Organisers of Global Sports Week Paris have published a new programme update, confirming the participation of key athletes in the inaugural event.
Stars set to participate include Olympic champion swimmer and ISL star Florent Manadou (FRA), alongside eight-time Olympic swimming champion Matt Biondi (USA), who will offer inter-generational and inter-continental perspectives on the evolving role of the athlete at a time of rapid technological and societal change.
The transatlantic gold medal winners will be joined by Red Bull ambassador, surfer Justine Dupont ahead of the sport’s Olympic debut in this summer’s Tokyo 2020 Games. The big wave superstar is President of the ISA Athletes’ Committee and a vocal athlete campaigner on the issue of ocean protection.
Finally, Nadia Nadim, Afghanistan-born Danish star of the Paris Saint-Germain team, will address the future of sport from her perspective as a refugee-turned-professional footballer.
The four stars will join international sports chiefs, business, government and cultural leaders for the first-of-its kind summit in Paris, which is part of French-led efforts to increase sport’s presence in global economic and societal debate.
Global Sports Week will take place at the Carrousel du Louvre between February 5th and 7th 2020, organised under the patronage of UNESCO and the high patronage of M. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic.
The English-language summit – and its off-festival featuring debates, parties, exhibitions and innovation contests – is designed to provide a platform for knowledge-exchange and collaboration with the aim of finding innovative and sustainable solutions to the major challenges facing sport and society.
It comes as France prepares for a decade in the global sports spotlight, as the host of events including the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and 2023 Rugby World Cup as well as the NBA Global Games regular-season fixtures, which make their debut in Paris this weekend after almost a decade in London.
New, high-profile speakers will be added each day between now and start of the event, which begins at the Carrousel du Louvre on February 5th. DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAMME NOW: https://lnkd.in/e-EnvJn
UK Athletics has today announced the appointment of Nic Coward as Interim CEO.
Coward, who has extensive sport leadership experience, will lead the National Governing Body until such time as a permanent appointment is made through the ongoing CEO recruitment process.
As former General Secretary of the Premier League and CEO of the British Horseracing Authority, as well as twice acting CEO of the Football Association, he has considerable experience navigating the complexity of international and domestic stakeholders within the sporting landscape.
In recent years he has been a director and consultant in sport and other sectors. Current roles include Chair of England Golf and the England and Wales Cricket Board Regulatory Committee in addition to advising sports in India and China.
Nic Coward said:
“I’m delighted to be joining UK Athletics as interim CEO. Athletics is a sport that captures the nation’s imagination each and every year, but Olympic and Paralympic year is even more special.
“I’m looking forward to working with the board and all the team, across the organisation, at such an important time for the sport.”
Chris Clark, Chair of UK Athletics said:
“Olympic and Paralympic year is always hugely important for the sport and it’s essential we continue to make progress in these final few months in the approach to the Games.
“Appointing an interim CEO is the first important step to ensure we have strong leadership for the sport working alongside our management team and the board, and ultimately supporting our world class programme so they all give their very best in Tokyo.
“Nic is a highly experienced sport executive and will provide an important leadership role until such time our next CEO, currently being recruited, can start.”
Lancashire Cricket is leading the way in ticketing technology after becoming the first organisation in the UK, in any industry, to activate blockchain secure mobile tickets for all domestic and international fixtures at Emirates Old Trafford in 2020.
The Club will be using TIXnGO, a new blockchain mobile tickets platform, after successful trials took place during the 2019 season. The benefits of blockchain mobile tickets will be numerous for Lancashire Cricket as it will this ensure that genuine supporters are more likely to get tickets. It also eliminates the possibility of fake tickets, which will give Lancashire Cricket greater control over who gains access to Emirates Old Trafford for domestic and international fixtures.
Furthermore, the Club has also introduced a number of different ticketing technology initiatives over the past 12 months to enhance the overall Member and supporter experience. They include an official new resale platform and offering the use of PACIFA technology which shows supporters a 3D view from their seats before purchasing International and Vitality Blast tickets at Emirates Old Trafford.
