iSportConnect Sports Tech Partnership Index powered by SportsTech Match – May 2024

Who’s hot in sports tech? Who is doing deals? Who is creating new, innovative partnerships? That’s what the Index attempts to dig into on a monthly basis. Whether established players or the up-and-coming stars, we go a little deeper for you…

For the month of May, SportsTech Match recorded 60 new or renewed deals and partnerships featuring tech companies in sport. The deals recorded in this month’s Index again reflect the diverse use-cases for which partnerships and deals are being formed ranging from fan engagement, and betting data commercialisation to ticketing, and membership management. 

Topping the partnerships index for May was Fanbase, the fan engagement platform that continues to sign new clubs at the non premium end of sport (all five reported deals were with UK football clubs). 

AI video production continues to hold as a central theme with Playsight (AI automated production company specialising in racket sports) second in this month’s Index, and Magnifi (AI automated video highlights creation), both reporting multiple new partnerships in May.

The membership management (and related services) sector continues to be active, reflected in new deals and partnerships, largely with national governing bodies for etrainu, Sport:80 and Stack Sports (via their GameDay brand), as does the ticketing sector (four ticketing companies announced more than one partnership / deal in May).

Want to get access to the full and ‘near-live’ Tech Feed that drives the index?

The data powering the SportsTech Partnership Index derives from SportsTech Match’s automated, daily Tech Feed. It’s the first and only feed dedicated to sports tech partnerships from around the world designed to help tech companies and rights owners stay on top of the deals and partnerships being struck across the ecosystem. 

Contact info@sportstechmatch if you would like to get early access to the feed and, for tech companies, to make sure that your announcements are being included in our monthly Index. 

Stats Perform becomes ICC’s Official Data Partner until 2027

Global sports data, live streaming and AI pioneer Stats Perform today announced it has secured the rights to exclusively collect and distribute official data and live streams for the ICC to licensed betting operators around the world.

The new partnership, starting from the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, sees Stats Perform once again serve as the exclusive global distributor of official data and live video streams for all major men’s and women’s ICC events, adding to its existing premium portfolio of rights in cricket. It includes the ICC T20 Men’s and Women’s World Cups, Men’s and Women’s Cricket World Cups, ICC Champions Trophy, and the ICC World Test Championship Final.

In recent years Stats Perform has won multiple awards for its state-of-the art, premium sports data and live streaming innovations driven by OptaAI. Its official rights portfolio has also expanded to reinforce Stats Perform’s position as the unrivalled leading supplier of premium sports content, critical to fuelling growth for the wider professional global sports industry and fanbase.

Stats Perform will provide a comprehensive range of services for the ICC events to its wide portfolio of licensed betting operator partners, including real-time ball-by-ball match data and low latency video streams.

The deal reaffirms Stats Perform’s unwavering commitment to enabling licensed operators to deliver top-tier sports entertainment to bettors around the world.

ICC Chief Commercial Officer, Anurag Dahiya said: “We are delighted to reunite with Stats Perform, and have been impressed by the way their recent AI-powered innovations have triggered new growth for the sports industry. We hope the partnership is another important step in enhancing the digital consumption of cricket content globally.”

“Stats Perform is delighted to be working with the ICC again, reinforcing our dedication to collecting and providing the highest quality sports data and live streams to licensed betting operators across the globe,” said Alex Rice, CCO of Stats Perform. “We pioneered live streaming for betting, we know betting operators trust our sports data to provide the best experiences for them and their users. We look forward to leveraging our cutting-edge technology and extensive expertise to bring the thrill of ICC cricket to an even wider audience, ensuring that they enjoy the most engaging and reliable experience possible.”

National euphoria: how ambush marketing succeeds in sport – and its legal pitfalls

Every brand and its dog will want to take advantage of the packed sporting summer. David Granger, director of Arc & Foundry Creative looks at the upsides and potential downsides of following the hype.

There’s an excellent advert for soft drink Irn-Bru doing the social rounds which declares an unusual state of uncontrolled optimism in Scotland. It features a Scot and a German discussing the national side or mannschaft as they’d say in Munich, Berlin or Hamburg. It doesn’t mention a football tournament, but clearly it’s an allusion to the match scheduled for June 14, the opening game of Euros 24. (Barr, the manufacturer mention the Euros in its PR.) 

