The Committee of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), which stages The Championships, Wimbledon, has announced the appointment of Sally Bolton OBE to succeed Richard Lewis CBE as Chief Executive of the AELTC following The Championships 2020.
In a process of planned succession, the AELTC conducted a robust and wide-ranging global search process with the support of executive search firm SRI Executive.
With a proven track record of sports and event management experience at both an executive and non-executive level within the sports industry, Bolton was recognised by the AELTC Committee for her depth of experience, vision and positivity in managing a wide variety of external and internal stakeholders at both a strategic and operational level together with her commitment to striking a balance between innovation and evolutionary progress.
Ian Hewitt, AELTC Chairman, commented: “Sally has a well-established pedigree in international event experience across a variety of sports with her background in rugby league, athletics and here at Wimbledon over four Championships. Her ability to combine a depth of operational knowledge with quality strategic thinking will make a significant contribution to the future strategy and direction of the AELTC and she will be an excellent leader of our able executive team. Our Committee felt that she is perfectly placed to assist us in embracing and delivering on our future challenges and opportunities.”
Sally Bolton OBE commented: “I am thrilled to be appointed as the next Chief Executive of the AELTC. In my four years working here to date I have learned what a special place the All England Club is and to be asked to lead such a fantastic organisation through the next period of its history is a tremendous honour and privilege. We have some fascinating challenges and opportunities ahead of us, and I look forward to working with Richard to achieve a successful transition before he steps down, and with Ian, the Committee and the rest of the executive team to ensure that Wimbledon continues to be regarded as highly as it is today.”
Richard Lewis CBE, AELTC Chief Executive, commented: “I am delighted that Sally has been appointed as my successor, she is the ideal person to take on this wonderful role. I look forward to working with her as we begin the process of a smooth and well managed transition. In the meantime, I look forward to working with Ian and the rest of the Committee on the delivery of a successful Championships in 2020 before I finally step down.”
Bolton has been working in sport since 1996. Having been Chief Executive of Wigan Rugby League and Orrell Rugby Union clubs she then delivered numerous events at major stadiums such as Wembley, Old Trafford, Millennium Stadium and Murrayfield. Bolton went on to lead the delivery of the Rugby League World Cup in 2013 following which she was awarded the OBE. She then spent two years as the Managing Director of the Organising Committee for the London 2017 World Athletics Championships, before joining the AELTC as Head of Corporate Affairs in 2016. Taking on the position of Strategic Planning and Operations Director in February 2018, Bolton has been part of four Championships at Wimbledon, and played a significant role in the acquisition of the Wimbledon Park Golf Club. She has been a Board Member of UK Sport since March 2018 where she is the Board’s diversity champion and has been a member of the Major Events panel since 2013.
Liverpool FC has welcomed global leader in cyber storage, Acronis, to the Reds family in a new multi-year partnership.
The technology company, which provides hybrid cloud solutions for backup, disaster recovery, and secure file sync and data access, will now become LFC’s official global cyber backup and storage partner.
The partnership will see the Swiss-Singaporean technology leader provide LFC with innovative cyber backup and cloud solutions to improve data storage and access and create a more efficient and collaborative workflow.
Being able to efficiently back up and safeguard huge volumes of important information using cloud-based storage solutions – from team data to day to day business operations – will significantly help LFC optimise its data management in the increasingly digital world.
The ability to securely sync files will enable departments to easily share a range of documents and collaborate on important tasks, making for more efficient, streamlined ways of working.
Partnering with high performance organisations in the sports industry, Acronis aims to continue to build brand awareness, recognition and visibility across global markets.
Billy Hogan, managing director and chief commercial officer, Liverpool FC, said: “We are always looking for ways to enhance the way we store and share important files and information across the business, so we’re looking forward to working with Acronis as our new official global cyber backup and storage partner.
“Our data is incredibly valuable, and safely and efficiently storing and accessing that information is critical to the way we operate as a business and a football club.”