The resale platform, which went live during the summer of 2019, has been jointly developed alongside Lancashire’s Ticketing Service Provider, SecuTix, and provides supporters a simple, user-friendly system to sell unwanted tickets up to face value throughout the season.
The Lancashire website also now features a 3D virtual stadium, providing ticket buyers with a high-quality panoramic view of Emirates Old Trafford and a view expected from each seat ensuring that they are able to choose the best seat possible from which to watch the Red Rose and England. The technology has now been used across the whole of Emirates Old Trafford, and features hospitality suites and hotel boxes including the award-winning Point.
Lancashire’s Head of Ticketing and Digital Systems, Jonathon Nuttall, said: “I’m delighted that the Club has become the first organisation to use the new blockchain secure mobile tickets technology, as well introducing and developing a number of further enhancements to our ticketing operation at Emirates Old Trafford.
“During the 2019 season, over 80 per cent of tickets bought at Emirates Old Trafford have been made online, compared to less than 50 per cent in 2018 so it’s vitally important that we continue to improve the digital ticking technologies to ensure we make things as easy, and as enjoyable, as possible for those supporters booking with us.
“We’ve been working with SecuTix for nearly 18 months now and they are a developer who commit to the ticket buyer in a continual pursuit of delivering an amazing customer journey making ticket purchase a key part of the main event. We’re excited to continue developing our ticketing technologies alongside an organisation that shares our values regarding customer experience.”
Lancashire Cricket’s move to SecuTix, which was announced in March 2018, focused on ensuring that the Club’s ticketing system was capable of maximising the growth in mobile transactions and usability, whilst maintaining a robust and customer focused offering for its traditional supporter.
David Hornby, UK MD of SecuTix, commented: “Blockchain technology addresses many of the ticketing issues that both sports organisations and fans alike face. TIXnGO creates a unique, encrypted ticket for smartphones that is completely traceable, removes the risk of counterfeit tickets and simplifies the process of transferring or reselling tickets for the customer. It easily plugs into Lancashire’s existing ticketing system to give fans a better and more secure digital mobile tickets experience.”
The partnership brings together a Premier League football club and a premium brand in connectivity, with both aiming to build towards headline-grabbing success in 2020. It is, appropriately, for three years initially with Three’s logo to appear on all of Chelsea’s shirts from 2020/21, including Chelsea Women and Academy sides as well as our men’s team. The partnership covers the whole Chelsea family.
In addition, Three, which has grown from being the UK’s first 3G-only network in 2003 to having the UK’s leading 5G spectrum holdings with more than the rest of the industry combined, launched 5G services in 2019 and will ensure Stamford Bridge is 5G-enabled within the first year of the partnership.
The deal is a significant one for Chelsea financially but it is also important our official partnerships are a good fit and our new shirt one with Three clearly is.
Yokohama, who have held the shirt sponsorship for the past five seasons, will continue as the club’s official tyre partner from the start of the 2020/21 season.
Chelsea Football Club chief executive Guy Laurence explains: “Mobile technology has revolutionised the way football clubs and supporters interact with each other which makes Chelsea FC and Three such natural partners.
“We have a social media following of over 100 million and the official app, The 5th Stand, has had nearly four million downloads. We stream live women’s and Academy football with men’s first team highlights available soon after matches. It truly is an area from which regular fans are benefitting and as communications technology develops in the coming years, Three will be at the forefront of the advances with the exciting roll out of 5G networks, helping to enhance and expand the experience of being a Chelsea supporter in the modern digital age.
“With Three, we have found a partner, who share our passion for innovation and we are delighted to have them on board and on our shirts.”
Dave Dyson, CEO of Three UK, adds: “Chelsea FC is a great match for Three – we share the same values and are both playing to win. This partnership is a great way to kick off 2020, when we are building the UK’s fastest 5G network and Chelsea are building the best team.
“Chelsea FC is many teams in one club – and it is important to us that this sponsorship covers not only the men’s team, but also the women’s and the Academy as well. Three UK has enough 5G spectrum to put us in the top 10 holdings in the world and give our customers the very best 5G service, and we want to be with the team that can drive that winning message over the next few years.”