It’s a fair way away from the strict restrictions which are supposedly in place, and arguably, despite being a great piece of marketing, does devalue official partners’ and sponsors’ investment. Back in the day, the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg had to temporarily remove all the spectator seating which coloured the Red Bull logo because the Euros 2008, co-hosted by Austria and Germany, was sponsored by, well… a rival drinks firm which (ironically) had red as its main brand colour.

We also had a very (very) strict blackout during any IOC event to ensure Red Bull athletes, ambassadors and their content were not seen in any way to conflict with the four-yearly games. And we had a brilliant – but strict and frankly terrifying – chief counsel ensure we stuck to the letter and the spirit of those restrictions. 

People have been trying it on for years though. Who can forget the orange dresses of the Bavarian Beer-backed ladies at the Netherlands v Denmark game in the 2010 World Cup? Or the customised Beats headphones worn by athletes at the 2012 Olympics in London? Or when Puma had giant inflatables made of their v1.06 football boots during the 2006 World Cup placed around Germany? Well, perhaps not the last one, but it still kicked up a fuss. FIFA issued warnings and tightened both monitoring and enforcement. As they did in 2010 which led to some debate over whether they were being slightly over-bearing on Bavarian Beer ladies in the orange dresses

Fast forward to 2024 and there are websites upon blogs upon websites upon LinkedIn thought-leadership pieces outlining the “marketing opportunities” for non-official sponsors.

This opportunity/propensity to flout the regulations is partly, if not wholly down to the way media has changed, even since 2010. You don’t need to get all dressed up in orange to guerilla your way on to people’s screens. There will be a rash of social campaigns which take advantage of the hope, euphoria and, yes, uncontrolled optimism running through the fans’ veins this summer. 

The flip side is two-fold. Firstly, as mentioned it does devalue to a certain extent the investment from the official partners and sponsors, but secondly there is a massive potential for legal action against those who blatantly decide to hijack the bandwagon. 

One of the best descriptions of how the legal case works is provided by global law firm Taylor Wessing. In a post which should be read by every marketing manager, partnership manager and sporting federation, they outline how ambush marketing is done by either association or intrusion. The first, association, is “a coordinated attempt by a brand to associate itself, directly or indirectly, with a major event and/or its participants, as a marketing strategy, without permission.” Intrusion is “direct marketing within official events themselves, without prior authorisation” like the Bavarian Beer ladies. 

And the fines for brands caught out are not insignificant.

So… the laws still stand, the risks are still being taken by brands, but the rewards to piggy-back a nation’s success on the sports field remain. And on occasion, it makes for great marketing, as well as potential future legal case studies. In the meantime, enjoy the Irn-Bru advert and their celebration of uncontrolled Scottish optimism:

Sportfive partners Magnifi to showcase ASEAN football

SPORTFIVE, one of the world’s leading sports marketing agencies, has selected Magnifi, an AI-powered highlight generation platform, to assist with its social content solutions for the coverage of two premier tournaments in the ASEAN Football calendar, the Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2024 and the Shopee Cup 2024/2025.

With Magnifi, SPORTFIVE can auto-generate highlights of players from these events, as well as integrate its brand partners into highlight videos from the tournaments with the push of a button. SPORTFIVE also can resize and distribute this content over two dozen social channels, all in the ideal dimensions of each platform.

SPORTFIVE had previously appointed Magnifi as its social content solution provider for the AFF U-23 Championships in 2023.

“SPORTFIVE’s renewal is the ultimate vote of confidence,” said Vinayak Shrivastava, the CEO of Magnifi. “It affirms that Magnifi provides lasting value to the largest teams, franchises, and brands across all sports. Their choice strengthens our resolve to continue innovating and elevating our AI-based video editor so that businesses keep enhancing the productivity, efficiency, and creativity of sports coverage.”

Gender gap is narrowing in Gen Z adult sports engagement, says report

The gap between female and male engagement in sport is narrowing, with Gen Z adult female engagement figures on the rise, according to the EY Sports Engagement Index.

