ECB appoint Richard Gould as new CEO

The England and Wales Cricket Board today announces that Richard Gould will join as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Gould, 52, will take up the post at the end of January, moving from his current role as CEO of Bristol City Football Club.

He brings significant leadership experience from major organisations across sport, having served as CEO at first Somerset County Cricket Club and then Surrey County Cricket Club before taking up his current role in 2021.

The Nominations Committee unanimously recommended Mr Gould to the ECB Board who ratified the decision on Friday. Clare Connor will continue as Interim CEO until Mr Gould’s arrival.

As CEO, Mr Gould will work to deliver the vision set out by ECB Chair Richard Thompson to make cricket the most inclusive sport in the country. At Surrey, he was instrumental in the launch of the ACE Programme in 2020, which is now an independent charity designed to engage a new generation of children and young people from Black communities within the recreational game and talent pathway.

Richard Gould said: “I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to lead our game forward in England and Wales as part of a talented and committed team that encompasses the ECB, every cricket club in the land, all the counties, our partners, sponsors, fans and the army of players and volunteers that support the game in every corner of our country.

“Cricket is a national asset that can be played by all and helps strengthen and enhance communities across the nation. It can inspire the country and provides opportunities for all. But we have also seen the pain suffered by those who have experienced discrimination. We are determined to repair this damage and show that cricket can become the most inclusive and welcoming sport of all.

“I look forward to taking up the role in the new year, but for now will be an armchair fan supporting our men’s team in the T20 World Cup in Australia, whilst the women prepare for their T20 World Cup challenge in February.”

Richard Thompson, ECB Chair, said: “When I joined the ECB, I said that this was a reset moment for our organisation and our sport. Recruiting a CEO who can lead the organisation forwards and deliver on the vision of becoming the UK’s most inclusive sport was one of the first important steps in that. With his outstanding leadership skills and experience of managing transformation, the Nominations Committee felt that Richard Gould was the outstanding candidate.

“I am looking forward to working with Richard to not only bring our game together, but to show how cricket can do so much more in bringing communities together. We will work in a spirit of collaboration and partnership with the whole cricket network to do this.

“I’d also like to express my sincere thanks to Clare Connor who has done an outstanding job as Interim CEO at an incredibly challenging time for the organisation. I look forward to her continuing to play a leading role in growing our game as part of the ECB’s leadership team when Richard joins.”

Martin Darlow, ECB Deputy Chair, said: “This has been a thorough and rigorous process in which as Deputy Chair I’ve been involved from start to finish, and the Nominations Committee was in universal agreement that Richard Gould was the outstanding candidate. He demonstrated a clear understanding of the importance of working with the whole game to overcome the challenges we face and to grow our game and broaden participation through delivery of our Inspiring Generations strategy. I’m looking forward to working with Richard when he joins.”

A former tank commander in the British Army, Mr Gould was Commercial Director of Bristol City between June 2001 and June 2005 before joining Somerset County Cricket Club for five years as CEO and then moving to the Kia Oval.

FIFA Women’s World Cup award free-to-air media rights to EBU

FIFA is excited to announce that it has awarded free-to-air FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ media rights in 28 European territories* to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

 This agreement continues the long-lasting partnership between FIFA and EBU and will see EBU member broadcasters give more coverage to women’s football than ever before.

 The rights include broadcast across TV, digital and radio.

Sarai Bareman, FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer, said: “With the Draw now complete, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is set to be one of the biggest women’s sporting events ever with the tournament shaping up to be another truly game-changing moment for women’s football and for fans around the world.

 “Alongside FIFA’s ongoing commitment to accelerate the growth and development of the women’s football, free-to-air broadcasters will play an important role in attracting new audiences and growing the women’s game. We look forward to working with the EBU and bringing the tournament and women’s football to new fans in the region.”

The FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 will truly be a tournament of “firsts” and an incredible celebration of football and sport:

  • The first FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in the Southern Hemisphere and hosted in the Asia-Pacific Region
  • The first to feature 32 teams
  • The first to be co-hosted by two confederations
  • The first to have 9 host cities and 10 stadiums

Bitget announce partnership with Messi

In this historic engagement, Bitget will team up with Messi to explore the areas of Web3, cryptocurrency and football. We’ll be revealing more developments as they come while Messi prepares for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar with the Argentinian national team.

If you’re a Messi fan, look out for exciting opportunities on Bitget coming your way. One of them will be the King’s Cup Global Invitational 2022: Football Edition, happening from November 21 to December 19, where you can win prizes of up to 100 BTC!