Enrico Tizanno, senior vice president of technology and transformation, Liverpool FC, said: “We look forward to working closely with Acronis to utilise its expertise and innovation in data storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions to help us meet our modern data needs.
“From how to best protect our valuable data assets, to how we can make the best use of the petabytes of the data we have and securely distribute it.”
The Five Vectors of Cyber Protection that make up the backbone of Acronis’ solutions include safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS). Using this approach will help the club to ensure easy, efficient, and secure management of data, applications, and systems.
Serguei Beloussov, Acronis founder and CEO, said: “At the highest level of competition, data is a critical asset. Acronis’ technology is perfectly suited for helping organisations get #CyberFit in high-pressure, digitally intensive environments.
“We are proud to partner with this great club and look forward to our joint projects in the future.”
Acronis is already a part of the FSG family and the sporting world, through its current partnership with the Boston Red Sox and Roush Fenway Racing.
The ICC has revealed it has extended its partnership with UNICEF through to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 with the focus on empowering women and girls through cricket.
The extension of the global charity partnership will once again see the ICC provide UNICEF with a platform for fundraising to help bring positive change to women and girls and drive awareness for the work that UNICEF does as a global champion for children’s rights in cricket playing nations around the world.
During the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, UNICEF raised $180,000 as part of One Day 4 Children and this money will go directly to fund a girls’ cricket project in Afghanistan. The programme which will run for 12 months, will comprise of a new competitive cricket competition for school aged girls as well as training for 120 teachers and providing cricket equipment to deliver cricket and a community outreach programme working with elders to reinforce the positive impact girls playing cricket can have.
Money raised during CWC19 will fund a girls’ cricket project in Afghanistan
Monies raised during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 will go to similar projects in cricket playing nations, including an innovative programme to promote girls’ participation in cricket in Sri Lanka and build peace in communities. Fans can be part of changing lives through cricket by donating various set amounts when buying tickets and at in-stadia activations. Fans watching globally will also be able to join in and make a difference through an online mechanism that will be promoted throughout the event.
ICC CEO Manu Sawhney said: “We are delighted to extend our partnership with UNICEF to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. I want us to harness the extraordinary reach of our sport to empower women and girls around the world through cricket and using ICC events as a fundraising platform enables us to do that.
“Sport for development and in particular cricket can be a powerful tool to transform lives and the projects in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are designed to have a long-term positive impact with teachers being trained to deliver cricket to girls for years to come.”
Sport for development and in particular cricket can be a powerful tool to transform lives and the projects in Afghanistan
UNICEF Australia Chair Ann Sherry AO said: “Cricket has tremendous power to make a difference in the lives of children, especially girls, by building leadership skills, empowering them to achieve their goals and building bridges within communities – so that we can ultimately build a better world together.”
“We are excited to partner with the ICC on the Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 and enormously proud that Australia is hosting this important event for women.”
The ICC and UNICEF partnership commenced in 2015, as part of the ICC’s global community outreach programme ‘Cricket 4 Good’. The partnership and public donations continue to bring positive change to children through the programmes in cricket playing nations focused on empowering women and girls in cricket.
Tickets to all ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 matches, including the semi-finals and final, are available now at t20worldcup.com, with all children’s tickets just $5 and adults tickets from $20. Fans buying tickets have the option of making a donation to UNICEF at the point of purchase.
Mithali Raj and Alex Blackwell have been trailblazers for women and helped launch the UNICEF partnership extension with the ICC
About the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020
In 2020 the best cricketers in the world will come together for the biggest women’s sporting event ever held in Australia. The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will take place across the country from 21 February – 8 March, culminating in the final at the world’s biggest cricket stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, on Sunday 8 March – International Women’s Day. This presents the opportunity to set a new world record for attendance at a women’s sporting fixture.
10 teams will contest a total of 23 matches in six host cities, starting with a blockbuster match-up between hosts Australia and India at Sydney Showground Stadium on Friday 21 February 2020.
