William Hill Moving Fast In American Sports Market

William Hill has been quick to grow its American business following the legalisation of sports betting in the USA.

The UK-based betting company’s business is now live in six states, with access secured to 17 states in total, and a 34% market share by revenue across all seven regulated states in these early stages. Net revenue from existing American business was up 42%.

Overall, William Hill, with about 2,3000 betting shops in the UK, on March 1 announced group net revenues up 2% to £1.621 billion in the latest financial year, while operating profit slipped 3% to £266.8 million.

William Hill CEO Philip Bowcock said the company has been “first out of the blocks in all states that have regulated sports betting.”

In a statement on the American outlook, the company said: “Through carefully selecting strategic partners and key suppliers in the US we have been able to diversify into all states currently regulating sports betting and have the ability to expand quickly into other states as they regulate.”

As well as having an established brand name in the States through its existing Nevada business (begun in 2012), William Hill became the first business to agree a sponsorship deal with a major American franchise, with the Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL, and it has a similar agreement with the New Jersey Devils of the NBA.

PewDiePie Joins Most Influential Athletes List

Soccer again dominates the list of the most influential athletes in the world on social media in February, according to pioneering spontech research company Hookit, with six active footballers and one retired hero among the top 10, with Lionel Messi back of Barcelona back on top.

Three of the stars play in LaLiga in Spain (for three different teams), two for PSG in France and one for Manchester United.

The exceptions were Tom Brady of the NFL’s New England Patriots, who guided his team to victory in the Super Bowl at the start of the month, MMA champ Conor McPherson… and PewDiePie.

In broadening our view of sport to include digital competition, we also need to adjust our definition of sports personalities, and no one illustrates that better than the Swedish YouTuber, whose real name is Felix Arvid Kjellberg.

Known for his Let’s Play commentaries on video games, PewDiePie recently signed a high-profile endorsement deal with gaming mega-brand GFUEL, which calls itself the “official energy drink of esports.”

Formula 1 To Speak At iSportconnect’s 2019 Broadcast Masterclass

iSportconnect is pleased to announce that Yath Gangakumaran, Director of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Formula 1, will be speaking at our 2019 Broadcast Masterclass on Thursday 4th April. The event will be held at Fieldfisher in the City of London, and will bring together senior level executives in the industry to focus on new ways for media companies, rights owners and technology partners to prosper, thrive and grow as the digital revolution continues to disrupt the sports broadcasting market.

Yath leads the Corporate Strategy and Business Development department at Formula 1, providing long term strategic direction for the sport as it undertakes a fundamental shift in approach to better engage fans around the world. The remit is extremely broad, covering all aspects of the organisation from Commercial and Motorsports to Corporate projects. Example Strategy projects include developing the plans to grow in key target markets, assessing prospective race locations and determining new formats for racing. On the Business Development side, his team creates new initiatives that provide incremental commercial return for Formula 1, such as the unique MIT business conference partnership.

Prior to Formula 1, Yath was a Senior Strategist at Sky Sports working on channel development, sports rights assessments and business development. He was also a Strategist at Channel 4 and began his career at professional services organisation, PwC, as a Strategy Consultant advising media and sports organisations on corporate strategy and commercial due diligence.

With a maximum of 150 invite-only delegates, iSportconnect provides a media/agency free opportunity to network with influential senior-level sports business executives. We are famous for our intimate and relaxed environment, encouraging ideas exchange and helping to introduce you to the right new connections.

To register your interest in attending the 2019 Broadcast Masterclass, please contact Chloe McCombie at info@isportconnect.com

Invitation Policy: The Broadcast Masterclass is a complimentary event for iSportconnect members who are from governing bodies, sports teams, brands and broadcasters. There is no fee to become an iSportconnect member. No sports agencies, professional service providers & suppliers are allowed.

For limited partnership opportunities, please contact Hugo Millns at info@isportconnect.com

 

Tokyo 2020 Sets Strict No Smoking Policy

All the venues for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be 100 percent smoke-free, the organisers announced yesterday.