The EY survey of over 4,000 UK adults uses comparative data to identify engagement levels across a range of sports by measuring the number of adults actively participating, following a sport on TV, online, or social media, or attending sporting events.

Most recent analysis of the data from the first edition of the Index suggest that almost half (49%) of females in the UK engage with sports in some form. When broken down by demographic, it found that 66% of Gen Z adult females (18–24 year-olds) are engaging with sport compared with 79% of Gen Z males. In comparison, female figures for the aged 55 years+ demographic sit at only 37% compared to 66% for males, indicating that the gender gap is closing with the younger generation. If this trend continues as the Gen Z demographic matures, this could represent a significant shift in the sporting landscape.

In the UK alone, the Index suggests that 13 million women either follow, participate in, or attend some form of sport, compared to 18 million men. Female engagers are also becoming very important contributors to most of the UK’s top 20 sports. For example, they constitute over a third of the engagement base in football and nearly 30% in sports like Formula 1 and Rugby Union.

Female engagers are also a key driving force behind endurance and lifestyle sports like running, with women comprising 39% of running’s engagement base. Cycling (36%) and racquet sports such as tennis (44%) and badminton (46%) also have high levels of female engagers. Women also dominate the demographics in wellness sports (64%) and gymnastics (72%), defining these activities’ direction and popularity.

There are only a few sports that are not yet fully resonating with female engagers. Despite strong engagement from their core fanbase, sports like cricket, snooker, and Formula E have fewer than 20% female engagers. Other sports such as MMA, American football, boxing and weightlifting are also heavily male driven with females making up 25% of their engagement base or less.

Young female adults are shifting the trends in sports engagement

Football, badminton, dancing, Formula 1 and basketball come out on top with female Gen Z adults. When compared to the total female engagement base, badminton, dancing, basketball and boxing move up the rankings, pushing cycling, rugby union, wellness sports and tennis lower down the list with the Gen Z adult engagers.

Table 1: EY Sports Engagement Index – Top 10 female engager rankings

Top 10 sports by size of total female engagement base Top 10 sports by size of Gen Z females only engagement base
Football1Football
Running2Badminton
Formula 13Dancing
Tennis4Formula 1
Cycling5Basketball
Rugby Union6Running
Wellness Sports7Tennis
Gymnastics8Rugby League
Rugby League9Gymnastics
Dancing10Boxing

Participation is an important element of the female sports engagement narrative. The Index shows that amongst the top 20 sports for female engagement, 11 are also leaders in female participation. Female participation often focuses on sports with low barriers to entry like running, cycling, hiking, wellness, aerobics and dancing. These are all accessible sports, with physical health benefits, many of which also foster community experiences. By contrast, few traditional team sports rank highly on the female participation charts, with netball as the exception.

Tal Hewitt, Sports Strategy Lead at EY-Parthenon, said: “The latest analysis from the Sports Engagement Index suggests that Gen Z behaviour is markedly different to other demographics. Our understanding of Gen Z leads us to believe that it’s possible more of these younger female engagers will remain engaged with sport as they mature. Over time this is likely to impact not only how sports need to engage with their fan bases, but also which sports will top the leaderboards in terms of popularity.

“Sports organisations must recognise and adapt to the needs of their current and future female audience to avoid being left behind. By nurturing female participation, attendance and followership, they can ensure that this vibrant fanbase continues to grow and evolve, retaining engagement throughout women’s lives, and ultimately, reshaping the industry for decades to come.”

Women’s sports are helping to attract female engagers, but are currently driven by male engagement

Women’s sports are helping to shift the dial in female engagement figures, but there is still progress to be made. According to the Index, men currently drive most of the engagement with women’s sporting formats, except for cycling, gymnastics, badminton and skiing. Cycling and badminton’s women’s formats show the highest gender shift of all the sports considered, as both pivot from being male driven for the male format to female driven for the female format.

Women’s sporting formats in cricket, Rugby Union and boxing are particularly male driven. However, of the three, boxing appears to be the most successful in attracting a higher proportion of female followers to its women’s format.

Given the high degree of focus recently on women’s football, it is also interesting to note that only 40% of its engagers are women, albeit this is a higher number than for men’s football, where women only make up 34% of the engagement base.

