The House View – A recap from the last two days at SEG3

As I write this we are just reaching the conclusion of this year’s SEG3 London event, it has been a busy couple of days with panels, workshops, interactive experiences and more than a bit of networking. 

Like last year, I have learnt so much over the last couple of days through listening to the panels, speaking to delegates and most importantly interviewing speakers from all across the Web3 landscape. Asking Aardman’s Commercial Director what Wallace and Gromit would have made of Web3 was a particular highlight. 

For those of you who didn’t manage to attend this year’s event, here is a selection of my favourite quotes from the last two days.

Marc Mathieu, from Salesforce, provided a big-picture overview of the intersection of Web3 and Generative AI. While Web3 continues to await the use cases that will drive the technology towards mass adoption. We may see that this push will come from the need to develop a ‘trust layer’ for Generative AI. He said: “Web3 is almost a philosophy of decentralisation. Generative AI is an enabler that can make it easier to turn creative ideas into reality.” 

He added: “Generative AI will enable us to learn more about the things that we don’t already know.” In other words it is not just about predicting future behaviour based on past behaviour. 

Andrea Berry, from Theta Labs, said: “We often hear about the importance of owning your own audience, but it isn’t easy to put that into practice. Rights Owners that try to distance themselves from the big platforms in order to own data often find that they are at the mercy of third party providers as they build “frankenstein’ sites combining Web2 tech solutions with Web3.”

Nizzar Benchekroune, from Berexia, said: “Web3 is the beginning of the internet. You have been surfing the internet for 20 years, now you can be inside it.” 

“One of the biggest changes will be the transformation of the relationship between brands and consumers. People walk around today wearing clothes that advertise brands. In the future they will be paid by brands for promoting them. Brands will need to give more to consumers as expectations rise.”

JP Morgan’s Tyrone Lobban, added: “He pointed out that Brussels is already working on making a trusted ‘digital identity’ accessible to everyone in Europe and that the momentum to create a blockchain-based ecosystem may come from governments and financial institutions rather than entertainment. Though sports, entertainment and, especially, gaming will play important roles.

LaLiga’s Keegan Pierce said: “Monetising needs to be done as a natural outgrowth of fandom, not an imposition”

Martin El-Khouri, from Bertelsmann Investments, said: “The content side and the advertising side are merging. This is what NFTs will embody moving forward.”

Make sure you are following the SEG3 socials and website to keep up to date with all the latest news, views and content.

Member Insights: How AI and technology is enhancing the whole tennis experience

In this week’s Member Insight piece David Granger, Content Director for Cinch, looks into how tennis is embracing the future through technology.

With AI commentary, virtual reality line judges and keeping online trolls off players’ feeds, tennis is truly embracing technology, while keeping the spirit of the sport alive.

The news that tennis is to get AI commentators at Wimbledon this year is… no great surprise. We’re going to see a lot of artificial intelligence experimentation over the next 12 months as both sport and spectators establish how to embrace or reject the march of the machines.

How will it work? Having been trained in the “unique language of tennis”, IBM’s Watsonx will be tracking data from the ball, from players and analysing shots to generate audio and text commentary on the Wimbledon app. 

And tennis is the perfect partner (#SorryNotSorry) for AI. Despite its (occasionally refined) reputation the sport has always has a voracious appetite for new technology. Hawk-Eye is now used across a range of sports from snooker to Aussie Rules, but has been a mainstay in tennis for 20 years. It took over the role of chalk dust (copyright Mr J McEnroe) as the final arbiter of whether a ball was in or not. And if anything, unlike VAR in football, Hawk-Eye has added to the spectacle of professional tennis. It’s difficult to image a game without a virtual reality AI replay request.

Side story. 

At the cinch Championships this year, one of the highlight moments was a line judge’s astute call on a ball which was out by millimetres. And when Hawk-Eye confirmed her decision of that exceptionally close out, the crowd cheered, the umpire gave her a virtual fist-bump and she became internet-famous for the week. Fascinating that everyone will now accept technology’s decision over human, but celebrate a correct human call.

The AI commentary for Wimbledon will allow access to both aduio and text commentary. According to IBM. “Fans can add AI-generated spoken commentary to Wimbledon highlight reels, hearing play-by-play narration for the start and end of each reel, along with key points. Fans can also turn on closed captions to further enhance accessibility, a key consideration for All-England Lawn Tennis Club.”

There are those who might argue that some commentators (not necessarily from tennis) would be little missed if replaced by robots. And some who sound robotic at the best of times.