At most sporting venues in Japan, there are designated areas for smokers to use but this will not be the case at Tokyo 2020.

“Based on the development of the law and regulations and guidance from the IOC, Tokyo 2020 has decided to adopt a stricter non-smoking policy to protect the health and safety of athletes, spectators and officials,” the organisers said in a statement.

A similar policy to that enacted during the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

Unlike at London 2012 and Rio 2016, there will not even be designated smoking areas outside of venues.

In 1964, the last time Tokyo hosted the Summer Games, the event actually had a tobacco sponsor, and one cigarette brand even featured the Olympic rings on its packet.

In his book Olympic Turnaround, former IOC Marketing Director Michael Payne recounted that “one of the most successful licensed Olympic products ever produced” was the Olympias brand of cigarettes,designed to generate funds to support the organisation of the 1964 Tokyo Games. Olympias generated over $1 million in revenues for the Organising Committee.

Payne wrote: “A popular Japanese cigarette brand, Peace, ran a promotion where each package was sold with a numbered premium ticket. This entitled anyone drawing a winning ticket to claim a prize of a further 365 packs. Even back in the 1960s, marketers realized that the Olympic rings could draw consumers’ attention to a product. Every packet of Peace cigarettes, carried the Olympic emblem.”

Juventus Enjoys Jump In Product Sales

Merchandising revenues have soared for Juventus in the first half of the 2018-19 financial year, in the first season with Cristiano Ronaldo in black and white.

Income from products and licenses was €26,51 million, up 81% over the same period in the previous year.

However, the cost of products rose by even more, according to Calcio e Finanza.

Juventus paid €12.18 million for products to sell in its retail outlets and online, an increase of 107% on the comparable period last year.

Juventus and Inter Milan are neck and neck in terms of sponsorship revenues generated during the first six months of the 2018-19 financial year.

Juventus took in €61.4 million in sponsorship and advertising, up 42% from the first half of 2017-2018.

Inter earned €60.7 million (via Inter Media and Communications), up 41%.

During the period, Inter’s revenue included €5.3 million from main sponsor Pirelli and €5.0 million from technical sponsor Nike.

New Zealand Denies World League Has Green Light

New Zealand Rugby CEO Steve Tew has said that no plans have been agreed on for the launch of a new international league of rugby nations.

The New Zealand Herald revealed this week that World Rugby has been negotiating the establishment of a 12-team World League to kick off in 2020.

The 12 nations would be the current Six Nations (England, France, Italy, Scotland, Ireland and Wales) and the current Rugby Championship sides of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina, plus Japan and USA, which would be invited to join the Rugby Championship group.

The plan would apparently leave Fiji, Samoa and Tonga out in the cold.

In a statement, Tew said: “World Rugby have been proactive and bought an idea to the table, we have been refining it over several months and a positive spin off has been some real commercial interest in backing it.“

“Having said that nothing has been decided, we have not agreed to anything at this stage and have always been working to the March World Rugby meetings as the next opportunity to discuss the details.”

“There’s no simple solution to this, but New Zealand Rugby remains committed to working through the proposals with the right people in the room.”

Leadership Masterclass: “Let’s Think About How We Make Decisions”

Calculating risk and probabilities is a fundamental part of business and being able to anticipate future trends, or even what’s likely to happen next week, has never been tougher than in these hazy days of Brexit.

For delegates at the first iSportconnect Leadership Masterclass in London next week, all the uncertainty is very much good news. It will give a timely resonance to the presentation by our guest speaker Trevor Charsley, an economist, who is the Senior Markets Advisor at global payment and risk management solutions company, AFEX.

“Are people really aware of the decision-making process and the biases that they have?” he wonders.

That will be a jumping-off point on March 6, when Trevor will share his insights on risk, decision-making and leadership. Without giving too much away, he offers a preview in the video below.

