Jay Stuart, Author at iSportConnect

“Esports Is The Perfect Bridge Between Sports And Entertainment”

Guillaume de Monplanet sees the future of Team Vitality, which he recently joined as managing director and co-CEO, as becoming a “cultural brand” like others in music, fashion, cinema and traditional sports.

Those are all areas he knows very well, having spent the past eight years at Adidas as managing director of Adidas France. Before that he was the country brand director in France for Reebok. iSportConnect’s Jay Stuart asked him about his new role and his views on the growth of the Esports market.

How are major brands being brought in relating to the growth of sponsorship in Esports Guillaume, and what is the difference between the proposition of Esports and traditional sports?

Major brands are coming to traditional sports teams or athletes for two main reasons: mass visibility, and association of values.

“Traditional sports are carrying strong values that major brands are interested in.”

Traditional sports are carrying strong values that major brands are interested in in search of performance and winning spirit, collective spirit, fair play, respect, to name a few.

With Esports, there is no doubt those two elements are important as well for major sponsors, but there is one massive difference: Esports offers privileged and very qualified access to a huge and engaged fan base. Major brands have no better way to connect to that audience, which is so important to most of them, than partnering with a major esports team.

Is it all about the data differences between the two?

It is a lot about data, but not only. Of course, the volume of audience, the quality of audience, the engagement rates, the knowledge of the audience, all those data points are important and justify the investment levels. But the most important aspect in a sponsorship relationship is that the story told to the audience makes sense and is authentic.

That is why you can’t have a long-lasting relationship with a partner who does not share your project with authenticity. The fans would not be interested in the stories told. With Team Vitality’s partners, we are very attentive to choose partners that make sense and tell authentic and meaningful stories.

Does Esports need to build ‘mainstream’ media audience?

Esports does not need to. The Esports audience is very engaged and knowledgeable about the games, the athletes, the teams. That builds tremendous value already. However, with Team Vitality, we have the ambition to build a cultural brand rooted in Esports and gaming.

“Gaming is becoming a strong pillar of youth culture, alongside music, fashion, sports or cinema.”

We believe gaming is becoming a strong pillar of youth culture, alongside music, fashion, sports or cinema. As such gaming is a great playground for brands to express creativity and talent. Team Vitality is a top team in esports. We foster creative talents in gaming and want to expand our influence on larger audience bases.

Can you tell us more about V-Hive and that creation?

V-Hive is a great place and a great asset to create authentic experiences for our fans. Unfortunately, with the sanitary situation, V-Hive has been closed or operating at a very low level in the last months.

However, we have managed to create new programs for different audiences, which are already a great success: our Vacation Schools, dedicated to teenagers. A full week of gaming experience, where they can learn and train with the best coaches and athletes and discover the values and the skills needed to perform at the highest level.

“Events and experiences offered around gaming and esports will be a growing revenue stream for us.”

And the League of Legend Corporate League, in association with Riot Games, offering to companies a chance to create team building activities and play a real championship with other companies. It’s really exciting to develop those programs, which will be played live at V-Hive as soon as we can.

Do you see live events becoming a more important revenue stream?

Yes. The examples cited above are only a few of the programs we plan to develop. Events and experiences offered around gaming and esports will be a growing revenue stream for us.

We believe gaming played at its best is a demonstration of skills, competencies and good values. It can help kids around the world develop their own talents and become better persons. We truly believe in this and want to contribute to change perceptions of gaming and Esports.

How does Esports fit into the sports ecosystem and governance?

So far, even if there are a few pathways and collaborations (FIFA, F1), it is difficult to say that traditional sports governance has understood how to manage esports as well. In many ways, esports is more advanced than many traditional sports, in understanding how to create passion and engagement with the new generations.

The most advanced traditional sports organisations in the world (the NBA is a good example) are looking at esports and some initiatives developed in the gaming industry.

Esports is the perfect bridge between sports and entertainment, and as such will inevitably find its spot in the world sports governance at some point. But I take the bet that traditional sports will also have to evolve a lot to adapt to the speed of esports development.