Later in 2020, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will take place in Australia, from 18 October – 15 November, comprising 16 teams contesting 45 matches in seven host cities.
SailGP has unveiled its plans to launch its first global marketing campaign titled It’s Not What You Think that showcases how the global championship is transforming a traditional sport into a revolutionary world-class spectacle. The campaign will launch in January 2020 as part of the buildup to Season 2, which kicks off February 28-29 in Sydney, and comes as the organization has made three significant hires to lead the development and execution of media and marketing efforts.
The campaign will aim to challenge global audiences’ perception and highlight that SailGP isn’t sailing in the traditional sense, but rather a progressive sport that utilizes breakthrough technology on supercharged F50 flying catamarans, inshore format racing and broadcast innovation to bring fans closer to the action than ever before. Recognizing that people across the world are drawn to human emotion and compelling personal stories in sport, SailGP worked in coordination with multi-award winning design and advertising agency GBH to develop a campaign that spotlights the moments and experiences that unite communities, against the backdrop of awe-inspiring athleticism featured on the world’s fastest sail racing boats.
Since its launch in October 2018, SailGP has had a dedicated and passionate fanbase amongst avid sailing fans around the world that played a critical role in the success of Season 1. Aspiring to continue the growth of its global awareness, the championship is leveraging its marketing prowess to launch the campaign and excite new fans about Season 2 while motivating them to tune into broadcast coverage of the upcoming events.
SailGP CMO Tim Godfrey said: “For many people, sailing is a traditional sport to which they don’t feel an emotional attachment, leading to preconceived notions. Since the beginning, we’ve been driven by the goal of introducing a modern, redefined nation-versus-nation sporting experience to a global audience and this campaign aims to be our introduction to the masses. With our new hires, we want to continue building off the momentum of a record-breaking debut season and evolve our digital footprint to get existing fans excited about the upcoming campaign, while creating compelling content that draws in new audiences.”
The creative was shot by acclaimed director Max Fisher – whose ability to capture natural performances in an elegant nature led to him working with some of the world’s most recognizable brands – in coordination with Knucklehead, an award-winning production company. The campaign’s cinematic approach features relatable lives, people and moments through a global lens, showcasing the raw human emotion, passion and interaction that fuels all sports.
GBH Creative Director and Founder Peter Hale said: “SailGP is something completely new, but comparable to other mass audience sports in that it doesn’t require a longstanding relationship in order to feel passionate about it. The campaign will operate on an emotional level to appeal to a diverse and international audience in what could be their introduction to this adrenaline-filled global racing championship.”
SailGP adds key positions to marketing team To bolster its media and marketing efforts heading into Season 2, SailGP has hired Michael Porter as head of marketing and innovation, Jose Garnes as head of content, and Daisy Vollans as head of digital and engagement, as part of the organization’s marketing team, reporting to Godfrey.
Having spent the past five years at FIA Formula E, Porter was instrumental in the execution of global campaigns and event marketing for all races while at the motorsport championship. He will lead the day-to-day marketing efforts while working in coordination with local event teams and strategic agencies to deliver and implement SailGP’s marketing strategy.
Garnes joins SailGP with significant experience across broadcast and digital environments, most recently leading content strategy for multiple rights holders at UK production company Sunset+Vine, including the hugely successful INEOS 1:59 marathon challenge. He will be responsible for driving content strategy, as well as identifying the most innovative and impactful storytelling techniques to strengthen existing fandom and introduce new audiences to the global championship.
Bringing a wealth of experience across digital, social and branded content for the likes of Social Chain, NBC Universal and the digital footballing platform OTRO, Vollans will lead SailGP’s digital efforts driving fan engagement and growth across multiple platforms including SailGP’s award winning app.
The trio joins SailGP as it is set to kick off its second season in Sydney with new teams from Denmark and Spain, competing against defending champion Australia, plus France, Great Britain, Japan and the United States. Following the opening event, the global championship returns to the U.S. for events in San Francisco (May 2-3) and New York (June 12-13), before the first European stop of the year in Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the UK (August 14-15). The remainder of the Season 2 schedule will be announced in the early part of 2020.