6 Steps To Implementing Sponsorship Incentives Into Athlete Contracts
With consumers increasingly avoiding any kind of advertising that comes their way, brands are looking to their athletes and influencers to promote and endorse them on their social media channels to their intended audiences. This makes it essential for brands to provide incentives to their partners to ensure that the ambassador promotes the brand properly. No matter what type of ambassador a brand works with, brands can gamify the structure to make sure partners are promoting the brand in the best way possible. To do this, brands need to set specific KPIs and make sure the ambassador meets these set objectives to gain sponsorship incentives.
Many top brands are already implementing performance-based sponsorships for their partners. Here’s how the performance-based sponsorship model works:
Sponsor brands set certain objectives that sports properties need to meet, such as certain levels of engagement on social media or increased brand awareness within that market.
The properties are then paid or provided with incentives when they reach the goals set by the sponsor.
Goals are set based on discussions between the sponsor and propertiesand this ensures that properties understand the goals and expectations of the sponsor and vice-versa.
Hookit’s 6 step plan helps brands set up a foolproof method to ensure that their sponsorship dollars are well spent and brand ambassadors achieve the brand’s set goals.
Step 1: Identify the essential metrics for your brand
One of the key components of incentive-based sponsorships is the ability to identify and measure the sponsorship metrics that matter, to ensure that the sponsored properties meet the objectives of the sponsor, i.e., true alignment that is essential for success. There are various metrics available to measure the effectiveness of a partnership. However, most of these popular metrics may be vanity metrics — they are flashy metrics which look good but have little to no impact for a brand’s goals.(For example, social media impressions or the number of times the post was displayed, may seem like a great metric with a huge number, but does not always translate and contribute to a tangible value to the overall goals of the company).
As a brand marketer, it is important to identify primary metrics that further your organization’s goals, then monitor and measure them accurately. Some essential metrics needed to measure sponsorship impact (in order from best to good) are:
Adjusted Ad Value (AAV)
This is one of the best metrics that provides a brand with an immediate dollar value that the brand earned from its ambassador’s promotions on social media. 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 Maximum Ad value (MAV), which is the total value the brand could earn from that particular social post based on total engagement on that post. This MAV is then down weighted by the post’s quality of promotion to arrive at the Adjusted Ad Value (AAV). It is therefore important to ensure that branded posts have good promotion quality to maximize their value. Get the full details of the Hookit Valuation Model here.
Promotional Effectiveness Score
A brand ambassador may be promoting their sponsor on their social channels, but it is important to measure if that promotion is effective and adds value to the brand. To do this, Hookit developed the Promotional Effectiveness Score (PE Score), a composite score out of 100 that looks at how effective an entity is at promoting a specific brand, regardless of their follower count. The PE score is made up of 5 sub-scores that measure an entity’s social post performance.
It is a way to compare entities on a level playing field by examining the quality of their promoted posts, the regularity with which they are promoting, and how their promoted content performs relative to the rest of their content. Learn more about the PE score here.
Promotion Quality
Sometimes an ambassador will have many followers and generate high engagement with their followers, but the value that they drive to their sponsored brand may be minimal. This can be attributed to poor promotion quality of the ambassador’s posts. Proper mentions of brand hashtags and the brand’s social handle, as well as images that feature clear brand logos have higher promotion quality and lead to more value for the brand.
An example of promotion quality
Here are three examples of posts with low, high, and highest promotion quality. On the right, the post has no clear brand logo and any brands mentioned get lost in the sea of hashtags. The middle post has a brand logo at the end of the video as well as multiple tags of the promoted brand, in this case, Rolex. Finally, on the right, multiple brand logos are visible in the picture and the text is uncluttered including a brand hashtag, leading to a very high promotional quality score.
Total number of engagements
Social media engagements on an ambassador’s branded post is a good metric for brands to track. This metric shows the brand how influential the ambassador is, and how well audiences interact with the ambassador on social media. High engagements paired with high promotion quality on an ambassador’s branded posts will earn the highest value for a brand. However, this is the least effective of the mentioned metrics because it is heavily dependent on the number of followers that an ambassador has. This can lead to deceivingly high numbers for the more popular athletes who don’t actually promote a brand partner in a good way.