AI has also been assisting the well-being of tennis players. In a sport where your mental state plays such an important part of the game, social media’s intrusion is not always, well, not often, going to be welcome. 

Players at the French Open they were able to filter their feeds thanks to an app provided by tournament organisers. 

Bodyguard.ai is more than just a way of blocking unwanted words or phrases. It can consider who the post is aimed out and the meaning behind any message. Matthieu Boutard, Bodyguard.ai’s co-founder, told npr.org. “AI is a lot more complex in a sense that it understands context,

“Tennis is an individual sport. So if you lose a game, that’s your fault. You’re very exposed because a lot of people are actually betting on sport and tennis specifically, which means a lot of haters going after you if you lose a point, if you lose a set or if you lose a game.”

We shall wait and see how the AI commentary works at Wimbledon, whether it adds to the experience, decreases or increases fan understanding or play or is a technological distraction. Perhaps technology’s involvement/enhancement is best summed up by Jérôme Meltz, Chief Information and Data Officer, Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT) in an interview with the BBC last year. Meltz maintains AI will be a powerful tool to help us enjoy sport – but that’s all it ever will be. He said: “Human and emotional factors remain a priority and the main element that fuels the drama.”

The debate over AI and its future is at the heart of the Generative AI for the Creative Industries’ Summit which takes place in London, September 12-13. There’s a more than impressive line-up of speakers and topics being covered, including industry experts from Amazon, the BBC, Adidas and Meta.

You’ll find ticket details here

The rumour that the cinch Championship line judge is one of the surprise guest speakers? That’s still under review…

Photo credit: Neil Hall/Pool via Reuters

Modern Pentathlon with Obstacle will boost the popularity of the Olympics according to YouGov survey

Nearly half of young people in the United States are more likely to watch and follow the Olympic Games once Modern Pentathlon has introduced Obstacle to the programme, a new survey has found.

A poll of 1,500 US citizens undertaken by YouGov, the global public opinion and data company, found that 45% of Generation Z (born in 2000 and later) and 41% of Millennials (born between 1982 and 1999) were more likely to watch the Olympic Games on TV if it featured a Ninja-style Obstacle race. Taken as a percentage of the US population this would equate to nearly 45 million more people watching the Games.

The survey also found that 42% of Gen Z and 41% of Millennials were more likely to follow the Olympic Games on social media if it featured a Ninja-style Obstacle race, with one in two Gen Z and Millennials surveyed stating that they watch Obstacle racing shows.

As displayed in the graphic above, when asked ‘How much would the addition of a Ninja-style Obstacle race make you more or less likely to watch the Olympic Games on TV or online stream?’, 12% of Gen Z respondents said they would be ‘much more likely’ to do so and 33 % said they would be ‘more likely’. A higher proportion of Millennials (18%) answered ‘much more likely’ with 23% saying ‘more likely’.

When asked ‘How much would the addition of a Ninja-style Obstacle race make you more or less likely to follow the Olympic Games via social media?’, 10% of Gen Z respondents said they would be ‘much more likely’ to do so and 32% said they would be ‘more likely’, while 16% answered ‘much more likely’ and 25% ‘more likely’.

A new Obstacle discipline is currently being integrated into Modern Pentathlon at junior and youth levels, and senior athletes will fully adopt the change after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. More than two-thirds (37%) of survey respondents said they would be more likely to watch the new-look Modern Pentathlon at the Olympic Games, and 46% of those cited enjoying Ninja-style Obstacle races as the reason, with 34% describing the reason for their answer: ‘I think the Modern Pentathlon needs to embrace change’.

Obstacle shows were also considered highly entertaining, engaging and challenging by survey respondents – outscoring both the Olympic Games and Modern Pentathlon on these keywords.

UIPM has proposed a transformative Modern Pentathlon comprising Fencing, Obstacle, Swimming and Laser Run for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, following a request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to demonstrate how the sport can be more compatible with the criteria for inclusion in LA28.

FIBA and ESPN agree broadcast partnership for FIBA World Cup 2023

FIBA and ESPN have announced a rights agreement for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, with all 92 games available on ESPN platforms, including ESPN2 and ESPN+.

The global event tips off on August 25, and continues through to September 10. Six games will air exclusively on ESPN2, including three in the first round featuring Team USA.  All other 86 games will be carried by ESPN+ while also being available on FIBA’s official streaming service, Courtside 1891. 

FIBA will produce a dedicated USA broadcast feed for the linear games on ESPN featuring specialist US commentators and US-dedicated content and analysis in order to deliver a highly engaging broadcast experience for fans in the USA.

