The talents of Lionel Messi will be showcased on a brand-new stage in Barcelona later this year when Cirque du Soleil opens a show inspired by the Argentinean superstar (see the video below).

After paying homage to the likes of the Beatles, the show entitled “Messi 10” will be a first venture into football for Cirque, which is mounting the project in association with Sony Music.

However, Cirque is no stranger to sport. For starters, many of its artists come from the world of elite sport.

Since Montreal-based Cirque’s inception in 1984, its famous blue and yellow tents have attracted almost 160 million spectators in more than 330 cities in 48 countries.

There are eight touring shows and it mounts six to eight events per year in Las Vegas, generating ticket sales of 11 to 12 million per year.

In July 2015, TPG Capital LP, a global private investment firm, acquired a majority stake in the company. Since the buy-out, TPG has been aiming to grow the group.

One path to growth is sports and Cirque has been moving along it with blue-chip partners.

The company has a multi-year deal with the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights with four of the team’s home games per season designated as special nights when Cirque has LED mesh exposure on the front of T-Mobile Arena, provides intermission entertainment and serves up a variety of game presentation elements.

Cirque’s NFL Experience in New York’s Times Square in 2018 (see the main photo) was a state-of-the-art interactive show using a 4D cinematic experience, physical challenges, augmented reality, and various immersive elements to give fans the ability to step into the huddle.

Given this experience, the aim is certainly to be doing more in all aspects of sport, especially with the brands that seek to sponsor and be associated with sport, according to Nick Prichard, part of Cirque’s, Events and Experiences division, who has been reaching out to brands and rights owners, across the globe.

“Sport is a wonderful way to link brands with engaged and passionate audiences,” he said.

“But the inherent conservatism of much of top-tier sports management means that much sponsorship activation does not match the excitement of the sport. Entertaining fans beyond the sports field is only going to become more and more important.”

“We are experts in live events that entertain and deliver real brand love through creativity,” he said. “We are talking to challengers in the sports market who will be open to experiment.”

The Jockey Club today announced its latest set of full-year financial results showing a 10^th consecutive year of commercial growth. – the nation’s second-biggest spectator sport.

The Jockey Club stages some of Britain’s most popular events, including The Cheltenham Festival, the Randox Health Grand National Festival and The Investec Derby Festival.

The 2018 annual results show that British Racing’s largest commercial group was able to grow its revenues by 6.7% year-on-year to a record £214.6 million (2017: £201.1 million and 5.2% growth).

This represents turnover growth of 68.2% in a decade when The Jockey Club has focused on creating value for British Racing through its commercial operations (2009: £127.6 million), driven by revenue streams including general admissions, media, hospitality, commercial partnerships, events, training facilities and breeding services.

This allowed the group, which reinvests all profits into the sport, to contribute a record £27.1 million into prize money in 2018 alone – an increase of £4.2 million or 18.3% year-on-year (2017: £22.9 million) and more than double the contribution it made 10 years ago (116.8% increase or £14.6 million more than 2009: £12.5 million).

The Jockey Club welcomed 1.8 million racegoers to its 339 racing fixtures nationwide in 2018 and more than two million people to the thousands of events it stages at its 15 racecourse venues outside the racing calendar.

Record total prize money of £53.2 million was distributed at the 339 racing fixtures staged at Jockey Club Racecourses in 2018, up by 16.4% year-on-year (2017: £45.7 million).

Average prize money per fixture of £157,000 in 2018 was also a record, up by 18% year-on-year (2017: £133,000) and 35.3% more per raceday than 10 years ago (2009: £116,000).

In 2018, The Jockey Club returned Group operating profit before prize money of £48.1 million, up by 7.4% year-on-year (2017: £44.8 million). After increasing its contribution to prize money by a record £4.2 million last year along with investments in facilities, operations and the wider sport, the Group generated operating profits of £21 million (2017: £21.9 million) and net profits of £4.5 million (2017: £9.1 million).

Simon Bazalgette, who has been The Jockey Club’s Group Chief Executive over this 10-year period, said: “We have a really clear purpose that’s about supporting the best long-term interests of British Racing. That means delivering great experiences for millions of people to enjoy through our racecourse venues, training grounds and The National Stud, and it means doing everything we can along the way to create value to reinvest back into our sport.

“Since 2009 we have grown our commercial revenues consistently and that’s been vital to allowing us to more than double our contribution into British Racing’s prize money, while also investing significantly in improving facilities for customers and participants across our venues, and into initiatives like free food and drink for racing staff. Our people and management teams should take great credit for their hard work.”

“Contributing to the overall stewardship of our sport is also important, which we see as a true joint venture between racecourses, participants and British Racing’s governing body, and supported by fantastic partners such as ITV and the brands we’ve been able to welcome into the sport.”