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.These benchmarks should be set with the brand’s end goal in mind. For example, if a brand’s goal is to increase its engagement and brand recall, then the brand ambassador’s goal can be an increase in their social media engagements by x% compared to the previous year. If the brand goal is to reach new audiences, then the brand ambassador’s goal is to gain more followers from a particular gender/country/ethnicity. The brand can then reward incentives based on how well the ambassadors have achieved their goals, such as the top 20% of ambassadors get a bonus, or an automatic contract renewal, and so on. More on benchmarking here.
Step 3: Empower your athletes with data
Most top brands are already monitoring the social media performance of their ambassadors using Hookit’s real time dashboard. The dashboard helps brands identify the best and worst performers, learn about best performing social posts as well as keep track of their ambassadors’ performance in relation to the brand’s goals. While sharing examples of the best branded posts to each ambassador is a good first step, those posts may need tweaking based on the ambassador’s audience and interests.However, brands can further improve the performance of their ambassadors by empowering them with the data they need to keep track of their sponsor obligations. Brands can invite their sponsored athletes to monitor their own performance through Hookit’s Pro Account.
Track social stats, sponsor obligations, rankings, and more.
Using the Hookit Pro Account, athletes and influencers of the brand can access in-depth data about their social performance, see how they stack up against other top athletes in their sport, learn more about their audiences, and also keep track of whether or not they are meeting the sponsorship obligations set for them. Learn more about how to invite your ambassadors.
Step 4: Decide the reward
Rewards for hitting the set goals should be substantial enough for athletes and other partners to want to hit the goal. Small reward for an extraordinary amount of brand promotion is not likely to motivate partners. However, meaningful rewards can both encourage partners to promote your brand and improve their happiness with the partnership and loyalty to your brand. Each brand’s reward structure is as unique as the benchmarks set out to achieve.
And yet, this is the section where many brands hesitate, when they consider the concept of giving out more money than the minimum contracted for. However, top brands, like AB InBev mentioned in the article above, include payouts of ALL incentives into their budget so they know what they could possibly be spending. This method avoids any possible end of year surprises or budget overruns, something your finance department and top executives will thank you for.
Step 5: Let athletes and influencers share your brand story
For any brand, some ambassadors will be highly effective at driving value while others may not. As every ambassador represents a significant investment from the brand’s perspective, there are certain ways through which the sponsor brand can ensure that its ambassadors meet their set goals.
Choose branded posts by ambassadors that are most engaging or are high value drivers for the brand. Use these posts as best practice examples or inspiration to coach athletes/influencers who are lagging behind. This provides ambassadors with a good set of example posts that work and can help them significantly improve the value they drive for your brand.
Encourage ambassadors to share the brand’s content on their channels. This provides content for the ambassador, while getting the brand in front of the ambassador’s audiences.
Since athletes/influencers want to gain incentives and rewards, any support provided from the brand’s side to help them tell the brand story and achieve the agreed upon goals is a win-win for both sides of the sponsorship.
Step 6: Review your results
It is important to review partner content to ensure that they are on-track or have reached their set goals. These reviews help the brand understand what’s working and what’s not as well as who is on track to earn incentives. Brands can encourage ambassadors to continue the types of posts that work, while helping ambassadors tweak posts that don’t produce the desired value.
These ambassadors are the brand’s investments, so brands should encourage them to always produce content that shows the brand in the best possible light, improves engagement with their followers, and earns the highest brand value.
Takeaways
Hookit works with top brands invested in sponsorship and influencers to provide them with easy ways to monitor, measure, and review the performance of all its ambassadors. By following these 6 simple steps, brands have reported
Significant increase in promotion and production from their sponsored entities resulting in increased brand value
Happier athletes and influencers who understand exactly what the brand expects from them, resulting in substantial earnings from brand incentives.
This leads to a win-win for both sides of the sponsorship.