Where is Esports and betting going?

It is a difficult equation to resolve. There are still a lot of challenges on the way and esports should try to remain a positive and inclusive playground, where fair play and honesty are important values.

“Equality, Basic Fairness, Is Not Just About Unbiased Hiring Or Equal Pay, It’s About A Whole Thinking And Relating To Others.”

In this week’s Meet The Team piece, iSportConnect’s Editor-at-Large Jay Stuart provides us with some of his key thoughts after watching last week’s ‘Level The Playing Field’ Global Forum that iSportConnect hosted alongside the International Tennis Federation, centred on gender equality.

Sport is a microcosm of society.

That’s not a new observation but hearing it made during the ITF’s Advantage All event last week I was really struck by the truth of it because the points that hit home for me related to the world we live in, not only to tennis or sport. Indeed, I was very conscious of the leading role that tennis and sport have to play in changing things for the better in the bigger picture.

Billie Jean King, who is surely the world number one of championing gender equality, made a particularly memorable point that I had not heard before. The gist of it was that when a young woman works in a company or organisation, the tendency is to judge her on the narrow basis of the job she’s doing, as if that’s all she’s ever going to do. A young man on the other hand is evaluated more on his potential, on what he can offer in the future. It’s an assessment that my own experience of the workplace over the years supports.

Although many people would say that attitudes have changed for the better, let’s remember that some organisations are more enlightened in this respect than others. And some countries are too. But the scope of Advantage All, in line with the ITF’s remit, is global and whenever and wherever this gap in perception is the case, females are not being given equal treatment or opportunity.

Equality, basic fairness, is not just about unbiased hiring or equal pay, it’s about a whole way of thinking and relating to others. It’s obvious that the ones most in need of getting with the programme and thinking and relating differently are men, but the inertia runs deeper. So much of the problem is unconscious and many girls and women also need to shake off attitudes of resignation or accepting the status quo in favour of self-empowerment.

I shared Billie’s point about how women and men are perceived with male friends this weekend. By a nice coincidence it was after playing doubles tennis (her favourite) with them and afterwards it occurred to me that all of us also have daughters, another nice coincidence. Simple word of mouth at the everyday level is important. What inspirational leaders like Billie Jean King give us is the words to pass along. To make change happen, we need be sure that more of us than the fathers of daughters take those words to heart.

Use the videos available within the piece or head to the iSportConnect TV YouTube channel to watch the full event back.

“In The World Of Sports Partnerships Nothing Comes Easily”

For the latest in a series of interviews building up to the new Formula One season on Sunday, iSPORTCONNECT’s Jay Stuart spoke to Antoine Magnan, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Alpine F1 Team, to find out more about how the team’s rebranding from Renault F1 has changed their thinking.

Sometimes innovation has elements of looking backward. The new Alpine F1 Team that takes part in its debut race in Bahrain next weekend is not only a re-branding of Renault F1, but actually the continuation of a story begun long ago. Alpine has been making sports car in France since the 1950s and when Renault first entered F1 in 1977, the new team used the Alpine 500 chassis.

Today, Alpine (acquired in 1973) is the avant-garde brand of Groupe Renault and the French manufacturer (ninth largest in the world in production volume / 2020 revenues €43.5 billion) has very big ambitions to develop the market for the Alpine portfolio of road cars at the international level.

“For our partners in the U.S. it’s really brand-new because Alpine is a new manufacturer for them.”

The decision to re-brand the Renault team was a bold one and before the official announcement of the move last September there were many months of preparation and online meetings (with Renault’s group CEO taking part) to introduce Alpine to Renault F1’s 40 or so commercial partners, 10 of whom appear on the race car.

“It’s a new story for them to tell,” says Antoine Magnan, Alpine F1 Team Commercial Director. “For our partners in the U.S. it’s really brand-new because Alpine is a new manufacturer for them.”