Team USA is aiming to return to the top and will start their World Cup 2023 campaign in Manila, Philippines, when they take on New Zealand on August 26.

“ESPN is excited to once again partner with FIBA and showcase this global event as well as all of the tremendous international talent,” said Ashley O’Connor, ESPN Sr. Director, Programming and Acquisitions. “We’re proud to serve basketball fans with live event coverage of the sport on a year-round basis.”

Most recently, the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 saw ESPN distribute the entire Women’s World Cup. Six games were aired exclusively in the US on ESPN2 and ESPNU, which was the most Women’s World Cup games to ever air on live television in the USA, resulting in viewership tripling across the country.

Frank Leenders, FIBA Media and Marketing Services Director General, said: “This is excellent news for basketball fans in the USA. We are excited to join hands again with ESPN with this partnership that will showcase all 92 games of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023. This will bring with it more new synergies that will make basketball more accessible and enjoyable for fans leading up to our biggest event that is to be co-hosted for the first time across three countries this August and September.”

Additionally, with this agreement, all FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 games will also be available on the ESPN App.

DAZN announced as broadcasting partner of Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 in Canada

From the start of the 2023-24 season, DAZN will be the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2’s official broadcasting partner in Canada after Bundesliga International agreed a three-year deal with the global sports streaming service.

The deal, which includes the top two divisions of German football, as well as the German Supercup and the all-important relegation play-off matches each season, covers both English and French language broadcasts, local broadcast sponsorship and advertising rights, and will run until the conclusion of the 2025-26 season, where Canada will then host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, alongside the USA and Mexico.

Following the likes of Bundesliga champion and back-to-back CONCACAF Player of the Year Alphonso Davies, DAZN will showcase all the twists and turns of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 throughout the coming seasons. In addition to showing at least six live matches a week, DAZN has the rights to broadcast all matches, as well as access to a wide range of shoulder programming, and will provide fans throughout Canada with the best coverage of one of Europe’s most exciting leagues.

Peer Naubert, Bundesliga International Chief Marketing Officer, said: “Football is booming in Canada: after the national team made their second FIFA World Cup appearance last year, the country now looks forward to hosting the next edition. It is no wonder football is Canada’s fastest-growing sport. 

“The appetite for the Bundesliga is just as strong, and research highlights that we are the fastest growing international league in Canada since 2020. Our history as the home of North American talent, coupled with working with a worldwide powerhouse broadcaster like DAZN, means we are excited to see how German football can inspire the next generation of players and fans.”

Norm Lem, SVP, DAZN Canada SVP said: “We are thrilled to partner with the Bundesliga for the next three years, cementing DAZN’s place as the destination for football fans in Canada. The Bundesliga is one of the premier competitions in world football featuring a host of stars including one of Canada’s favourite sons Alphonso Davies. We have some incredibly exciting plans in place as part of the deal moving forward and we cannot wait to share them.”

Football Association announce partnership with Google

Google Pixel has announced a new long-term partnership with The Football Association (The FA) as Official Mobile Phone and Earbuds Partner. The deal marks Pixel’s first step into football sponsorship in the UK, with the brand looking to work with both the senior men’s and women’s teams to help bring fans closer to the sport they love.

Pixel are also working with Lionesses star Lauren James, who will front Google’s “Football on Pixel” campaign throughout the summer and beyond. As one of the most exciting young players in the world, Lauren will be using her platform and the Pixel range to inspire the next generation of talent to pick up the game.

Throughout the partnership, Pixel will use its best-in-class camera and AI-powered technology to give fans fresh perspectives on their favourite players. This includes a new ‘Pitchside, Presented by Pixel’ content series that will take fans into the heart of the action, as well as fan-led stories showcasing the magic of England match days. Longer-form storytelling will take fans behind-the-scenes as the England teams compete on the international stage.

Pixel will also work with The FA to help increase visibility for women’s football, by delivering more, and higher quality women’s football content, with the aim of inspiring more girls and women to get involved in the sport, and help move the game forward.

Finally, Pixel and The FA are also committed to co-developing brand new experiences throughout the term of this partnership, leveraging Google’s AI-powered technology with the promise of enhancing fan’s experiences in Wembley and at home. This will begin during this Summer’s tournament,where Google will launch new ways to access information about the tournament – from match schedules to athlete highlights and more – through Search.