Sodexo, a leading global services company, has made a major investment into M&S Bank Arena Liverpool to enhance customer experience.
Centreplate UK Limited, a subsidiary of the Sodexo Group, supports the ACC Liverpool Group with retail, catering and hospitality services.
Three new catering units have been installed, six existing kiosks have been revamped and new menus have been introduced to provide greater choice to customers and to improve the speed of service in the arena.
Each new food offer has been inspired by and named after an historic Liverpool dock, with concepts including South Seafood – influenced by fisherman’s dock South Ferry Basin – and Prince’s Chicken, named after Prince’s Dock which brought exotic spices from the Caribbean.
Tom Beauchamp, Sodexo development chef UK & Ireland, has created new menus which will be specially adapted depending on the event.
Tom said: “Our versatile new food offering will include items such as chilli and lime chicken wings, sticky sriracha beef ribs, and classic pizzas.
“Menus will also be tailored to the shows that our customers have come to see, so for example for Mrs Brown’s Boys we offered menus with an Irish theme.
“We are passionate about providing great tasting food and are delighted to be able to offer a much wider menu for customers before they head into the arena to enjoy a performance.”
Drinks options have also been improved to include a wide range of draft beers, IPA and ciders for those who are seeking liquid refreshments. Meal deal options have been created to allow customers to enjoy a full dining and drinking experience.
Sodexo has worked closely with The ACC Liverpool Group to implement these changes.
Ben Williams, commercial director The ACC Liverpool Group, operator of M&S Bank Arena, said: “We want all our visitors to have a fantastic experience when they come to watch a show at the arena which should start as soon as they walk through the door. It’s important that guests can relax with a drink and a tasty bite to eat and make a night of it.
“We have been working closely with Sodexo and have made a significant investment to open three new units on the arena concourse and refurbish existing kiosks. We have upgraded equipment so will be able to offer a wider range of food and drinks while improving service.
“We continuously look at how we can enhance the visitor experience and have further developments planned for the future.”
Following a comprehensive recruitment process, Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby (GBWR) is delighted to announce that Ed Warner OBE has been appointed to the Board of Trustees with immediate effect and will take over from the current Chair, Kevin Aitchison, when he stands down in September 2020.
Warner was Chairman of UK Athletics from 2007 to 2017, and has been Chair of World Para Athletics for the International Paralympic Committee since 2011. He also ran the successful bid to stage the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London’s Olympic Stadium, and was subsequently Chair of the London 2017 organising committee.
Current Chair, Kevin Aitchison, said: “I am delighted that Ed has agreed to join the Board of Trustees. Having decided that 2020 is the right time for me to step down from the Board, the experience that Ed has gained from his time at both UK Athletics and World Para Athletics, as well as his proven leadership skills, will provide GBWR with the best possible opportunity to continue the growth that the sport has experienced since London 2012. For the next 9 months, Ed will effectively have the role of Chair designate, ensuring that the sport benefits from continuity of leadership throughout.
Ed Warner said “I’ve been hugely impressed with the progress wheelchair rugby has made in recent years, most visibly in the growing success of the elite GB team, and have great respect for the work GBWR has done in often challenging circumstances. I now look forward to working with all the volunteers, athletes and staff across the sport in Britain to help ensure that it thrives at all levels, from grassroots to the world stage, in the years ahead.”
The third season of eLaLiga Santander, the official competition of the EA SPORTS TM FIFA 20 Global Series in Spain, has confirmed 33 clubs from LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank will participate. The firm commitment of LaLiga clubs to eSports shows its remarkable growth since the project first began in 2017/18, during which only 10 clubs participated, compared to last year’s 2018/19 season, where 17 clubs participated.