Bitget is committed to supporting sporting excellence. Over the past year, we’ve partnered with Italy’s most successful football club Juventus, Turkish powerhouse Galatasaray FC, esports titans Team Spirit, and premium international esports tournaments and events PGL. 

MLS announces ten-year partnership with TOCA

TOCA Football (TOCA), the world’s leading tech-enabled soccer experience company and largest operator of indoor training centers in North America, today announced a historic 10-year partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS) aimed at growing the sport and developing future players in North America. As part of this groundbreaking deal, MLS will become a TOCA shareholder. TOCA currently has 28 centers in North America and will grow significantly over the next ten years.

Kicking off in 2023, TOCA, as an official training and entertainment facility partner of MLS, will integrate MLS content in all of its soccer training centers and host various activities in TOCA Soccer venues and at MLS team stadium events in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, TOCA and MLS will jointly develop training curricula that leverages TOCA’s proprietary technologies including its data-capture and analytics. TOCA and MLS will also develop branded games for TOCA Social, the world’s first interactive soccer entertainment and dining venue.

The long-term agreement with TOCA is the latest initiative of MLS Emerging Ventures, which creates strategic partnerships to deliver the next generation of fan experiences, player development and technology adoption for MLS, NEXT PRO, Leagues Cup and Soccer United Marketing. MLS Emerging Ventures also has investments in Sorare, Fanatics and SeatGeek.

“Major League Soccer is excited to partner with TOCA to accelerate the growth of soccer in North America ahead of the 2026 World Cup,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “This progressive partnership with TOCA is another important step for our league and sport, and we look forward to collaborating with them for many years to come.”

“TOCA is thrilled to welcome MLS as its shareholder and strategic partner. We look forward to being in every MLS market with our growing footprint of TOCA Soccer training centers and TOCA Social entertainment venues that offer fun, authentic soccer experiences regardless of skill level,” TOCA Co-Chairman Erik Anderson said.

Added TOCA CEO Yoshi Maruyama, “This historic partnership will serve as a foundation for the long-term growth and continued development of soccer in North America, and is a reflection of MLS and TOCA’s commitment to investing in the sport’s expansion leading up to the 2026 World Cup in the United States. TOCA’s mission is to inspire everyone to play the beautiful game and we are delighted to be an integral and indispensable part of global soccer.”

TOCA was founded in 2016 by two-time U.S. World Cup and former MLS and English Premier League midfielder, Eddie Lewis. TOCA is led by a world-class management team and its Board of Directors is comprised of transformative leaders from the sports industry including Erik Anderson, former Executive Chairman and CEO of Topgolf Entertainment Group; Abby Wambach, US Women’s National Champion; Celeste Burgoyne, lululemon President Americas; and Julie Haddon, NWSL Chief Marketing Officer.

Crystal Palace’s new Main Stand gets council approval

Crystal Place Football Club’s updated planning application for a new Main Stand at Selhurst Park has been approved by Croydon councillors, paving the way for a transformation of the stadium.

Croydon’s planning committee first gave the application the green light four years ago, but it was delayed by the COVID pandemic and the Club recently submitted minor adjustments to the scheme to adhere to new London Plan requirements.

This required fresh approval before planning permission could be granted and any work could begin, together with the signing of Section 106 agreements and approval from the Mayor’s Office.

The Main Stand development will overhaul Selhurst Park, which has been the Club’s home since 1924, transforming the match-day experience and providing new year-round community facilities.

Inspired by the Club’s heritage, the design pays homage to the original Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill and will increase capacity from 26,000 to more than 34,000.

None of the changes to the planning application will alter the size or scale of the scheme. The amendments comprise:

  • Minor internal design changes, following advice from a fire engineer, with alterations to the positions of doors and stair/lift cores, the provision of an additional evacuation lift, and additional partitions to separate lobbies.
  • Minor external changes to the west elevation to reflect the revised positioning of entrances at ground floor, following advice from a fire engineer.
  • Revisions to the landscaping scheme to reflect consultant advice received on security, landscaping and sustainable drainage, with a clear line of sight to the Fan Zone, the provision of sustainable urban drainage systems on-site and the retention of additional trees.

Once planning permission is formally approved, the Club will be able to agree plans for the acquisition of six houses in Wooderson Close and the relocation of residents, and to conclude ongoing discussions with Sainsbury’s to acquire a piece of land required for the development.

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish said: “I would like to thank Croydon Council for their continued support for the stadium redevelopment, which will bring substantial investment into the borough, as well as breathing new life into Selhurst Park.

“We would have liked to have started the project sooner, but our plans were delayed by financial constraints caused by the Covid pandemic. In the last couple of years our focus has been on bringing our exciting Academy development to fruition, but our attention will now turn to the stadium project.