Hookit is a trusted third party by many top brands in the sponsorship industry and has the tools needed by a brand at every step of its sponsorship. Contact us to gain access to these tools and grow your brand value today!
It is now just six months until the baseball competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics begins, with the sport returning to the games for the first time since 2008.
With this in mind, iSportconnect spoke to Riccardo Fraccari, President of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, about their new Baseball5 format, preparations for Tokyo 2020 and technological developments.
Tell us about the progress of the new Baseball Fives format, do you think it can bring baseball popularity in new countries that do not play the traditional sport?
Baseball5 is booming out of proportions and far behind our expectations. In less than 2 years we have evidence of implementation in 69 countries, which raises the adoption rate to 50%. Baseball5 is taking the funding principles of baseball and softball to new and unimaginable places like, Burundi, Myanmar, Palestine and Jordan just to mention a few. In the latest Executive Board meeting we approved the first Baseball5 World Cup, it will take place in Mexico next December and will feature mixed teams in U-15 and senior categories. Just recently Baseball5 was added to the programme of the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2022.
How are preparations for Tokyo 2020 proceeding? The baseball and softball competitions will be very popular tickets…
From the technical aspect we are all set and ready to go. The test events went smoothly and both venues are world-class. For the softball tournament all the teams have already qualified, and the excitement is building up among the softball community. For the baseball tournament two seeds are still up for grabs, they will be contested on between the end of March and the beginning of April in the Americas and Last WBSC qualifiers.
Japan has true, passionate fans, the IOC, Tokyo 2020 and us we are all expecting not only to be among the highest ticket sales in figures but also very vivid and enthusiastic crowds that will add to the magic of the Olympic Games.
How about technology? Will the broadcast coverage feature any of the sort of graphics that we see in American baseball like the virtual strike zone? What do you think of these innovations?
No doubt that technology is increasingly playing a key role in presenting and delivering the sport product to the global audience. Although to this respect TV production is managed by OBS and each taker will have the opportunity to partly personalise the product. Be sure, you can expect surprises.
What can you tell us about your OTT development? How has the response been?
WBSC is now present on both mobile and internet with our Game Time platform. We are happy with the numbers collected during the Premier12, and especially with the retention after that event ended. This means that we delivered a user-friendly high-quality product. There is still work to be done, but we are confident that in 2020 we will keep the growth pace going.
Panini America, the exclusive trading card manufacturer of the NBA, NBA Players and college basketball, has announced an exclusive multi-year partnership with the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans that will feature real-time trading cards of the team’s biggest performances as well as in-arena activations and giveaways.
In addition, Panini will be part of an integrated “Rookie Spotlight” content series that profiles the Pelicans top rookies and their journey through their rookie season in New Orleans – including Zion Williamson, Jaxson Hayes, Josh Gray, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Zylan Cheatham and Nicolò Melli.
The exclusive partnership was announced today and the first Panini Instant card honors last night’s NBA debut of rookie sensation Zion Williamson, whom Panini America signed to an exclusive autograph trading card agreement last summer.
The Williamson card will be available to order until Monday at paniniamerica.net and is the first of many special Pelicans cards that will be available through the Panini Instant platform during the 2019-20 NBA season, celebrating key Pelicans performances. The Pelicans also will be featured in all of Panini America’s exclusively licensed NBA trading card products and in the company’s NBA Dunk Digital Trading Card App – where fans can collect and interact with digital trading cards in various in app events.
“The New Orleans Pelicans are one of the most exciting young teams in the league and we’re proud to be able to partner with them in such a meaningful way,” said Jason Howarth, Panini America Vice President of Marketing. “The team has dynamic playmakers up and down the roster and nothing intrigues fans and collectors quite like superstar potential and a team that’s on the rise. Both of those perfectly summarize the Pelicans and will be another way for us to engage with fans with our trading cards.”
“We are always looking for innovative ways to enhance the overall experience for our fans,” said New Orleans Pelicans Senior Vice President of Sales Michael Stanfield. “We strive to be at the forefront of innovation and we are excited to be teaming up with the world’s largest sports and entertainment collectibles company that will help create a product that can appeal to a worldwide audience.”