The partnership deepens Google’s existing relationship with The FA, following the announcement of Google Cloud as the official cloud of the England Teams in 2019. Google Cloud works with The FA to help deliver meaningful insights from data to benefit The FA both on and off the pitch.

Eileen Mannion, Vice President Marketing at Google UK, said:

“Football is more than just a sport in the UK, it’s deeply rooted in our heritage. It’s not only part of our vibrant and diverse culture; it brings people together, generating excitement and building strong communities. We are proud to be partnering with the Football Association (The FA) to help fans create memories together.  Phones are such an integral part of the modern sports experience, and we’re thrilled to work with The FA to get fans closer to the action of our incredible men’s and women’s teams more than ever before.”

FA Commercial Director Navin Singh said: “We’re delighted to welcome Google Pixel on board as our official mobile phone and earbuds partner. We’re passionate about connecting our supporters with our England teams, and this partnership will bring fans and players closer together through content delivered by leading technology. We thank Google Pixel for their support.”

As the only phone engineered by Google, Pixel brings together the latest AI breakthroughs and puts them into a device you can hold in your hand. This personalised help adapts to your needs and preferences, helping you save time and get more done, as well as powering Pixel’s leading features such as Night Sight, Magic Eraser, Real Tone and Live Translate.

Meet the Member: “A thousand things have changed in sports, but it is still sports. The greatest reality TV show on earth”

Timm Chiusano started his sports journey working at ESPN, but in his forties he has become a TikTok creator whose day in the life videos have helped him pass 1 million followers on the platform. In this interview we cover AI’s potential impact on sport, what broadcasters can learn from his content and much more…

So Timm, take us through your journey in sport?

I was born and bred a New York sports fan. In New York, you choose Mets or Yankees, Giants or Jets, and then the Knicks and Rangers are straightforward. That goes back generations, so you’re indoctrinated into rooting for these teams at birth. 

As a kid, my first job was being a caddy, and I worked at driving ranges for most of high school. I played golf from as early as I can remember, and I had dreams of playing hockey at the highest level possible. I played well in golf at a fairly high level, and then I got drawn into Canada with the delusion I could play junior hockey. It was pretty uncommon for a kid in New York City to drop everything and move to play hockey up there, but I had an amazing year playing junior B hockey.

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When I left school, I knew I wanted to do something creative in sports, and those were the only two boxes I wanted to check. So, I took every piece of crap job I could get my hands on. I worked part time at terrible hours as a grip, which is production speak for doing whatever the hell the producer needs you to do. I worked part time at CBS and ABC sports just to get anything underneath my belt I could. 

It took three years actually to break into a full time job with ABC sports as a production assistant which wasn’t even guaranteed to last more than 5 months. I was doing college football and PGA tour golf on the live sports production side of things. There was almost a five year journey between leaving school and having a full time job in sports which took patience just waiting for a door to open. I was also very cognizant of the fact that nothing was owed to me once that door opened.

I worked for ABC sports for 5 years and realised that chasing live sports across the globe 36 weeks a year was glorious, but not for my plans of being a married man. So, I reinvented myself as a marketer, and convinced people I was the right person to come up with creative ideas to sell to brands despite no specific marketing background. For example, I did starting lineups brought to you by a brand or halftime sponsored by someone  for ESPN and their major sponsors. I did that for seven years and then sold my soul to the cable company, where I’ve been for 10 years. 

Looking back on your career in sport, what was your personal highlight?

That is an easy answer. It was the 2005 Open Championship at St. Andrew’s, where Jack Nicklaus played his final major and Tiger smashed the field. We won an Emmy for that broadcast and just the opportunity to be St. Andrew’s soaking it all in was amazing. I did five Open Championships during my time and it was amazing being able to live in the UK for about a month since we had the men’s, women’s, and seniors all in different locations. That was unbelievably fun, but that Open Championship at St. Andrew’s certainly stood out. 

I would also say at ESPN being able to bring completely differentiating ideas to the table so brands could exist on something like SportCenter. I was reinventing what the billboard looks like, so it wasn’t just SportCenter brought to you by Verizon, but instead somebody holding a Verizon phone with SportsCenter in the background. It was something that was more endemic to what the consumers were used to rather than just shoving a logo in their face. 

How has sport changed since you left ESPN in 2013?