Furthermore, the Index highlights the importance of mixed gender formats in driving participation. This is particularly true for tennis and badminton, with 17% of tennis engagers only engaging in the mixed format of the sport.

Tom Kingsley, Sports Industry Group Leader at EY, said: “If sports attempt to properly understand female sports engagers, they can better serve, grow, and monetise this engagement base more successfully. Sports, such as tennis, that successfully engage a female fanbase not only give themselves a larger market to target, but a better chance of winning when competing for family time, attention and budget. By doing so, they also extend their appeal to a broader range of commercial partners.

“Understanding the opportunities that lie within the female sports engagement population, including the evolution of women’s sporting formats and the new trends being set by Gen Z, will help to plan for future growth and engagement strategies. Ignoring these shifts could mean missing out on substantial segments of the audience poised to shape the future of sports.”

Puma inks global partnership with Hyrox

Global sports company PUMA, has announced a worldwide partnership with HYROX, the world series of fitness racing. The partnership sees PUMA become the official apparel and footwear partner for all HYROX races from 2024 to 2027.

PUMA has been a local partner to HYROX since the first ever race, held in Hamburg in 2018 with 600 competitors taking part. PUMA’s new worldwide partnership is testament to the global success of HYROX, which has seen more than 175,000 participants compete in over 65 races during the 2023/24 season.

The global partnership will see PUMA develop a full range of HYROX apparel, utilising its innovative Cloudspun technology that features dryCELL moisture-wicking properties. PUMA will also release bespoke HYROX colourways of existing footwear models, including the award-winning Velocity NITRO™ 3, Deviate NITRO™ 3 and Deviate NITRO™ Elite 3 – enhancing HYROX competitor performance during one of the most well-rounded tests of fitness on earth.

Commenting on the announcement, PUMA CEO Arne Freundt said: “Fitness has found a new dimension in HYROX and we are delighted to start the next chapter in the PUMA and HYROX story, bringing the exciting sport of fitness racing to an even broader audience.

PUMA and HYROX have been pioneering the sport for more than six years at a local level, and as the community grows, we will continue to work in collaboration to identify innovative ways to engage consumers and revolutionise the fitness experience for competitors across the globe.“

HYROX Founder and CEO, Christian Toetzke, said “This is the natural partnership for HYROX. PUMA has been on this journey with us since the start, and we are delighted that a brand with performance at its heart, across multiple sporting disciplines, will continue to innovate and support us as we build the global sport of fitness racing. We believe this style of training and competition is the optimal solution for the global training community and PUMA will be a fantastic partner to help us continue to spread and amplify that message over the coming years.”

View From Asia: “The 2024 TATA IPL Report Card”

In his latest View From Asia column, Unmish Parthasarathi, the Singapore-based Founder of Picture Board Partners, Monetisation & Communications practice, shares insights from the recently concluded Indian Premier League.

The 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (officially called TATA IPL 2024) ended recently with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) winning their third title.

For the under initiated, the IPL’s a cricket tournament played every March-May in India, involving 10 privately owned clubs who play 74-matches over eight weeks in over a dozen cities across India. Founded in 2008, the match format of the IPL is the Twenty20 – a shortened, three-hour version of the traditional one-day (six hour) 50-over format that was pioneered by the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003.

The IPL’s the most successful Twenty20 event in the world, with the best talent in the world on show – financed and fueled by media rights values that have exponentially grown to a 10x multiple since inception.

To give a European, or even global context, the IPL, as a commercial success, is akin to the English Premier League; the world’s most successful domestic football league.

The IPL’s media rights have grown 20% YoY with each match in the current cycle worth $15 Mn – the second highest globally, after the NFL, and exceeding the English Premier League (which admittedly has 5x the match volumes and a nine-month season duration compared to the two-month IPL)

A “back of the envelope” economic analysis of the IPL and the EPL (launched in 1992, a decade and a half before the IPL) stacks up to a ‘Perfect Storm’ scenario in both cases. For example, much like the EPL, the IPL has also consistently grown on the back of a media rights deal that financed access to the best talent, which further improved the product and set in motion a compounding effect.