“It has long been our ambition to extend and modernise Selhurst Park, making it a home fit for the 21st century.

“We are looking forward to getting started on the project. There is a lot of preparatory work to be done in the coming months and we will update on a likely timetable in due course”.

Austrian Ski Federation signs media rights deal with NBC

The Austrian Ski Federation (ÖSV) has signed a two-year media rights deal with NBC to broadcast International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup alpine skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined, snowboard, and freestyle skiing events held in Austria across Peacock and NBC.  

The partnership, which was secured by IMG, starts with the upcoming Giant Slalom events in Soelden this weekend. All Austrian events will be available live on Peacock, while additional linear coverage for select events will be available on NBC.

Christian Scherer, Secretary General of the Austrian Ski Federation, said: “It is a special pleasure for us that the Austrian winter sports highlights will be broadcast on TV in the US for at least the next 2 years. This underlines the importance and tradition of our events, and we hope that numerous ski and snowboard fans will be able to experience many goosebump moments. We would also like to express our special thanks to IMG, who played a major role in setting up this partnership.”

Ed Mallaburn, SVP and Head of Sport, IMG Media, added: “We are delighted to be bringing the best FIS World Cup action to audiences across the US with NBC. We couldn’t be prouder of our partnership with ÖSV and this deal continues to prove that Austria’s prestigious ski events are the pinnacle of the winter sports calendar.”

Reflecting on our Brands Masterclass

The iSportConnect Brands Masterclass on Wednesday, held on the top of the ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower in the Olympic Park with panoramic views over London, was an eye-opener in more ways than one.

The brand on top of the 2022-23 Fan Intelligence Index presented by Ear to the Ground at the start of the day featured a big surprise in the Top 10 culturally aware brands. Lego appeared for the first time among perennials like Nike, Adidas and Coca-Cola.

The theme of the day was Standing Out from the Crowd and there were four outstanding panels with lively audience participation, plus a lively breakout session to talk about trends in what brands are looking from rights owners (and vice versa).

The day was started with Ear to the Ground’s Owen Laverty presenting their 22/23 Fan Intelligence Index, the exclusive launch took place a week before the Index becomes widely available.

The presentation was followed with a panel made up of four of Ear to the Ground’s fan tastemakers, Ear to the Ground’s panel with their four tastemakers. Giulia Zecchini, Amen Osaro-Osaghae, Hassan Joof and Nancy Baker

This was followed by a panel on “Driving ROI from sports partnerships” which was chaired by InCrowd’s co-founder Archie Woodhead. He was joined by Mike Mainwaring from Cazoo, Marc Davies from Standard Chartered and Arjoon Bose from General Mills.

The main takeaway from this panel was that despite sports partnerships being hard to define an ROI from it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be done.

Our third panel was on Brand Purpose and featured Phil Colverdale, MD Cravens along with Oliver O’Brien from Mukuru, Nicholas McGregor from eToro and Giulia Zecchini from EFG.

The panelists discussed many points around brand purpose but the panelists said that having a brand purpose is about alignment, rather than having a cause in the outside world. The particular case which got pulled out was IKEA. Everything they do is aligned around exactly what they deliver which is good quality, cheap and well designed furniture and everybody knows that is what they offer.

Our final panel of the day was based around the role Web3 can play in creating new fan experiences, hosted by our very own Joe Condon. From the world of Web3 we were joined by Mason Edwards CCO of Tezos Foundation, Tom Fleetham head of business development in sports and gaming for Zilliqa and Stuart Ramsey, Head of Brand Partnerships for Socios.

The main takeaway from this panel was the fact that Web3 is an evolution of Web2 rather than a revolution. Web3 will still exist it will just sit as a layer on top of Web2.

Veritone launches Sport X

 Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI), creator of aiWARE, a hyper-expansive enterprise AI platform, today launched SPORT X, a new intelligent marketplace for sports federations and content producers from around the globe to license short-form sports video directly to media buyers, maximizing additional revenue streams and their visibility amongst media organizations. 

Sports rights holders on board with SPORT X include ATP Media, Euroleague Basketball and Extreme E. Several other federations and sports content owners are in advanced discussions to place their content onto SPORT X in the coming weeks. In addition, SPORT X plans to host content from SNTV, the world’s biggest sports news video outlet, which will include content from this year’s World Cup in Qatar, including press conferences, stadium profiles, fan zones, game reviews and profiles of all 32 teams.