I like that I can say not a lot. I mean, yes, a thousand things have changed but it’s still sports. It will forever be the greatest reality TV show. The technology on billboards, the flashing stuff on the sidelines, who has logos on what, the pieces of equipment do not matter. It’s still a bunch of people who have worked their ass off to get to a single moment, and you don’t know what’ll happen next. There’s storylines, subplots, and all sorts of surrounding things happening. Today, the purity of what the game actually is still remains. The desire to win and what it means to people that accomplish what they set out for is still there. There’s countless things I could point to, but at the same time not a damn thing has changed because it’s still sports. 

Talk to us about your journey and growth on TikTok?

I have no idea. It’s been the weirdest thing. It started as, “Oh this interesting let me start doing this” then became oh people are starting to watch. I just love the process, and if I don’t do it, I feel awkward that I haven’t done one for the day. I go out there and do what I like to do, but once I realised my TikToks might be helpful and I started to get feedback I was like “Ok cool there’s things that resonate with people here”. I appreciate that there’s helpfulness in leaning into the 45-year-old narrative because I’m still the same dumbass 25-year-old at the core. People often ask, “what would you tell yourself now ” but I’m still the same person. 

In the same sense as sport, when you genuinely love the process, and you do it for the right reasons, amazing things can happen. My God has it wildly exceeded any expectation that I’ve had which was zero. Everyone’s got a story to share, so if you’re authentic about it, willing to keep trying, willing to repeatedly make yourself cringe, and willing to put in the work then completely unexpected things might pop out of the clear blue sky.  

What do you think sports broadcasters can learn from the success your content has had?

It’s about repetition and authenticity. When it doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t do well, and when I wear my heart on my sleeve it does well. People want a connective tissue in this digital world. Everyone can post the same highlight or talk about the same stuff. People can be bombastic, over the top, and just yell at the camera, and it doesn’t work. My opinion is, when people are trying too hard to be something they’re not, it flops. However, when it’s who you actually are, people love to see it. 

There’s a guy who does Trainspotting videos, Francis Bourgeois, who is one of the greatest examples of authenticity. How many people thought, “how awkward is that” when it has the camera angle stuck right in front of his face. He has unusual content but he communicates pure joy. When people take their own perspective and lean into the authenticity piece that’s when things get magical.  

What has worked for me is that people trust me. I think it because they know I dont give a fu*k, and I am just going to be honest and sincere and wont do anything negative or harmful in any capacity. Authenticity allows your joy to shine through, so don’t be afraid of doing the things that other people are afraid to do if it feels right for you. If you mix that together and put it on repeat and really, really cool things can happen.

How do you see AI having an impact on sport?

It can totally destroy everything or it can lead to reinventing the way lineups are created, salary caps, and just the way we look at teams. Part of me doesn’t care. I just want to keep leaning into the purity of sports and why we fell in love with it in the first place. 

My gut tells me the biggest impact is going to be in data mining and then the mining of that data. This will tell us how to make cars faster, lineups better, and more. It could help teams analysing combines, saying “it doesn’t matter that this person ran fast because combined with this metric that’s ineffective”. So, it could take the Excel route as just a better way to aggregate and utilise information, or it could go the mischievous path and totally fu*k things up across the board. Hopefully it’s very subtle and helps people make smarter decisions but leaves the rest for human beings to continue to do their thing. 

If you could run one sports organisation for a month, which would it be, why and what would you do?

This is a difficult one because it’s so close between the Mets and Rangers, but I’ll pick the Rangers since hockey is what I played most as a kid. 

I would take them over and put an incredibly heavy focus on getting fans closer to what it’s like being on the ice. I don’t think that the speed and the ferocity of the game comes across to the people that are not necessarily in and around it on a day to day basis. I mean, dudes do 20 to 25 miles an hour on skates on an enclosed surface. Whether that would be through video communications or online, I would want to give fans the sensation to actually participate. Every other sport has a far easier barrier to cross where you can just pick up a basketball and shoot it or play catch with a baseball. 

Yes, there’s street hockey but that’s so grossly different. You can make similar arguments across all sports but professional hockey is a bigger extreme. Through that as well, I would want to build human storylines about the players to build a deeper connection. Where they come from and why they can do certain things will blow peoples’ minds. It’s not like the Rangers are hurting to sell season tickets these days, but I think it would be an interesting way to sell the game to a broader audience.

The View From Asia – The rise and rise of OTT in Asia

In his View From Asia column, Unmish Parthasarathi, the Singapore-based Founder of Picture Board Partners, the Strategy, Innovation & Venture Development boutique, reflects on why, how & who is making OTT more mainstream. 

Content is King, but Distribution is clearly the Queen as OTT in post-pandemic Asia has come on par, and, in some places, is beginning to exceed audience share compared to traditional television.