This will be the third season that LaLia has run the league, through its constant evolution and search for new opportunities in this sector as well as others, they embarked on this venture together with Electronic Arts (EA Sports), holder of the official license of FIFA 20 Global Series in Spain.
eLaLiga Santander, the FIFA 20 national league with the highest cash prize
With a prize pool totalling €100,000, the 2019/20 season will have a great appeal for the fans, who will have the prestige of wearing the colors of a club in an official competition.
eLaLiga will kick-off in January with an online qualifying stage in which thousands of fans will compete to become part of a LaLiga Santander or LaLiga SmartBank club. In addition, as of today, all those fans who want to participate in eLaLiga Santander can now register to be part of the clubs participating in the competition who have opened the online qualifier, through the official website of the competition (http://www.elaliga.gg). This stage of online qualifiers will begin on January 11 and will continue until February 9. The website, in addition to having the utility of serving as a registration tool, will also be one of the sources to keep updated throughout the competition.
On February 15, Madrid will host the Kick Off tournament of the season in which the representatives of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs will compete to start accumulating points in the leaderboard. Over the following weeks, two online tournaments will be held in which players can register via the eLaLiga websiteand join the fight to reach the live Mid Season event, which will be held in Barcelona during the month of April.
eLaLiga Santander will come to an end in May after celebrating its third online tournament during the month of April. On May 9, Madrid will host the grand final of the official competition of EA SPORTS ™ FIFA 20 Global Series in Spain where the champion of the third season will be revealed.
Banco Santander commits to LaLiga’s esports competition
Banco Santander, which is committed to the clubs association and the evolution of the esports sector, has committed to another season for the project of the official competition of EA SPORTS FIFA20 in Spain. In addition, this season Banco Santander will give its name to the competition, which will begin in January.
How to register for EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series*
Players who registered at FUTChampions.com by October 31 or register between January 16 and 31, 2020, will be eligible to participate in tournaments within the EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series, including eLaLiga. In addition, the players who get the
Brands spend a considerable amount of time and effort in identifying the perfect ambassadors who will help drive the goals of the brand, both on and off the field. Not all ambassadors are the same – there are variations among them, such as the audiences they identify with, their personal style, how engaging they are on social media, and more. However different they are individually, it is essential that they meet their brand goals, to be considered effective ambassadors of that brand.
Brands can identify how well their sponsored ambassadors are performing, who their top and under performers are, and more, through benchmarking. Hookit’s benchmarking tools enable brands to measure the performance of their ambassadors by identifying the value they drive for the brand and the effectiveness of their social media promotions. The metrics and methodology that Hookit uses to achieve all this is detailed below. To illustrate, a leading brand with ambassadors across various sports has been chosen as an example.
Benchmarking – Valuation
The most essential metric that a brand can use to gauge an ambassador’s performance on social media is the value the ambassador drives for the brand. This is a good measure of how much value the brand is set to earn from the brand ambassador’s posts on social media.
Brand example:
First, it is helpful for a brand to identify which group of its sponsored entities drive the most value through branded posts. For example, the brand shown received a major portion (77%) of the value generated through its athlete ambassadors rather than sponsored teams.
Now that the brand has identified that athletes are its major value drivers, the brand can learn more about who the top performers are and how much value they have driven for the brand within a specific time period. Rankings provide a quick snapshot of both top performers as well as under performers of the brand. Sport marketers can further learn more about the performance of each athlete through the athlete’s scorecards.
Some insights the brand can gain from these rankings are:
The top athlete drives a Maximum Ad Value (MAV) that is more than 17 times higher than the MAV of the athlete in 10th place. The brand can use the top athlete as the benchmark and learn more about which posts of the top athlete have driven the most value, why those post were successful for the brand, and more.
The brand can then use these insights to educate its other ambassadors and sponsored entities on which techniques are more successful at driving value for the brand.
The best practices gleaned through the top athlete’s posts should also be used to improve the performance of its under performers.
The majority of the top performers for the brand are well known star athletes in their respective sports, and yet the value driven by these athletes are significantly less than the brand’s top athlete. Further research into these ambassadors’ posts and their share of voice for the brand can help identify the reason for the lower MAV generated by these ambassadors. (More on those below).