“There’s a lot of positive progress the sport rightly can be proud of, but our next set of results will include the first year of the impact of the changes in the gambling sector and we need to be realistic that we’re now into a time of financial challenge for British Racing.”

“If the sport as a whole collaborates, innovates and diversifies, we can come out of the other side in good shape. At our core we have a lot of resilience and we need to keep up the good work going on in growing our fan base and not lose sight of the huge role the British public has played in making us Britain’s second biggest spectator sport. What we can guarantee in uncertain times is that The Jockey Club will do everything in our power to support the sport along the way.”

Premier League club revenues increased to a record £4.8 billion in 2017/18, according to analysis from Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.

However, wage costs increased by 15% year-on-year to £2.9 billion, resulting in combined operating profits of £0.9 billion (2016/17: £1 billion).

The increase in revenue is in part attributable to the Premier League having a record five teams competing in the UEFA Champions League last year, all reaching the Round of 16 or beyond, resulting in a substantial increase of  approximately £71 million in UEFA Champions League distributions to Premier League clubs.

Alongside the increase in UEFA distributions, matchday and commercial revenue both grew by 8% and 12% respectively.

Dan Jones, Partner and Head of the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, commented: “Premier League clubs’ revenues continued to reach new heights in 2017/18.

“Tottenham Hotspur’s relocation to Wembley Stadium and increased commercial activity, including the commencement of their new kit deal with Nike, contributed more than half of the Premier League’s matchday revenue growth and almost a quarter of the Premier League’s commercial revenue growth respectively, driving the club’s record levels of pre-tax profitability.”

However, the Premier League’s wages/revenue ratio increased to 59% in 2017/18, rising from the previous season’s ratio of 55%, which was a 19-year low owing to the increased broadcast revenues at the start of the current broadcast rights cycle.

Almost half of Premier League clubs recorded a wages/revenue ratio of 70% or greater, with overall wage spend increasing 15% to £2.9 billion.

Jones added, “We have seen clubs’ wage expenditure increase at a faster rate than revenue growth in 2017/18. This is the same pattern as observed in the second year of the previous Premier League broadcast rights cycles, as clubs continue to invest in playing talent. 59% is the lowest wages/revenue ratio outside the first year of a broadcast rights cycle since the 1998/99 season.”

The analysis reveals that Premier League clubs made a collective pre-tax profit for the fourth time in the last five years, again the second highest profit in history, with three clubs (Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur) contributing over 75% of this total, but also an increase in the number of clubs reporting a pre-tax loss.

Tim Bridge, Director in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “The increased wage expenditure was expected given the busy transfer market in the 2017/18 season, with two record transfer windows driving estimated Premier League gross spend of £1.9 billion.

“However, with the total value of Premier League broadcast rights expected to only marginally increase in the 2019/20-2021/22 broadcast rights cycle, increases in wage and transfer expenditure may be expected to slow in the medium term, as already signalled by the reduced estimated £1.4 billion gross transfer spend in the current season.”

“With the emphasis now on clubs to generate revenue growth from sources other than central broadcast distributions, it may be that we see the levels of pre-tax profit diminish over the next few years.”

The future of OTT was naturally a key topic at iSportconnect’s recent Broadcast Masterclass in London.

We asked three of the leading executives at the event to share their views on this big subject.

• Olivier Dufour, CEO of Motorsport Network France
• Jan Olsson, Head of Sports Rights, SVT Sweden
• Jim O’Toole, CEO of Event Rider Masters

In this video feature, they provide valuable insights about:

• Tailoring content for different audiences
• The growth of OTT and broadcast rights in the future
• How OTT fits company strategies
• What will OTT services look like in five years

Formula One and local organizers have given up on plans to hold a race in downtown Miami because of the disruption for businesses and residents, according to the Miami Herald.

Reuters rerports:

It said they were now looking into an alternative race location on land next to the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins NFL team, to the north of the Florida city.

“We want to do something great for Miami,” Tom Garfinkel, Vice Chairman and CEO of the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium, told the paper.

“Unfortunately when we finally received the detailed report of what it would take to build out a street circuit each year, the multiple weeks of traffic and construction disruption to the port, Bayfront Park and the residents and businesses on Biscayne Boulevard would have been significant.”

Formula One had hoped to add the street race to the calendar for this year but that was pushed back last July until at least 2020 as a result of emerging local opposition to the proposed harborside layout.

The sport’s owners Liberty Media say they want to make sure Miami, which has been offered a 10-year contract, has long-term viability with maximum local support.

The race would be a second Grand Prix in the United States after the one in Austin, Texas.

Miami Dolphins franchise owner Stephen Ross is supporting the project, with a company owned by the U.S. entrepreneur lined up as the potential promoter.

“A lot would have to happen for us to be able to do it,” said Garfinkel of the new proposal.