Asked if having a new brand might make it easier to attract new partners for the F1 team, he replies with a smile, “In the world of sports partnerships there nothing comes easily, especially in times of the pandemic crisis. Marketing budgets are the first to be cut and Formula 1 is not the only sport. That said, unlike most others, we not only have our sports story but also a tech story and a lifestyle story. The range of potential partners is always increasing. In a way, the rebranding does help. Alpine is a much more premium brand and it’s a fresh brand and a younger brand.”

The Renault brand has not entirely left F1. The Alpine F1 team is powered by Renault engines. From the start of the year, Alpine is a new, fully integrated unit within the Renault Groupe. The F1 and the consumer business operate as one, with a solid bridge between the R&D in F1 and manufacturing of the road car. “For the unit to have real substance, you need marketing involvement and Formula 1 is key tool in raising awareness, especially in markets where Alpine is not known such as Asia and the Americas.”

Alpine is joining the club of premium automobile brands in Formula 1 with Mercedes and Ferrari and Aston Martin, a new entrant this season. One big difference is that Alpine cars are more affordable with a price in the range of €60K ($70k / £51k).

“Our brand is about the enjoyment of driving. In a time when there is so much focus on the idea of the autonomous car that does everything for you, we are just the opposite.”

Also distinctive is the fresh brand philosophy. “Alpine is great value for money and the aluminium chassis means a fantastic driving experience,” Antoine says. “Our brand is about the enjoyment of driving. In a time when there is so much focus on the idea of the autonomous car that does everything for you, we are just the opposite. Rather than being a vehicle that takes you automatically from A to B, Alpine is about the feeling of the journey, the experience of getting there.”

Antoine sees F1 as offering a broad canvas for activation. “Winning in Formula 1 is just like in any other sport. It means being in the spotlight and every brand wants to be in the spotlight, so winning of course is important. But the opportunity for a brand extends well beyond the results on the track. You can activate in a completely different way for different partners. For B2C partners it’s important for a team to be on the podium and get the public’s attention. For B2B you can give a great deal of value to partners with things like testimonials and illustrations of the business case that show how they have helped you get better results. I would actually prefer to finish third coming from the back of the grid than starting in pole position and staying first place the whole way.”

On that note, he also questions whether winning begins to deliver diminishing returns for a team that wins all the time (like Mercedes, which has captured seven F1 titles in a row). “It may be that there is such a thing as being too dominant. Fans may pay less attention or you might even lose some fans entirely. And it might not be good for the sport.”

Most of us would probably agree that winning all the time is a nice problem to have to deal with. But Antoine’s point runs deeper.

“We all know that the value of companies these days is really about the value of the brand. Look at an iPhone,” he hold his up. “It costs a hundred euros to make and you put the Apple logo on it and sell it for a thousand. That’s the power of the brand. For a brand that is in sports I think it’s important to focus not so much on the results but more on how you get the results. You need to think about the way you do things.”

As every sports fan knows, perhaps less so nowadays than in the past, style is a mark of quality.

“We want to show how hard F1 is, for the drivers and for the 1500 employees who put the cars on the track. That’s the best proof of why the drivers are heroes.”

That thinking will play a big part in the way Alpine F1 does things.

“For a lot of today’s casual fans, Formula 1 looks easy, a bit like a video game. They don’t see a driver losing two kilos during a race from perspiration. They don’t feel the pain. We want to show how hard F1 is, for the drivers and for the 1500 employees who put the cars on the track. That’s the best proof of why the drivers are heroes.”

For its heroes Alpine F1 will have two-time world champion Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon on the grid this season. The latter took second place in Bahrain for Renault F1 last year, so Alpine might well be up on that podium at the Sakhir circuit on Sunday.

No matter what the results are on the track in 2021, Alonso and Ocon are already guaranteed to deliver spotlight moments for the Alpine brand. The two drivers have their own new Alpine road cars to drive, obeying the speed limit of course.

Member Insights: Esports – Where Does It Fit In And How Can It Benefit The Sports World? Vlad Marinescu Talks To Jay Stuart

With iSportconnect’s Esports Masterclass taking place later this week, it’s the perfect time to read Jay Stuart’s interview with Vlad Marinescu, Vice-President of the International Esports Federation.