Setting a benchmark based on the top performer is advantageous to the brand, as it helps set reasonable and achievable goals for brand ambassadors, provides the brand with a measure of how well each ambassador is performing, and how much improvement is needed in relation to the top performer.
A note on MAV: To accurately gauge the value a sponsor earns from its branded posts, Hookit employs its proprietary Hookit Valuation Model (HVM). The HVM starts with the MAV, which is the total value the brand could earn from that particular social post if it were a perfect advertisement for the brand. This MAV is then scored against the post’s quality of promotion to arrive at the Adjusted Ad Value (AAV). Ensuring that branded posts have good promotion quality will maximize brand value earned. Get the full details of the Hookit Valuation Model and promotion quality here.
Benchmarking – Promotional Effectiveness
Often, brands need to be able to compare how effective their ambassadors are at promoting the brand irrespective of their social media followers. Since brands can lose sponsorship value if the ambassador’s promotion is poor, Hookit has developed the Promotional Effectiveness Score to help brands learn how effective their ambassadors are at promoting the brand.
Brand Example:
Some brands can afford star athletes that have a huge number of fans who translate into a large social media following for the athlete. However, there are lesser known athletes or athletes who are rising stars, who are yet to reach the level of social media followers that star athletes have. These athletes may be better ambassadors for the brand if they have highly engaged fans, even if they don’t have as many followers. The PE score helps identify these athletes, as the score only looks at how well the athlete promotes a brand and not the athlete’s social media followers. An ideal brand ambassador would be one who has a high PE score and drives a high MAV for the brand. In the time period considered, these are the top 5 athletes for the example brand based on PE Score.
Among these top 5 ambassadors, golfer Jordan Spieth is the only athlete with more than 4M social media followers, while all other top 5 ambassadors have less than 300k social media followers. However, these are the ambassadors who are the best at promoting the brand and should therefore be the benchmark based on which the brand should evaluate the effectiveness of its other ambassadors.
To compare, when considering the PE Score of the top 5 brand ambassadors who generate the highest potential brand value (MAV), it can be seen that these ambassadors have lower PE scores. This implies that although they drive high MAV for the brand, they could be more effective brand promoters.
Benchmarking the top value drivers with top ambassadors by PE score helps the brand understand that the gaps present in the branded posts of its top value drivers. By implementing best practices of effective promoters, the brand can further increase the promotion quality of other ambassador’s branded posts and ultimately the AAV earned from its ambassadors.
Benchmarking – Volume and Share of Voice
Brands can also learn which of their brand ambassadors are passionately talking about the brand and expanding the brand megaphone through metrics like ‘Volume of branded posts’ and ‘Share of Voice’. Volume of branded posts shows brands the total number of social media posts by its ambassadors that featured their brand hashtag, mention, text or logo, within the time period considered. Share of Voice lets the brand know among all the branded posts of the ambassador, how many featured the sponsor brand compared to other brands that also sponsor that individual.
Volume of branded posts
An overview of the brand’s ambassadors shows that the total number of branded posts by its ambassadors (i.e., total number of posts that featured all the sponsor brands of the brand’s ambassadors) in the time period considered was 9.8k. Of this, only 885 or 9% of ambassadors’ posts featured the brand considered. The implication is that the volume of branded posts for this particular brand was low and its ambassadors were promoting their other sponsor brands more.
Knowing this, a brand can dive into these posts and identify what other brands are being talked about by their ambassadors. The example below shows the number of posts by one Under Armour ambassador about any brand. In this case, Under Armour is getting mentioned more than any other individual brand, but the other brands get more mentions in total than Under Armour does.
The above snapshot helps brands learn which other brands share space with their posts, the proportion of these posts in relation to theirs and more. This can also be a good way for brands to find potential marketing partners to cross promote each other through their shared ambassadors.