NBC Olympics and Snap Inc. are partnering to connect Snapchatters in the U.S. to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by producing an abundance of customized content leading up to and during the Games, both companies announced today. This is the third consecutive Olympic partnership between NBC Olympics and Snap Inc., after previously collaborating on Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018 to great success.
NBC Olympics will release more than 70 episodes across four daily Shows for Snapchat leading up to and during the Games, more than triple the amount of episodes compared to the 2018 Games.
For the first time, NBC Olympics will create two daily Highlights Shows for Snapchat, which will be updated in near real-time throughout the day with must-see moments from the day in Tokyo.
During the Games, two unscripted Shows will air two new episodes per day. Chasing Gold, which debuted during PyeongChang 2018, follows the journeys of Team USA athletes, including some of America’s biggest stars, as they prepare to compete for gold on the world’s biggest athletic stage. The second show is a new, daily recap showcasing the most memorable Olympic moments from that day curated specifically for the platform. Both unscripted shows will be produced by The NBCUniversal Digital Lab.
“We know the audience on Snap loves the Olympic Games,” said Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics. “After two successful Olympics together, we’re excited to take the partnership to another level and produce even more content and coverage from the Tokyo Olympics tailored for Snapchatters, which also will directly benefit the many NBC Olympics advertisers who seek to engage further with this young and active demographic.”
As it has done for Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018, Snap will curate daily Our Stories during the Games and event coverage during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials from Olympic photo and video content generated by fans throughout the world and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics will be the exclusive seller of all this customized Show and Our story content, working closely with Snap, providing advertisers with yet another platform to connect with avid, young Olympic fans.
“We’re thrilled to build on our strong partnership and immense success with NBC Olympics to bring Snapchatters the biggest moments from Tokyo 2020,” said Sean Mills, Snap’s Head of Content. “Through our made-for-mobile Highlights, along with original Shows and Our Story Snaps, the Snapchat community will have a front-row seat to the Games.”
For the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games in 2018, NBC Olympics’ content on Snapchat reached more than 40 million unique users in the U.S., up over 25% from the 2016 Rio Olympics. Of those 40 million, 90% were under the age of 35. On average, 210 million people use Snapchat daily. In the U.S., Snapchat reaches 90% of all 13-24 year-olds and 75% of all 13-34 year-olds.
Commissioner Silver told journalists, “We will play again in Paris next year.”
“We are in discussions with several teams, we have many requests because many teams are interested. Even if we have not yet planned this match, it is already arousing interest.”
This Friday night, the Charlotte Hornets will face the Milwaukee Bucks in the French capital, following the game’s change of location to Paris from London, where it had previously been hosted.
Amazon Web Services and the Guinness Six Nations have announced that they are introducing five new, real-time, rugby statistics to give fans deeper insights into on-field action than ever before.
The dynamic statistics powered by AWS, will take fans from their sofas and place them at the tactics board in the dressing room by revealing the nuances of each team’s plans, plays, attack, and defence for every game.
The five new statistics will join the seven launched during the 2019 Championship, which provided fans with insights into a range of key in-game events, including scrum analyses, play patterns, try origins, team trends, and more.
These statistics are generated by gathering live data from the games, streaming them into AWS to store and do analytics, and then delivering these insights back to the live broadcast for viewers in over 170 countries to enjoy.
In the 2020 Championship, fans will be able to view heat maps on where all the action is taking place on the pitch, metrics on rucking efficiency – helping to demystify one of the most complex areas of the game – as well as stats on balls won, impactful tackles, and crucial line breaks. This will help audiences understand which team has momentum at different stages of the game, how game plans evolve during a match, and areas of stress or opportunity for attack.
Working with Stats Perform, a data and analytics organisation, and the Amazon Machine Learning Solutions Lab, the Six Nations team built these new capabilities using Amazon SageMaker, a fully-managed service to build, train, and deploy machine learning models. Using advanced AWS cloud technologies, they are able to drive deeper analysis of data gathered during the game, providing fans with insights to better understand the split-second decisions made on the field.