Vlad, also President of the United States Esports Federation, speaks about how Esports and established sports can work together and benefit each other, how federations are progressing and whether barriers exist between organisations and publishers.

JS: How do you think the dialogue is progressing between sports and the world of gaming, are we still in an early stage?

I think the general feeling around where the conversation is, it’s actually very varied. I say that because the conversation is very vast for FIFA, for example, that has their game that is doing very well both in sales and in world championships and Esports events where pro football teams have Esports teams participating in that.

Meet The Member: Esports – Where Does It Fit In And How Can It Benefit The Sports World? Vlad Marinescu Talks To Jay Stuart

JS: How do you think the dialogue is progressing between sports and the world of gaming, are we still in an early stage?

Member Insights: Regional SportAccord Helps to “Bridge The Gap”, Says President Raffaele Chiulli

The great importance of the international sports federations is easy to understand. Each IF sits at the top of the global pyramid of its sport, running world championship events and setting standards for national federations and other stakeholders reaching all the down into the grassroots. It’s very much a top-down structure, and that is pretty much inevitable in a field activity that depends absolutely on shared rules and values.

What comes with this global structure is the challenge of disconnects up and down the pyramid. The distance between the top and the bottom is vast indeed. Even the distance between the IFs and national governing bodies is sometimes very far indeed.

The ambition to do something to bring stakeholders closer together has been around for a long time. The aim of SportAccord, the global gathering of governing bodies and partners under the auspices of GAISF (the Global Association of International Sports Federations) is to do exactly this. But that event, the world’s biggest and most important gathering of the Olympic Movement, is largely about the top of the pyramid.

“We as sports leaders need to bridge the gap between what’s happening in society in general and sport.”

Raffaele Chiulli, who was elected President of GAISF last year, and is also President of SportAccord, has moved swiftly to expand the purpose of the latter to improving the connections between the various levels of sport governance and the business, particularly between the IFs and national governing bodies and other national stakeholders.

The first step has been the launch of the SportAccord Regional concept. The SportAccord Regional PanAmerica, was held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in December of last year.

Chiulli, who has been President of the UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique since 2007, spoke to iSportconnect about the bold initiative during the event at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. It attracted more than 450 delegates from all over the world and 61 IFs represented as well as various national stakeholders from throughout the Americas, event organisations, host cities and a wide range of companies.

“We’re very excited to be here on Fort Lauderdale,” he said. “It’s an amazing location, with more than 300 days of sun every year, the ocean, the beaches. It’s really a great place to host our event.”

He explained the origin of the new event as follows:

“We’ve been listening to our key stake holders, the national Olympic committees, the National Federations, the International Federations. They all wanted this event because it’s really relevant for the region and it addresses the diversity of a vast area, in language, in culture, even in the weather. From North America all the down through South America there is a common set of goals around the passion for sport and the lover of sport, and we need to work for sport on a regional basis.”

The conference discussions at the first SportAccord Regional gathering highlighted the importance of widening the dialogue throughout sport.

“We heard about how the international sports landscape is changing, deeply and rapidly, and we as sports leaders need to bridge the gap between what’s happening in society in general and sport,” Chiulli said. “We need to lead by example, in terms of good governance, and ensuring the sustainability of sport, economically, socially and environmentally. We need to ensure that the new generations are going to feel comfortable in starting new sports disciplines and practicing sport.”

“The Chinese want to show the world they are the best. There will be plenty of very nice surprises.”

More SportAccord Regional events are on the drawing board for the future.

“We believe that the formula is a success and that has been shown here,” Chiulli said. “The SportAccord Regional will certainly be repeated and it will be improved. We are humble and we want to learn from any mistakes we’ve made.”

In the meantime, preparations for SportAccord 2020 in Beijing (April 19-24) are going extremely well, he reported.

“The Chinese want to show the world that they are the best,” he said. “So it’s going to be a great event. I have personally visited to see the infrastructure and talk to the key people involved in the event, including the Minster of Sport and people at BODA (the Beijing Olympic Development Association) and the government. It’s going to be a great event. And there will be plenty of very nice surprises.”