To learn more about the Masterclass, click here.

To sign up for the event, contact Chloe McCombie at info@isportconnect.com

Spain’s Famous Stadiums Are Opening Up To Women’s Football

Athletic Femenino recently broke the record for attendance at a Spanish women’s football match with 48,121 spectators at one of LaLiga’s showcase stadiums.

With encouragement and support from LaLiga, a growing number of clubs across Spain are taking the decision to stage women’s matches inside stadiums typically reserved for the men’s side, with increasingly impressive results.

None more so that San Mamés in Bilbao, where the new attendance record was set on Wednesday 30 January. A total of 48,121 were in the stands to see Athletic Femenino, the sister team of LaLiga’s Athletic Bilbao, take on Atlético Madrid in the Copa de la Reina. This attendance also surpassed anything that the men’s side had achieved up to that point in the LaLiga season.

Speaking after the game, María Tato, Deputy Secretary of Athletic Club, said: “Athletic Club fans want to see women’s football, they want to support women and they understand that it has a home here. We want this match to leave a footprint and start a movement that extends throughout Europe and the rest of the world.”

San Mamés will not be the only major stadium to stage the women’s game for the first time this year. Real Sociedad, another club in the Basque region, opened its Anoeta stadium to its women’s team in February, attracting more than 21,000 spectators.

Espanyol de Barcelona’s RCDE Stadium is also preparing to welcome their women’s team. Their Liga Iberdrola match against Atlético Madrid will be held at the 41,000-capacity venue in mid-April.

To read the full story, click here.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Inside Nike’s New Esports Deal In China

Exclusive report by Lanxiong Sports —

Nike has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with Tencent for its League of Legends Pro League (LPL), becoming one of the head partners of the top esports league.

The partnership was announced today by TJ Sports, a new joint esports venture created in January by Tencent and Riot Games on January 10.

After landing 10 sponsorship deals for the 2019 season including Mercedes-Benz, KFC, L’Oreal, Alienware, LPL signed its first deal with a sports brand.

Details of the deal are not officially disclosed, but sources familiar with it told Lanxiong Sports, the first sports business content provider in China, that Nike will spend around RMB50 million ($7.5 million, including cash and cash equivalents) a year to buy out the apparel rights of all the 16 LPL clubs.

Nike and LPL will share the sales revenue of the Nike products featured LPL elements at a confidential ratio.

A source close to LPL told Lanxiong Sports that other sports apparel companies also considered to acquire the deal with LPL, including Adidas and Chinese sports brand 361°.

Last year, executives of Adidas attended some LPL competitions and met with executives of the Riot Games several times.

TJ Sports was officially established in January, which to some extent dragged the pace of the deal; Second, there were some problems in the process of trademark registration for several LPL clubs and those clubs had to replace a newly-designed logo, which cost time, too.

The deal between Nike and LPL confirms that sports brands are showing willingness to invest real money into the esports market. For LPL itself, the investment from Nike further affirms the value of their esports IP.

With the title of 2018 League of Legends World Championship won by Chinese esports club Invictus Gaming, LPL has obtained an unprecedented influence in the esports community.

According to data revealed by TJ Sports earlier this year, the total viewership of LPL in 2018 climbed 50% to 15 billion, compared with 2017. And the final game of 2018 League of Legends World Championship had  a record 99.6 million viewership.

But in comparison with the huge viewership, the marketing value of esports has still been underestimated. Even the leading clubs in LPL can hardly have a head partner which are willing to give them RMB10 million ($1.5 million)  or more for a club naming rights fee.

Although RMB50 million ($7.5 million) a year cannot be seen as a huge number, compared with RMB300 million ($45 million) a year for the Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL) and RMB180 million ($27 million) a year of Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), it marks progress for the LPL and the esports industry.

The esports league in China, King Pro League (KPL), which is a mobile esports game also published by Tencent, has already signed an apparel sponsorship deal with HLA Jeans.