Share of VoiceFor the brand considered as an example, it can be seen that among all its ambassadors, only 74% of brand ambassadors have promoted the brand on social media. Nearly 1/4th of its ambassadors have not posted about the brand during this time period.
The brand can drill down further to find out which of its ambassadors were the ones who promoted the brand the most and which ambassadors had less/no branded posts.
From the above table it can be seen that 8 of the top 10 athletes by share of voice have promoted the brand in every branded post, while the majority of the branded posts by the other 2 ambassadors feature the brand.
On the other hand, the brand can also identify the ambassadors who promoted other sponsor brands but had less to no branded posts about this brand.
It can be seen that one of the top value drivers of the brand, Anthony Joshua posted less than 10% of their branded posts about the example brand while promoting their other sponsors more extensively. Education about the importance of increased share of voice in branded posts and setting certain benchmarks for these ambassadors to achieve them will help drive more value for the brand.
Volume and share of voice help brands identify ambassadors who have passionately advocated for the brand on their social channels as well as ambassadors who are poor at promoting the brand. Using this data, a brand can set certain benchmarks for sponsored entities, such as number of branded posts that need to be posted on social media within a time period, to ensure that the brand name is kept relevant among the ambassador’s audience and value is generated from these posts.
Benchmarking – a necessity
Brands need to set certain benchmarks to ensure that brand ambassadors are enabling the brand’s goals. Brands invest heavily in their brand ambassadors and setting benchmarks helps brands measure the performance of its ambassadors in a meaningful and practical way. That way, during and at the end of a contract, both sides can have clear expectations on whether the partnership was successful and whether it should be renewed.
BLAST Premier and Betway have signed another major partnership as part of the ground breaking BLAST Premier 2020 series.
Adam Savinson, Head of Esports, Betway said “The esports community is thriving as tournaments like BLAST PREMIER continue to amplify the world-class excitement that the sport can offer. 2020 promises to be an exhilarating year with an updated format and multiple ways of qualifying for the series. We can’t wait to work with BLAST Premier for a second year, building on this momentum and creating unmissable content to entertain fans across the globe.”
The deal is the largest commercial deal in the history of BLAST. The renewed partnership will be kicked off in London during the first week of BLAST Spring Series and Betway will be front and centre of this never seen before studio activation.
Leo Matlock, Commercial Director, BLAST: “BLAST Securing the renewal of such a reputable and ambitious company as Betway, on the week we launched our new tournament proposition, is testament to our innovative partnership and validation of the trajectory BLAST is on.”
The 2020 series will offer a new play-in system that gives any team the chance to qualify for both the Global Final and two seasonal finals. The Global Final’s winning team will walk away with a whopping $1 million.
BLAST Premier is renowned as one of the best attended and most innovative Counter-Strike tournaments in the esports calendar. Betway’s renewal comes at an exciting time for the global entertainment company as they enter 2020 under the new brand following incredible feedback
Real Madrid have launched a brand new Facebook subscription service that will see their fans paying to be part of ‘Madridista Nation’ on the social network.
This is one of the first of its kind and it will be extremely intriguing to see whether this innovation is a success and could possibly become a regular feature for clubs on their social media channels.
The club say: “Real Madrid C.F. has launched a very special present for all of the club’s fans. The gift goes by the name of Madridista Nation, an exclusive Facebook community designed for the most demanding of Real Madrid supporters. For those followers looking to take their passion for the club’s colours to the max, the page will offer photos, videos, exclusive content and special stickers featuring the greatest team on the planet. All of this is available for a subscription of just €2.49/month.
From the moment you join the Madridista Nation community, you will be able to proudly display the club’s crest on your Facebook account, with the crest appearing alongside your comments. This will also give you access to the community and the exclusive group reserved solely for true Real Madrid C.F. fans. What’s more, you’ll get the chance to win exclusive prizes and take advantage of special discounts on your favourite Real Madrid C.F. products.
Don’t think about it for a second longer, join this exclusive madridista community. Madridista Nation is waiting to welcome you with a load of benefits.”