Asia is expected to add a billion consumers online in the course of this decade. There was another billion who preceded them – but took thrice as long. Both these large swathes of human adoption have benefited greatly from three macro trends, amongst others, which don’t see any signs of abating:

1. Population that is young, especially in South and Southeast Asia. Depending on the country, between a third and half are below the age of 35. Most are a growing presence in the workforce and a source of purchasing power;

2. Connectivity that is affordable and accessible. The consumption of video content in ever higher volumes – from short form on YouTube to long form movies and live sport – has let telcos to grow 4G from mid to mass market proportions; and, 

3. Entertainment alternatives at the price or convenience, such as sports events, theme parks or the cinema, are few. Coupling this with long, daily commutes and per capita dwell time quickly aggregates up to a third of the waking hours. 

More than fifty years ago, a Stanford professor called Roy Amara is said to have famously observed that we overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, and underestimate it in the long run. What timeline is deemed ‘long’ was left to us by the long-time Head of the Institute of the Future. 

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Depending on the global macroeconomic cycle of boom & bust, the consensus is that ‘long’ can be anywhere between a decade and two. What also shortens this trend are adjacencies or concurrent trends that happen in parallel with the one in our focus and provide it with tail winds. 

OTT surpassing TV has benefitted as much from Amara’s Law as from adjacencies such as cheap smartphones, digital payments, a supply of new/next generation content, good connectivity – and, sadly, also a pandemic.

A decade ago, Sport OTT was seen, at best, as a nice to have that was a catch up service or enabled multiple court coverage at a Grand Slam. At worst, however, it was seen as a threat to your next TV channel subscription renewal. 

In keeping with the Age of Listicles, below are my ‘Top Ten Trends’ to explain the coming of age of OTT in Asia. Most of these, again unfortunately, share COVID-19 as a milestone that’s created the most material change in content consumption for half a century, since the onset of television in the 1970s: 

1.) Consumer behaviour is changing at scale. A new generation has begun to announce their arrival. They keep a smartphone by their bedside. They have multiple digital payment wallets. And, they shop and socialise online three-times as much or as often as they do offline.  

2.) Connectivity maturing to ensure the utilitarian nirvana of 100% uptime. Few instances of outage by telcos or cable operators during the pandemic when millions home schooled, made umpteen video calls and logged on at work from home is an under recognised but real achievement.  

3.) Migration to cloud infrastructure that began before the pandemic and accelerated through 2020 as the virus spread from East to West. Moving off-premise coincided with the largest human migration of workers in a very short time and was helped by a drastic cut in response time to provide scalable, remotely accessible backend infrastructure.

4.) The rise of new, more ‘intelligent’ technologies such as Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Neuro-Linguistic Processing, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. These have enabled OTT services to evolve from their original roles as online aggregators of video content, to digital merchants trading attention or personalised preferences with dynamic pricing served through a privacy compliant segmentation. 

5.) Major sports events such as the Tokyo Olympics, FIFA World Cup and the IPL remain key milestones. Both drove sizable capital investment by their media licensees who had twin TV-OTT platforms such as Viacom Sport-Jio Cinema in India, Astro in Malaysia, EMTEK Vidio in Indonesia, and Foxtel/Kayo and Nine/Stan in Australia. 

6.) Regulation on first part data and a citizen’s rights to privacy has changed the way Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is collected. The simultaneous deprecation of third-party cookies has elevated the value of platforms who have first-party data. Enter OTT services that have location, payment and profile details of the consumer.  

7.) The successful deployment of addressable advertising by OTT platforms comes at a time when marketers are seeking alternatives to brand spend on search or social. Astro Malaysia exemplifies this – combining online inventory with on-air spots on television and radio, as well as on-ground activation entitlements from its owned and/or operated events. 

8.) Content investments in additional/alternative programming for next-generation demand had been rising prior to the pandemic. This was even before the limitations of the back catalogue, whose origins and vintage were in traditional TV, were revealed. Old wine in new bottles, not! 

9.) The creator economy helped solve new programming needs. Content commissioners have access to new genres and proven formats. Both come with a sizable, loyal (and increasingly addressable) audience. And best of all, the brand ambassador comes with a proven marketing channel. 

10.) A sharpening of the ‘awareness-intent-purchase’ demand funnel through OTT interfaces is creating new opportunities for ‘shoppable content’. YouTube pioneered app downloads using  graphic overlays over a video with users encouraged to click a link. The ecommerce potential to combine emotive moments in sport or drama with ‘flash offers’ seem limitless.  

