether your organisation is a provider or a user of cloud-based solutions, a new White Paper from Vindicia (see below) points out key elements to making the most of new technologies to improve your business:

Sports Travel Tip: Avoid No-Deal Brexit Trap

The possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU could have an immediate impact on teams and other sports organisations travelling to and from competitions in Europe.

Travel company ATPI Sports Events points out that important rules on passport renewals have recently changed.

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, all the UK passport holders on a team will be treated as ‘third country’ nationals by Schengen area countries, and as such they will have to comply with extra passport validity rules.

The Schengen area is a group of 26 European countries, covering most of the EU and four other non-EU countries.

All UK passport holders therefore need to be sure that their passports have at least 6 months validity remaining on the date they arrive in the Schengen area.

Any additional months over 10 years that were added to an adult passport will not count towards the 6 months that must be remaining.

Until now, adult passports could be issued with up to 9 months additional validity if renewed before the expiry date, but this was stopped from September 2018.

Therefore, for any travel planned after March 30, 2019, sports organisations are advised to act early to renew the passport of any member of their contingents whose passport won’t meet the requirements.

French Ticket Sales Boost Ryder Cup

As the 42nd Ryder Cup matches tee off in Paris, French golf authorities are pointing to domestic ticket sales figures as evidence of the healthy state of the sport in France.

For the 2018 edition of the event at Le Golf National, approximately 51,000 tickets have been sold, exceeding the 45,000 tickets for the 2014 edition in Gleneagles, Scotland, the last time the Ryder Cup was held on European soil.

Moreover, 43% of this year’s tickets were purchased by French buyers, an increase from 37% sold to customers in Scotland in 2014.

France 2018 President Pascal Grizot, VP of the French Golf Federation, said: “There appears to be a difference between the public perception and the perception of some of the golfing community with regard to golf development in France.”

Keith Pelley, Chief Executive of the European Tour, said: “The support we have had from everyone in France; the Government, the French Golf Federation and the fans has been superb, and these numbers bear that out.”

The European Tour is the majority (60%) shareholder in Ryder Cup Europe, which owns the rights of The Ryder Cup when the competition is held in Europe, as well as the managing partner of the event.

Other partners are the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland (20%) and the Ryder Cup European Development Trust (20%).

The event has four official partners. Rolex has been the main sponsor of the tournament since 1995, and BMW has been on board since 2006, with Aberdeen Standard Investment and Emirates joining more recently.

To get a shot at obtaining Ryder Cup tickets directly from the event, potential buyers had to create an official Ryder Cup ticket account on the official event website before tickets went on sale earlier this month on a first come, first served basis.

Petronas Partners MotoGP Until 2020

Petronas has strengthened its presence in MotoGP after signing a partnership agreement with the sport until 2020.

The deal, which was brokered by commercial rights holder Dorna Sports, will see the oil and gas multinational benefit from trackside advertising at Sepang and Chang International Circuits – hosts to the Malaysia and Thailand Grands Prix respectively.

“Petronas is proud to collaborate with Dorna Sports and sponsor trackside branding in Thailand and Malaysia. We look forward to the brand awareness this partnership will drive as MotoGP is a leading motorsports event with a massive following worldwide, complementing our projects in Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP,” said Zahariah Abdul Rahman, Senior General Manager of Petronas.

“We’re delighted to welcome Petronas on board as a sponsor and to see them extend their presence in the MotoGP World Championship,” added Pau Serracanta, Dorna Sports’ Managing Director.