In both cases, we have the confluence of a young audience, a TV friendly event format in an already popular sport with mass appeal, a smart group of administrators, ambitious media platforms in the Pay-TV and OTT space, and economic tailwinds. This creates a “must have” juggernaut with a proven product market fit that enjoys a loyal audience and high barriers to entry (or moats in investor speak!) for challengers.

In sum, my #TopFiveTakeaways from the 17th IPL are

1. Sponsorships

Also referred to as brand partnerships and different from TV ad buys, Sponsorships felt some head winds in 2024. 

The most frequently mentioned reason is the drying up of venture capital fueled marketing spends of recent years. Occasional references were also made to the elections coinciding, an occasion that saw over half a billion people voting in six weeks (April 19th-June 1st). 

But this is only half the answer since both on-ground and on jersey spends in Sport facing head winds is a global phenomena. It’s due mainly to being an analogue sales entitlement that doesn’t meet the digital and data related needs of the brand marketers. 

This is a global trend that is making its presence felt in India for the order time, and has been revealing as the tide went out on frothy, near-zero interest rate capital funding marketing budgets.

2. TV/OTT Media Consumptions

This year’s report card is a complex read of the tea leaves. 

For context, the 2023 season was the first year of a new media rights deal that sold two packages – concurrently – of broadcast and streaming. Back then, the respective winners of both these platform rights – Disney Star Sports and Reliance Jio – had been competitors. In January 2024, less than three months before the second season of the current year deal, the two platforms merged in a cash & stock deal for the Mouse House. 

In addition, the larger fact often ignored is that Reliance Jio, the dominant 4G telco with 400 Mn subscribers has marketed the IPL “for free” – or no subscriptions. This does not get away from that the telco makes it money from data. Hence the richer or more dense the video, the more data consumed on a per second basis. Upgrading the host broadcast to 4K, a video format that needs more bandwidth on streaming, was a smart move that’s been under player but very remunerative.

3. Host Broadcast Production 

Speaking of host broadcasting in 4K, what remains consistent with the IPL’s host broadcasts is its continued focus to place Fandom front & center. 

Disney Star Sports and Jio Cinema engaged over 150 commentators, notably 20% female, in a dozen languages across English, Hindi and 10 regional vernaculars (Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Haryanvi). 

Jio Cinema also provided multi camera views for the fan to choose points of view to their liking as one more of a long list of featured functionalities that have empowered the fan community to remain engaged during and outside the live match window. 

Localisation by language at this scale has never been done before. Anecdotal evidence suggests its impact goes beyond sports consumption. The mass market appeal of the IPL, concentrated by the prime time telecast slots of 80% of the matches, has led to Bollywood – the Indian Hindi language cinema industry that’s second to Cricket in popularity and income – is now reticent to launch movies in the March to May window! 

4. Talent Takes Center Stage

The IPL’s ability to attract the best global talent – on and off the pitch – has been enabled by budgets are fixed for all franchises but growing proportionally as a function of the ballooning media rights dividends. 

The 2024 was especially notable for a new trend – a former winning captain proving himself as adept off the field as he had been on it. Gautam Gambhir, who twice led KKR to IPL titles, returned to the Calcutta franchise as Mentor and made two telling calls. First, he paid a record $3 Mn fee for Mitchell Starc; the Aussie showed his big match temperament to be Man of the Final. Gambhir then got West Indian Sunil Narine – who was more known for his bowling – to open the batting which had a devastatingly positive set of consequences!

The IPL has also been known to surface talent, and especially for players from non Indian countries who make a mark in India before being picked for their national team. Australia’s David Warner was the first instance of this trend a decade ago, who played in the IPL before donning the Baggy Green cap. 

The 2024 edition will be remembered for three other non-Indian players who announced themselves on the international stage. Jake Fraser-McGurk, a 22-year old Aussie was a late replacement, who scored 330 runs at a strike rate of 234. Tristan Stubbs, a 23-year-old South African, with a bargain purchase price of $60,000, was the tournament’s top finisher with a “final overs” strike rate of 297!!! And, 25-year-old Will Jacks secured a place with England for the ICC Twenty20 tournament, being played this month in Caribbean and US, with explosive performances that helped his IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore, make the play-offs. 