The new 2020 statistics powered by AWS for the Guinness Six Nations Championship are:
Kick predictor – this stat employs advanced machine learning technology to show the probability of a kicker successfully scoring a penalty kick or try conversion (collectively, the “kick”). The calculation happens in real time, during a break in play while the kicker sets up to take a kick, and predicts whether a kick will be successful. It takes into account a number of real-time, in-game factors, such as the location (zone) of the kick in the field, the period of the game the kick is being taken, the current score, and if the kicking team is playing home or away. Additionally, it analyses other historical data, for example, the average success rate of the kicking player in the given field zone, during the Championship, and during the player’s entire career.
Visits to the 22 – the main aim of any team is to cross the try line and get the maximum amount of points out of an attacking opportunity. For some however, just keeping the scoreboard ticking over and accumulating points with penalties and drop goals is an equally valuable strategy. Whatever the plan of attack, visiting the 22-metre area in the opposition’s half is only worth it if you walk away with points. This stat will highlight the number of occasions a team has entered the opposition’s 22-metre area and how many points they have scored with the entries. The 22 entry will also be calculated for every phase of play, and not simply for crossing the 22m line on multiple occasions in a phase, with the aim of gaining deeper insight into how many opportunities a team creates, how long they stay in the attacking area, how many opportunities they convert, as well as how many opportunities are stopped by the defending team. This gives viewers deeper insight into how one team’s defensive strategy is superior to the opposition or equally, highlights another team’s attacking strategy and their differing game plan in this crucial area of the field.
Ruck and turnover locations – using data on ruck location and efficiency, a heat map of the pitch will highlight the action areas of each team. This will also visually establish where a team is stealing the ball or where a team is more or less effective on the field. This can provide vital insight to each team’s attacking strategy, unearthing key parts of the field they perceive to be a weakness to the opposition. Whereas previous stats only looked at the number and duration of rucks, this stat will bring deeper insight to the ruck and how it is used as a strategic tool for teams. TV broadcasters and commentators will also be able to explain and interpret the data to help fans understand where the game is being played and decipher the game plan of each of the coaching teams.
Dominant tackles – this stat outlines the defensive strength and structure of the teams. Dominant tackles put pressure on the attacking team as they lose field position and forward momentum, allowing the defending team opportunities to win the ball. They can also demoralise the opposition if they see their attacking line constantly being pushed backwards, which helps teams understand when they are winning the mental game as well as the physical game. By mapping out locations and percentage of dominant tackles, it’s possible to analyse the teams’ momentum at the gain line and whether they are going forward or backwards.
Power game (metres made and line breaks) – this stat determines the direct impact of a team dominating particular action areas, assessing its effectiveness at reaching and getting over the gain line, producing dominant tackles, and creating line breaks. The purpose of this stat is to show where a team is dominant, where a team is lacking, and potentially where the match is being won or lost.
“The introduction of the advanced statistics – powered by AWS – in the 2019 Guinness Six Nations Championship was just the start of how we are planning to change the game of rugby through advanced in-game analytics,” said Ben Morel, CEO, Six Nations Rugby. “This year will see the introduction of even more engaging and informative stats that bring fans even closer to the action. With these innovations, together with AWS, we are seeking to significantly enhance the viewing experience for all rugby fans by providing them with unique data-led insights.”
“We’re proud to help Six Nations place unparalleled technological innovation at the core of the rugby experience,” said Andy Isherwood, Vice President and Managing Director EMEA, AWS. “Rugby has always led the charge and embraced technology to positively evolve the game. For the first time, using advanced AWS technology, Six Nations fans will be able to see the probability of a successful conversion or penalty kick and many other game-changing insights, which will offer unprecedented understanding into the game they love. We are thrilled to continue working alongside one of the world’s most iconic sporting tournaments and to positively enhance the game for rugby fans around the world.”
Watched by fans from 170 countries, the Six Nations Championship is the oldest rugby championship in the world with origins dating back to 1882. The new statistics will be available from kick-off of Game One of the 2020 Guinness Six Nations Championship, which takes places on Saturday, February 1 when Wales and Italy play in Cardiff.