“This is an exciting development for Veritone and the sports media industry. SPORT X provides a supplementary revenue stream and new global customer base for producers of sports content and short-form video globally. This is another innovative step for the company and comes on the heels of last week’s announcement of our AI-voice partnership with sports data and tech leader Stats Perform as we move deeper into the sports space as a business,” said Veritone President Ryan Steelberg.

SPORT X is powered by aiWARE to automatically deliver quality, rights-cleared, indexed and metadata-rich video in a highly secure environment in seconds. Pricing, which is set by the rights holder, will be dependent on the usage type, content and region. Content owners can add multipliers when there is an increase in demand. 

There is no upfront fee for federations and video suppliers to make their content available to license on SPORT X and can include highlights, news, social posts and user-generated content. Media buyers can use the content for all types of editorial, sport programming, TV shows and social or digital channels, depending on the license parameters set by the video provider.

“Our goal is to connect global sports content owners with a network of media buyers in a highly accessible sports content exchange, using AI that will continue to learn buying and selling patterns from both sides of the marketplace. This is an opportunity for sports content producers to maximize the monetization of their digital assets and at the same time reach new audiences and grow their sport’s footprint,” said Elizabeth Eastham, managing director of SPORT X at Veritone.

Eastham added, “Through AI, we are able to deliver personalized and contextualized content recommendations in real-time. Data points from the available media are married with buying history, territory, platform, event and athlete preferences to create a unique feed for buyers. This efficiently speeds up the search for relevant content, saving time for buyers and allowing sellers to scale content opportunities and generate even more revenue.”

On the content provider side, SPORT X is for anyone who holds the rights to quality current licensable sports content. Rights clearance by the owner is established at the time of ingesting the content, which can be updated whenever available. Sellers can geo-block content they do not wish to license in certain territories. SPORT X’s analytics dashboard provides clarity on how content is performing with buyers and where it is being sold so that sellers can optimize their content strategy accordingly.

Media buyers create an account and can only access video that is clearly delineated for their use. SPORT X uses the financial payment processing platform Stripe to maintain a high level of security and ensure payments are protected. Stripe accepts most major credit cards and debit cards. 

SPORT X complements Veritone’s existing offerings to sports federations, leagues, clubs and broadcasters around the world. These include Veritone Digital Media Hub, an AI-powered, white-label asset management and monetization solution that gives content owners the opportunity to generate more revenue from their assets by setting up their own digital storefront and makes content easily discoverable with AI-powered metadata tagging and content management. 

Additionally, Veritone announced a new partnership with Stats Perform, the sports tech leader in data and AI that provides real-time play-by-play, pre-game, in-game and post-game updates. The solution combines the power of Veritone’s award-winning synthetic voice AI technology and Stats Perform’s unrivaled sports data, bringing localized, real-time AI voice capabilities to broadcasters, content creators, media organizations, brand agencies, teams, leagues and betting platforms around the globe.

McLaren Racing announce partnership with Seamless Digital

McLaren Racing today announced a new agreement with Seamless Digital and the McLaren Formula 1 Team. 

The pioneering collaboration brings the latest methods of digital advertising to life – the ability to dynamically change branding on Formula 1 cars across a race weekend, a first in the series. McLaren will run a two-display system around the cockpit on its MCL36 cars for Friday practice sessions for the remainder of the 2022 season, beginning at the United States Grand Prix. 

The cutting-edge technology will debut exclusively with one of McLaren’s Official Partners, allowing them to dynamically change its brands on both McLaren’s Formula 1 cars.

McLaren Racing and Seamless Digital’s launch at the United States Grand Prix will demonstrate a glimpse into the future of motorsport marketing, allowing the team to connect with its fans and partners in new ways. As part of the deal, McLaren Racing also has options to explore the technology for its wider racing portfolio. 

Louise McEwen, Executive Director, Brand & Marketing, McLaren Racing, said: “We are pleased to work with Seamless Digital to debut one of the most exciting innovations in digital advertising technology. Being able to rotate different brands on our cars is a game-changer in this space and we are looking forward to seeing the impact this has on the wider industry.”

Mark Turner, Founder and CEO, Seamless Digital, said: “We are delighted to be able to unveil this technology which represents the next step in the future of motorsport marketing. Being able to change branding in real-time on a Formula 1 car will give greater flexibility and value to teams and partners. Our technology enables more creative options for brands to communicate situationally relevant messages.

“We have found the perfect partner in McLaren who share our ambition for innovation and breaking convention as pioneers in the fields of technology. We believe this is just the beginning of flexible on car branding and motor racing assets. By ensuring the technology works on a Formula 1 car we have already cracked the toughest place to innovate and are set to disrupt advertising across F1, motorsport, golf, US sports and ultimately, wider more mainstream use.”