David Stern’s Successful Vision Came From His Primary Focus On Players – Jay Stuart

It seems like ancient history. Because it is ancient history, back in the last century. But I think the defining moment of the late David Stern’s career, his finest hour, came in 1992, when the Dream Team took part in the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the first time that NBA players competed in the Games.

The observation has a personal dimension for me. At the time, I was tracking the story as part of producing Naked Sport, a six-hour TV documentary on the U.S. sports business for Channel 4 and Showtime, a follow-up on a successful show called Naked Hollywood. In truth, we were a bit early with the concept because the sports biz at that time was a few years away from being the global entertainment juggernaut that it has since grown into, one that has indeed eclipsed Hollywood in some ways. But the key moment in becoming truly ‘global’ may well have been that summer, when we filmed with Stern and his top executives during the Tournament of the Americas, the Olympic qualifying event, in Portland, Oregon.

It was no coincidence that the tournament took place in Portland, the home of Nike, the main sponsor of Michael Jordan, the Dream Team’s mega-star. Putting Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and other stars together on the Olympic stage gave the NBA and Nike a ready-made global platform that they could not possibly have built themselves. By the same token, the presence of the U.S. hoop stars added much needed glitter to the Olympics at a time when the Games had not yet regained their mojo after the boycotts of the 1980s. It was the perfect win-win (and naturally the Dream Team duly won-won-won).

The 1992 USA Olympic Basketball Dream Team

The launch of the WNBA as the first full-blown women’s major league four years later was another defining decision during Stern’s tenure, which spanned a transformation of the NBA. And I do mean transformation.

To step back even further into the dim past, it will probably come as a surprise to many readers that when he became NBA Commissioner in 1984, the league was still emerging from a period of struggle. In Reagan’s America of the early 80s, the NBA’s image was at its nadir, with a lot of finger-pointing at purported drug abuse by players. Let’s cut right to it. The essential problem was racial and cultural. The NBA was seen as ‘too black’ to appeal to the broad American audience. Indeed, there came a time when the NBA Playoffs were not even carried live on network television.

Commissioner Larry O’Brien had begun to turn the situation around with Stern as the league’s top lawyer before the latter took over at the helm himself. They saw the cultural aspects perceived as liabilities by some people as great assets. Yes, the players in the NBA were largely African-American, proudly so, with all the engaging benefits of that in music and fashion and sheer street cred. What other sports property in the world showcased such athleticism? What other league was also a lifestyle brand?

With hindsight, maybe the pivot seems more obvious now. But it was bold and imaginative. The talent and charisma of Michael Jordan (and Nike’s influence) certainly helped the process of re-invention. He was genuine. No spin guru can manufacture that kind of authenticity. Young fans have unerring bullshit detectors. When Nike encouraged them to ‘Be Like Mike,’ the star himself made it an easy sell. And then along came LeBron… Some leagues have all the luck − because they make it.

Stern himself came across as genuine too. Maybe it had to do with working in his father’s deli as a kid. Treat people well and you make friends and loyal customers. He knew how important people are to the success of a business, and he gave smart young execs responsibility (his successor as Commissioner in 2014, Adam Silver, was one of them).

The NBA embraced the players as business partners, cultural icons and global ambassadors, and encouraged them to be themselves.

In speaking about Stern back in ’92, Dick Ebersol, the head of sports at NBC, which by that time was regularly showcasing NBA games as well as of course carrying the Olympics, focused on one essential point. “David understands that it’s all about the players.”

The players. Their talents and personalities. The value grows from them. And Stern put the awareness of that in a contract. The collective bargaining agreement that he forged at the start of the 80s gave the players a 53% share of league revenues.

How the NBA embraced the players as business partners, cultural icons and global ambassadors, and encouraged them to be themselves, remains fundamental to the NBA ethos as it continues to engage more fans around the world.

It continues to broaden its appeal too by recruiting talent from around the world in a way that no North American sport has ever done. For the sixth straight season, NBA rosters during the current campaign feature more than 100 foreign players (from 42 different countries and territories).

