iSportconnect is collaborating with @SportsContentStrategy, a podcast by @MrRichardClarke exploring sports content, digital and social media by talking to players, executives, coaches, creators and specialists.

In the latest episode of the SportsContentStrategy podcast, Richard Clarke speaks to Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sports Enterprise & Director of Centre for Sports Business, University of Salford, about ‘soft power’ in sport. He argues this has led to disenchantment among sports fans and he is suggesting a solution.

“There is some disengagement when your club is owned by a foreigner but, equally, there’s a danger of disengagement from clubs owned by British investors, because in many cases, they simply cannot compete.

“I am a firm advocate of something like a climate change summit for football because I genuinely believe that we have fundamental issues that we need to address.”

“This should include fans, broadcasters, clubs, players, local communities and social media companies. We all need to reach a consensus about what we want football to be.”

“Right now I sense the game is still an incredibly powerful socio-cultural institution. It’s still compelling, dramatic, it still draws people in, there’s still a lot of excitement and emotion and love. But notwithstanding that, I think there’s an incredible sense of alienation across football from those whose clubs that are owned by people they’ve never even met who are not from the town and those people don’t really care right through to people like me, a local guy whose club is owned by another local guy. He loves the club, but they’re never going to win anything because they just he just simply doesn’t have the resources.

“As we’ve seen with climate change, everybody’s got vested interests. This is just part and parcel of being a human being and everyday life. So when it comes to football, it’s nothing different. But effectively the British government, certainly over the last 25 years since the inception of the Premier League, has done nothing. So effectively, a free market has ruled in football. We’ve done nothing either to stop or moderate or to control it in any meaningful way. But it’s not just us in the UK, it’s France, Spain, Germany and elsewhere. The European Union has done nothing because its sport policy has effectively been focused on participation. It’s not been focused on protecting its industrial assets.”

“I think certainly there’s an opportunity going forward for there to be some kind of ‘football parliament’ for want of a better term whereby the important stakeholders and I’m not just talking about people with money, I’m talking about fans, communities, supporters trusts, grassroots football projects, but equally Sky, Amazon and MasterCard plus and Manchester United and Real Madrid.”

“All of us to have a voice and all of us deserve to be heard. And we need to consensually negotiate a way forward and to establish a vision for OUR football and OUR heritage.”

To list to the complete interview, click here.

Ferrari have decided to join Formula One’s esports for the first time, thus ensuring all 10 teams will line up on the virtual grid in this year’s world championship.

Reuters reports:

The Italian brand opted not to participate in the first two seasons of the official F1 esports championship but Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto had recently said they plan to enter this season.

Mercedes won both titles last year, as in the real world.

Julian Tan, Formula One’s Head of growth and Esports, said Ferrari’s inclusion was a “momentous milestone” for the virtual championship.

“It’s really exciting to see that all of F1’s teams have bought into the vision,” he said.

“They see the huge potential of esports within Formula 1 and they recognize the importance of the program as part of our wider objective of reaching out to a new audience.

“We’re really looking forward to working with all of the teams to make this season a success.”

The esports championship will kick off with a Pro Draft in July, which will determine each team’s driver line-up ahead of the four live events to decide the champion between September and December.

Formula One has more than doubled the prize money for this year’s esports world championship, with the virtual teams racing for a very real pot of $500,000 compared to last year’s $200,000.

“Season 3 is going to be bigger and better,” Tan added.

“We’ve already had this huge expansion in our online qualifying competition, and our draft is going to be bigger as we have all 10 teams involved and all of them will be picking at least one driver from the draft.”

A major gambling expansion in Illinois that will give Chicago its first casino, allow betting on sports and raise money for a massive infrastructure program won final approval on Sunday in the state legislature.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate also took final votes to pass a $40.1 billion general funds budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 after the state House of Representatives completed its work on Saturday.

Reuters reports:

Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, who has said he looks forward to signing the gaming expansion bill, applauded lawmakers for completing “one of the most ambitious and consequential legislative sessions in this state’s history.”

“We worked hard in a bipartisan fashion to pass a budget and to get a massive, important infrastructure bill passed,” Pritzker told reporters.

The governor had pushed for sports betting, and legislation was approved to allow it at casinos, racetracks and sports venues.

Eight U.S. states currently offer sports betting, while four other states have approved it so far this year.

Illinois, which already has 10 casinos, would add six more, with Chicago getting its first, which would be privately owned, along with slots at the city’s O’Hare and Midway Airports.

Chicago’s share of casino revenue would be earmarked for its underfunded police and firefighter pension funds.

The bulk of new gambling revenue, along with money from higher taxes on vehicle fuel, parking, cigarettes and other measures, would help fund a $45 billion, six-year “Rebuild Illinois” capital plan for roads, bridges, mass transit, schools, universities, and other projects.

Illinois, which has the lowest credit ratings among states, would take on considerably more debt after lawmakers approved $20.8 billion of bonds for capital improvements and an additional $1.2 billion of bonds to put a dent in the state’s backlog of unpaid bills, which currently totals an estimated $6.3 billion.

A huge $133.5 billion unfunded pension liability and chronic structural budget deficits have pushed Illinois’ ratings down to a notch or two above the junk level.