“But we have over 250 acres of land so adding an F1 race to where Hard Rock Stadium and the Miami Open sit means we can create a world-class racing circuit that is unencumbered by existing infrastructure.”

For the first time in Denmark, a court ruling has established that sites offering illegal streams of live sport can and should be blocked.

Denmark’s RettighedsAlliancen (the rights holders alliance), in cooperation with the Spanish football league LaLiga, led the first blocking injunction case concerning illegal streaming of live sports in the country.

Live sport is very popular among Danes, but not everyone obtains access to live streaming of sports matches legally.

From February 2018 to February 2019, RettighedsAlliancen registered 18 million visits to the most popular illegal live sports services in Denmark. At the same time, RettighedsAlliancen observed an increase of 15 % to the services in the same period.

Maria Fredenslund, CEO at RettighedsAlliancen, who litigated the case before the court, said: “We see heavy traffic to websites that offer illegal live streaming of sports events. Especially football matches attract the attention of Danish users and with an average of 1.4 million monthly visits by Danes there is talk of a widespread and very serious problem.”

Fredenslund added that this problem goes beyond the rightsholders because the users of these illegal services are also unaware of the risks.

“Reports show that the risk of being infected with malware when using this type of illegal service is very high. At the same time, the huge amount of traffic to these sites generates a lot of money from ads, which ends up in the pockets of the criminals behind these sites”, she explained.

In this case RettighedsAlliancen and LaLiga have asked the court to order the Danish Internet Service Providers to block the nine most popular illegal live sport streaming services. These services are the most popular among Danish users and have provided access to content that LaLiga owns the rights to.

LaLiga’s Audiovisual Director, Melcior Soler, explains that illegal streaming of LaLiga’s matches has been a big problem for a long time:

“Audiovisual Piracy is illegal and has significant consequences, not only for us, but for the league and the future of the game, so we are very happy that RettighedsAlliancen has joined us in the fight. We know that Denmark is at the forefront of the development of digital tools to fight online piracy, and this is a big issue for us,” he said.

“We are now looking forward to seeing the effects of the blockings and hope that they can serve as an example for other countries, so that we can stand together in the fight against online piracy.”

GVC Holdings PLC , the global sports-betting and gaming group which owns Ladbrokes and Coral, has today called for an end to all UK sports-betting broadcast advertising, at any time of the day, on live and repeated sporting events (exempting horseracing).

Under GVC’s proposals advertising specifically promoting responsible gambling and safer gambling campaigns would be permitted, but strictly limited to one advertisement per commercial break.

The call goes far further than the forthcoming pre-watershed, whistle-to-whistle advertising ban which is set to be introduced at the start of the 2019-20 football season in August.

While GVC helped to bring about the new restrictions, the company said they do not go far enough, and is therefore calling on its industry peers to join it in helping to revolutionise the marketing of gambling brands.

GVC has also today committed to unilaterally ending all football shirt sponsorship deals with UK teams and banning perimeter board advertising at football grounds, to allow sporting fans to watch their favourite teams without seeing any incentives to bet.

The Company has urged its industry peers and UK football governing bodies to support this move and take action in this area.

GVC’s CEO, Kenny Alexander (above) said: “Whilst the vast majority of our customers enjoy our products responsibly, it is high time that the industry did more to protect its customers from potential harm. As the UK’s largest gambling company, and owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, we at GVC are doing exactly that. I call on our industry peers to help us bring about an end to broadcast advertising which promotes sports-betting in the UK no matter the time of day.”

“Increasing investment in research, education and treatment ten-fold by 2022, funding treatment centres and using technology to intervene before a problem develops, alongside our existing behavioural analytics, brings to life our commitment to be the most trusted and enjoyable betting operator in the world.”

“The industry should and can do more to protect the vulnerable, and today’s announcement demonstrates GVC’s commitment to delivering on that.”

 

Tiger Woods announced Wednesday that he will return to Japan for the first time in more than a decade to compete in the inaugural ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP.

The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, the first official PGA TOUR event in Japan, will be played Oct. 24-27, 2019, at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club outside Tokyo.

“I’m excited to play in the inaugural ZOZO Championship in October, and return to Japan, one of my favourite countries,” Woods said. “It’s going to be a fun fall.”

Woods made his last appearance in Japan in 2006, when he lost a playoff to Padraig Harrington at the Dunlop Phoenix. Woods had won that event the previous two years. He also played the 2001 World Cup of Golf in Japan, famously chipping in for eagle on the final hole to force a playoff. The South African team of Ernie Els and Retief Goosen won in extra holes.

Woods’ last appearance in Asia came at the 2012 CIMB Classic in Malaysia.

Woods is coming off a win at the Masters, which was his 15th major championship and 81st PGA TOUR victory. It was his second win in his last seven PGA TOUR starts. He’s now one short of Sam Snead’s mark for most PGA TOUR wins.