In Portland in that epochal summer of his Dream Team, we asked Stern if anything kept him up a night. The league had well and truly taken off and was now flying so high, what could possibly worry him? And the Commissioner replied in so many words, what goes up eventually comes down, so you have to be planning for the downturn. Well, it hasn’t happened yet and, given the NBA’s pioneering role in digital innovation, there’s no sign that it’s coming anytime soon, thanks in good part to putting the players at the heart of the proposition.

Eurosport Renews Premier League Rights In Romania

Eurosport has extended its rights deal with the English Premier League in Romania for another three seasons, starting 2019-2020.

Eurosport in Romania will hold exclusive TV and digital rights with fans able to watch the matches live with local commentary on Eurosport and simulcast on Eurosport Player, the live and on-demand service available anytime and on any device.

Eurosport first acquired Premier League rights for Romania in 2013.

The new agreement follows Eurosport’s recent announcement that it has secured exclusive rights to broadcast the English FA Cup until 2021 in Romania, starting this Saturday with Newport County versus Manchester City.

Victoria Davies, SVP Country Manager Discovery Networks CEE, Mediterranean and Central Asia, said: “The renewal of the rights clearly shows the strategic importance of the Romanian market in Discovery’s portfolio across the region, bringing the most exciting football league in the world to millions of fans across a football-mad country.”

Golf Tour Selects Data Partner

The European Tour has announced a new partnership with IMG ARENA to become the exclusive worldwide distributor of official scoring data to media organisations and international regulated sports betting and gaming markets in a long-term arrangement.

IMG ARENA is developing a real-time, shot-by-shot data collection system which will be installed at all European Tour events, with these new insights available to fans via European Tour platforms and global broadcasters.

AIMG Arena will live stream two selected par-3 holes per week for syndication to data rights clients in selected territories.

Rufus Hack, Chief Content Officer of the European Tour, said: “This partnership with IMG ARENA will provide an enhanced statistical offering from our tournaments through real-time, shot-by-shot data.”

“It will help us to grow our fan base and increase engagement through improved data and insights for fans across all our platforms. Licensing the data for regulated sports betting markets will allow fans around the world the opportunity to engage with our product in a different way.

“IMG ARENA will work closely with our robust integrity programme, and our investment in this area will combine the latest thinking and world-class technology to both disseminate official scoring data to betting markets and protect our tournaments from the threat corruption.”

Max Wright, Senior VP and Head of Commercial at IMG ARENA, said: “More than a year in the making, this partnership will deliver one of the most sophisticated sports data products ever created. Our state-of-the-art, live scoring capture system will deliver a wealth of data and power a range of exciting new live betting markets.

“There is a huge opportunity for golf to become a global leader in sports betting. IMG Arena is at the forefront of the efforts to deliver this, with the European Tour a significant and complementary addition to our portfolio.”

Dull Super Bowl Delivers Lower Ratings

With so much of the post-game media coverage calling Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams boring, it’s no surprise that the television ratings for CBS were down – and in fact they hit the lowest in many a year for the mega-event

The teams on the field produced the least scoring (Pats won 13-3) in Super Bowl history (this was the 53^rd edition) and the 98.2 million viewers and a 41.1 household rating (according to Nielsen) made the least-watched linear TV broadcast of a Super Bowl in 11 years, and the lowest-rated in 16 years.

It was the first time in a decade that the big game has failed to average more than 100 million viewers over the entire broadcast with average viewership down 5% drop 5 percent compared to last year’s 103.4 million viewers.

All of that said, it’s a pretty safe bet that at the end of 2019, the Super Bowl audience will still be the biggest of the year.

Furthermore, in this digital era, there is still no seamless ratings data combing viewing on all platforms.

CBS on Monday said its overall reach topped 100.7 million viewers when including CBS Interactive, NFL digital properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes (TV and online). But that is still down from 103.4 million for NBC’s all-platform audience in 2018.

Despite weak viewership, CBS reeled in an estimated $382 million in advertising revenue, the third-largest amount ever for the game, according Kantar Media.

Advertisers paid an average of $5.25 million per 30-second spot.