A source near the deal told Lanxiong Sports that HLA Jeans will pay around RMB10 million ($1.5 million) a year to KPL as equipment sponsor, and the official announcement will be released on the opening day of 2019 season on March 6.

The new Nike-LPL agreement still has some wrinkles to iron out.

Under the deal, all LPL players, coaches and team staff will exclusively wear Nike apparel on game days. This would create an issue for teams with existing apparel partners, or those looking to sign apparel deals in the future.

Edward Gaming (EDG), for example, was partnered with Chinese local sports brand Li-Ning before the 2018 League of Legends World Championship and the partners had the intention of reaching a long-term deal.

But Yang Guang, Director of Marketing of Li-Ning, told Lanxiong Sports in an earlier interview that the company, was aware that it would not be able to sign a sponsorship deal with EDG without violating the contract between Nike and the LPL.

As to the partition of the LPL commercial rights, Lin Song, former head of Riot Games China and current co-CEO of TJ Sports, told Lanxiong Sports in November 2018, that the league was working out a model referring to the mature sports league like NBA and European soccer leagues.

Even in the biggest leagues, the commercial rights in the apparel sector differ from one to the next. For instance, the NBA collectively sold apparel rights to Nike, but clubs in European soccer leagues can independently sign apparel deal with brands.

In October 2018, Nike collaborated on a campaign with LeBron James to promote the basketball star’s upcoming documentary Shut Up & Dribble, which featured Jian “Uzi” Ziha, a player from LPL team Royal Never Give-Up (RNG). Nike has said that was just a simple marketing campaign.

On February 27, the day before the official announcement of the Nike deal, consumers could still find the LPL’s own-branded products on the LOL Official Online Store.

The prices were RMB199 ($30) for a T-shirt, RMB319 ($47) for pants and RMB619 ($93) for coats, relatively low prices compared to the conventional sports apparel. Given that most esports fans are youngsters, whose spending power is questionable, how to price and sell the products are two main concerns for Nike.

According to the official media brochure from TJ Sports, some items of the Nike-LPL products will be put on sale publicly during 2019 LOL Mid-Season Invitation.

As for the official Nike-branded team jersey, we will not see the samples until 2019 League of Legends World Championship, and fans can buy them in 2020.

 

PUMA Deal With City Football Group Is Company’s Biggest Ever

PUMA and City Football Group have signed a global long-term partnership, which will see PUMA supply Melbourne City FC, as well as sister clubs in England, Spain, Uruguay and China.

Starting in July 2019, PUMA will be the official partner of Melbourne City FC, Manchester City FC, FC Girona, Club Atlético Torque and Sichuan Jiuniu FC, supplying all representative teams including men’s, women’s and youth football.

“PUMA’s partnership with City Football Group is the largest deal that we have ever done – both in scope and ambition,” said Bjørn Gulden, CEO of PUMA.

“We are very excited to partner with City Football Group, whose success, ambition and drive for innovation has seen them setting new standards, on and off the field. We look forward to building the most innovative partnership in football by redefining the sports partnership model both on and off the pitch.”

“We want to maximise on-field performance as well as football culture, in areas such as music, gaming and fashion to connect and inspire the fanbase of each team.”

“This announcement marks the start of an exciting new chapter for City Football Group,” said Ferran Soriano, CEO of City Football Group.  “Our relationship with PUMA, covering five City Football Group clubs across four continents, will reset the model for sports partnerships on a truly global scale whilst being locally relevant and authentic for fans around the world.”

“PUMA share our vision for challenging expectations, and we are looking forward to what we believe will be a ground-breaking partnership.”

PUMA and Manchester City are already linked via several player partnerships, including Caroline Weir, Pauline Bremer and Nikita Parris in the Women’s Team in addition to men’s club captain Vincent Kompany, midfielder David Silva and striker Sergio Agüero, who famously scored in the last seconds of City’s final game of the 2011-12 season to clinch the first of three league titles for the club in the modern era.