In conclusion, the origins of OTT in Asia were as a set top box-enabled, on-demand service, operated via a remote control and fulfilled by return-path data and a local head-end. Thankfully, trial & error, new technology, capital, and executive (and shareholder!) angst has enabled OTT to find a product-market fit that is increasingly optimal and promises much for the next age of story-telling. The ‘Martini Moment’ – Anytime. Anyplace. Anywhere. – has arrived in Asia. Cheers to OTT! 

Does cycling promote a more socially responsible sponsorship environment?

With the Tour de France’s Grand Depart in San Sebastián just two days away, we decided it was time to take a deep dive into the teams sponsors for this year’s Tour with this month’s Sponsorship Index powered by caytoo.

In cycling, as with many sports, the Consumer Goods sector tends to be the most common sponsor, however, cycling stands apart when it comes to the large share accounted for by Health & Wellbeing sponsors.

Among the 400+ sponsors across the 22 teams competing in this year’s Tour de France, 16% are Health & Wellbeing brands. This compares to just 2% in Formula 1, 4% among English football’s Premier League, 5% across global sports federations and 7% across both the NBA and MLB (both 7%).

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Clearly, companies see cycling’s fanbase as much more interested in health and fitness, hence the prevalence of sponsors across the likes of fitness/training-related apps and health-related services. In this regard, cycling could therefore be seen as a much more socially responsible environment in that the messages being promoted to its fanbase are more likely to have a positive impact on people’s daily lives.

For example, two sectors which are often criticised when it comes to using sponsorship to promote their wares – Gambling and Alcohol – make up a much smaller share of sponsors among Tour de France teams (2.2% and 1.5% respectively) than in the likes of the NBA (10% / 5.8%), Premier League (6.6% / 7.4%), MLB (6.9% / 4.1%) and across sports federations (4.9% / 3.1%)

This is reinforced by the fact that five of the seven most common individual sponsors provide health/fitness-related products to consumers: training app TrainingPeaks, sport smartwatches Garmin (both with 9 sponsorships), QM Sports Care products (5), EME Italy physiotherapy-related products and body temperature sensor Core (both 4).

Here is the full breakdown:

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Meet the Member: “County cricket, unfortunately, does not bring in enough revenue to cover itself”

With the Ashes underway we spoke to Lancashire Cricket’s Acting Operations Director, Michael Hewson, about how the Club have diversified their income streams and how cricket can be more inclusive.

So, Michael to kick us off, take us through your journey in sport?

My background is a hotelier – up and down the country – from small boutique hotels up to five-star central London properties. A new Hilton Garden Inn was being built here at Emirates Old Trafford so that’s what brought me to Lancashire Cricket in the first instance. I joined in 2016 as General Manager of the hotel, which went on to open in 2017.

Prior to my arrival at the Club, Emirates Old Trafford had undergone a £60 million redevelopment which included new conference and event facilities – such as The Point – so the prospect of a new 150-bed Hilton Garden Inn was hugely exciting and offered the opportunity to maximise revenue, both on a match day and non-match day.

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Having been in the role of General Manager, I then moved to the role of Head of Commercial Operations before recently moving into the Acting Operations Director position at the start of the year.

How is your current role at Lancashire different to what you have done before?

I used to be hotel-specific, delivering a hotel experience. Coming to Emirates Old Trafford – this is a venue that does it all.

It’s a 365-day business operation so you’ve got a 150-bed hotel operating, Lancashire’s domestic fixtures, Manchester Originals in the Hundred as well as England games. We’ve got an incredibly business Conference and Events business – whilst we also host 50,000 capacity concerts – of which we’ve just held two nights of Arctic Monkeys back-to-back, which was incredible.

It’s a cliché, but every day really is different!

The cricket season obviously only takes up part of the year, how do you make sure you are bringing in revenue 12 months a year?

One of the key words that you’ll hear me talk about is diversification. This is something that the Club have focused on over the last decade, in terms of diversifying our business model.

Unfortunately, county cricket does not bring in sufficient revenue to cover itself. International cricket brings in a significant amount through ticketing and hospitality and we also have the popular short form competitions in the T20 Blast and the Hundred, but for us, it was about developing a venue that allows us to further diversify our revenue streams.