With credit rating analysts closely watching the state’s fiscal progress, Pritzker’s office, citing an unexpected revenue surge in April, dropped a plan to reduce fiscal 2020 pension contributions.

The full $8.37 billion pension payment is included in the budget, which lawmakers said was balanced. The spending plan counts on new revenue from internet retailers, an assessment on managed healthcare organizations and a tax amnesty program.

Last month, the legislature voted to put a constitutional amendment on the November 2020 ballot asking voters to adopt graduated personal income tax rates to replace the current flat rate. Pritzker championed the amendment as a way to raise about $3.4 billion annually to address the state’s fiscal woes.

Lawmakers also made Illinois the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, a move that could raise as much as $500 million a year once fully implemented.

The former International Tennis Federation Director of Development, Dave Miley, has formally joined four other men in the running to become the new President of the governing body, after being confirmed by the ITF as an official candidate.

The President of the ITF and the 14 members of the Board of Directors will be elected at the ITF Annual General Meeting on September 27, 2019 in Lisbon.

Other confirmed candidates are:

• Incumbent ITF President David Haggerty of the USA (photo below), seeking a second four-year term.
• Ivo Kaderka of the Czech Republic
• Anil Khanna of India

Miley has been nominated by Tennis Ireland.

Speaking at Roland Garros in Paris, he said: “The tennis family is not working together as it should.  We are still too fragmented, interests are not always aligned and some have vested interests that are holding tennis back.  While our sport is growing in some important markets, there are worrying declines in participation in North America and Europe for example.”

 

The debut of the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals debut gave the team its third Canadian television audience record for in two weeks.

Toronto’s 118-109 win over the visiting Golden State Warriors on May 30 attracted an average audience of 3.3 million viewers on Sportsnet, a record for an NBA game in Canada.

That topped the previous record of 3.1 million, set May 25 in the deciding game of the Eastern Conference final between the Raptors and the Milwaukee Bucks.

In the U.S., the series opener on ABC had a 10.1 overnight rating, the lowest for Game 1 of a title series in a decade.

It is the first time in nine years that the finals have lacked the star power of  LeBron James.

It’s also the first NBA Finals since 2014 that doesn’t feature the league’s top two teams by TV ratings.

Before the finals, TV audiences for this year’s playoffs were down14%. Across 76 telecasts on ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV, games averaged 3.95 million viewers, compared to 4.61 million viewers over 78 games through the same point last year.

“Put aside perception, there is the actuality of the ratings,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Friday. “Of course, I pay a lot of attention to those. I also pay a lot of attention to the numbers in Canada, where we set an all-time record for viewership. In the U.S., I recognize it’s a changing television marketplace. We knew we would be down a bit by virtue of both not having two U.S. markets and we’ve come off eight years of having LeBron James in the finals.”

“I’m not overly concerned,” Silver said about the current numbers. “But I’m certainly paying attention to it.”

Last night’s game was on TSN in Canada.

Yahoo Japan Corporation has concluded an official supporter agreement to join the Tokyo 2020 Sponsorship Programme in the category of “Internet-based information and navigation services.”

Through its various platforms, Yahoo! Search” and smartphone applications for weather and disasters, maps, and navigation services, Yahoo! JAPAN will provide useful information for spectators to make the most of the Tokyo 2020 Games, in addition to contents that contribute to the safety of the spectators, such as weather and transportation information.

Yahoo! JAPAN served as the official partner for the Japanese Olympic Committee and the Japanese Paralympic Committee from 2001 to 2012.

From 2012 Yahoo! JAPAN supported the promotional activities during the Candidature phase as an official Tokyo 2020 Bid Partner.

Kentaro Kawabe, President and Representative Director, Yahoo Japan Corporation, said: “It is a great honour for Yahoo Japan Corporation to participate in the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 as an Official Supporter. Under the mission of ‘solving the problems facing people and society by leveraging the power of information technology,’ we have provided over 100 Internet services to our user base, which is one of the largest in Japan. We take pride in making daily improvements to make our services more useful and convenient.”

Tokyo 2020 on Saturday unveiled the uniforms to be worn by 10,000 volunteer runners during the torch relay and presented further details about the route the relay will take.

Live and on-demand streaming service DAZN has secured the German rights to broadcast the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup 209 taking place in France.

DAZN, together with its football brands SPOX and Goal, provide extensive coverage of the tournament with a total of 26 matches live in Germany, including every match from the quarter finals, semi-finals and the final on July 7.

DAZN, SPOX and Goal will show highlights of all 52 matches just minutes after the final whistle, as well as producing highlights for their social media channels.

DAZN will show every Germany match throughout the tournament, having sublicensed the rights from SportA, the sports rights agency of ARD and ZDF.

James Rushton, Chief Revenue Officer at DAZN Group, said: “The 2019 Women’s World Cup is the most anticipated yet with tickets to the opening match, along with the semi-finals and final selling out within 48 hours of going on sale.

“With this unprecedented level of interest, we’re giving fans in Germany extensive coverage across our brands; DAZN, SPOX and Goal so they don’t miss a moment.”