We opened the 150-bedroom property – the on-site Hilton Garden Inn – which was record breaking in terms of local market penetration. We have Christmas parties in December and January that we do for up to 1,500 people a night. Taking it a step further, we are just month’s away from a 100-room extension to the hotel, taking it up to a 250 bed. This is going to further elevate our Conference and Event business too, as we’ll be able to attract multi-day residential conferences, which will take us to a new level. The new development will also include a dual-aspect new restaurant with views overlooking the pitch that will further enhance our facilities at the ground. 

From a commercial partnership perspective, we work with some fantastic brands, including Emirates as our headline partner, Hilton, Heineken, UA92, Sportsbreaks.com, just to name a few. Our sponsorship levels are at a record level – which is fantastic. 

The key word for us is innovation. We’re not a traditional county cricket club – which can be viewed as a bit stagnant. We want to be moving things forward, and pardon the pun, push the boundaries. For us, it’s all about creating a world class, multi-purpose venue that has a wide range of revenue streams, so we’re not fully reliant on cricket.

Your members are obviously so important to a county, how do you keep your members engaged through the year and make sure they renew their memberships?

The key for us here is driving the volume and engagement of our membership. We now have around 9,000 members, which is the highest it’s been for a while. Last year, we took a long, hard look at our membership structure, which included significant external research and consultation with new and old members.

I mentioned before about diversity – and we’re looking to grow and diversify our membership. Cricket in all its guises has to be more relevant and attractive to all audiences. Even simpler, the game has to be much more accessible than it has been previously. We’re a members’ club so engagement is absolutely key. They’re not just a traditional season ticket holder, like in football or rugby, so we look to run a programme of events throughout the year, including Forums and coffee mornings including Q&As with players and coaches from both our men’s and women’s teams.

There are lots of different groups who come to cricket from your traditional county members to your more casual T20 fans, how do you try and make sure each of these groups feels valued?

With the addition of the T20 Blast and more recently, the Hundred to the portfolio over the last couple of years, there really is something for everyone when it comes to domestic or international cricket. We know that we have our Traditional Members who have been Lancashire supporters for a long time – and we’d like to thank them for their loyalty – but we also know that there is a younger generation of supporters coming through that enjoy the shorter form of the game.

As mentioned, we simplified our membership offering at the start of the year to try and make coming to watch Lancashire matches easier, more accessible and affordable. The Hundred and the T20 Blast is now the gateway for new cricket supporters and Members, or those that have never been to a cricket match before. We need to the cater for all different supporters that come to Emirates Old Trafford and ensure they all have an unforgettable experience when they walk through the gates.

There’s a lot of talk about trying to get Gen Z involved in cricket at the moment, how are you tackling that challenge?

We’ve already touched on making our membership options more accessible to new and younger cricket fans and ensuring we look to diversify our audience. We have to do all we can to attract fans of the future to get involved with Lancashire Cricket. This is really important for Lancashire’s long-term future.

The digital landscape plays a really important role in this too. We’re developing younger audiences across social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok and the creation of fun and engaging content is at the heart of our strategy in this area.

The team here at Lancashire have also worked tirelessly on LancsTV – our live streaming product, which is well known to be leading the way in domestic cricket. The growth of our live stream viewers over the past two years has been exponential – with over 70% being aged 18-35. We are also the only county to be live streaming in India, across both the Jio and FanCode platforms. 

What do you think some of the challenges facing Lancashire and county cricket in general are at the moment?

As I said earlier, unfortunately cricket doesn’t pay for itself – so financial sustainability in the long-term is crucial. That’s been one of the key strategies here at Lancashire Cricket for the last decade, investing in the venue and diversifying our business model. The new hotel extension is going to huge for us over the next ten years, as we look ahead at our long-term plans. 

For us, the growth of women’s cricket is right at the top of our priorities too. We’ve had a professional women’s side – Thunder – for the last three years and it continues to develop at pace. We’ve taken both our men’s and women’s teams on pre-season tour over the last couple of years whilst Thunder are playing more and more cricket at Emirates Old Trafford, which is great. Funding is really important and we – the ECB and all counties – must continue to increase investment over the coming years, whilst also ensuring our women’s side has the same access to facilities and opportunities as our men’s team. It was announced last week that we’ll be hosting five women’s Internationals between 2025-31 at Emirates Old Trafford, which is something we’re all looking forward to.

Lastly, we all know what’s happened with cricket over the last couple of years – and it’s been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons at times. We all have a responsibility – along with everyone involved in English Cricket – to ensure that cricket as a game is welcoming and inclusive and that we take every step possible to eradicate any kind of discrimination. This is something Lancashire Cricket is absolutely committed to and is very much part of our DNA and core values as an organisation.