5. Format Changes | Player Substitution

The IPL needs to be credited for its many firsts.

These include promoting a plethora of female talent on-air as commentary, from almost a decade ago, in 2016. It’s expanded into vernacular language commentary for over half a billion who their Mother Tongue to English or even Hindi. It’s invested in Fan Parks, that visited 50 Indian cities besides the 14 that hosted IPL matches 

In over a decade of innovation, there seems to have been only one step that has been remiss – the Impact Player concept.

Introduced in 2023, the Impact Player option is meant to enhance Jeopardy – a key ingredient that makes Sport akin to unscripted drama, with its own plot lines and characters. All teams are allowed to make one substitution so long as he’s an Indian player unless less than the maximum quota of four overseas players has been used.

Public comments from last and present India captains suggests that the Impact Player concept may need to be revisited. The rationale being that, substitutions, in Cricket, reduces – rather than elevates – the degree of jeopardy unlike making the competition more intense as substitutions do in Football, Basketball or Rugby.

Either way, the IPL juggernaut promises to roll on and remain a success – on and off the field. In addition, its women’s edition, that preceded the men’s event by a month, enjoyed a strong second season – another positive trend that Cricket, not only in India but globally, shares with Football (Soccer).

Red Bull buys a minority stake in the Leeds United Football Club

Leeds United Football Club has signed a new multi-year agreement with Red Bull, making them the club’s front of shirt partner starting next season.

Red Bull will be joining forces with Leeds United reinforces the international popularity and significance of the club. Beginning in the 2024/2025 season, Leeds United will feature Red Bull branding on the front of Leeds United men’s and women’s first team kits. Red Bull will also become the club’s Exclusive Energy Drink Partner with branding featured inside Elland Road and during the club’s official media appearances.

“I am thrilled that Red Bull is joining us to build a bright future for Leeds United and shares our deep respect for this truly special club,” said Paraag Marathe, Chairman of Leeds United. “As Chairman, our consortium of investment partners will be invaluable to me as we approach this important moment for the club, now and into the future. Red Bull’s addition is a historic milestone that will further empower the club to reach its full competitive potential.”

“We are delighted to be an important element and partner of Leeds United. A club that is certainly one of the biggest in England and has a rich and successful history. The ambition to bring Leeds United back to the Premier League and establish themselves in the best football league in the world fits very well with Red Bull. We look forward to the partnership and are optimistic and energized about the future“, said Oliver Mintzlaff, Red Bull CEO Corporate Projects and Investments.

The deal brings in new commercial revenues as well as additional capital investment for a minority ownership stake that will further enable the club to compete on and off the pitch as the club seek promotion next season. The name and logo of Leeds United Football Club will remain unchanged.

View From The US: DOJ’s Ticketmaster-Live Nation Case Has Seats For Sports Fans

In this View From The US piece, Michael McCann , Legal Analyst and Senior Sports Legal Reporter of Sportico explains more about the US Department of Justice’s latest decision to breakdown on Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

The U.S. Department of Justice, 29 states and the District of Columbia sued Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, Thursday in the Southern District of New York, accusing the companies of wielding monopolistic power to thwart competition in the sale of tickets. The government seeks the separation of Live Nation from Ticketmaster, which until merging with Live Nation in 2010 was a rival.

While the bulk of the allegations center on the concert business, the sports-ticketing market plays a role in the antitrust case.

Most of the alleged misconduct concerns tickets and venues in the entertainment industry, especially in how concertgoers buy tickets and pay accompanying fees. The Justice Department accuses Live Nation and Ticketmaster of using what it depicts as monopolistic market power. The company wields that power, per the DOJ, to deny the rise of potential competitors; acquire rivals before they pose a genuine threat; cause venues to lose “concerts, revenue and fans” if they don’t pick Live Nation and Ticketmaster as promotion and ticketing services; and compel venues to sign long-term exclusive contracts that cuts off business with rivals.

The sports industry and the rights of sports fans mainly surface when the DOJ depicts Live Nation and Ticketmaster as wielding excessive control and exhibiting conflicts of interest as “promoter, ticketer, venue owner and artist manager.”

To that point, the DOJ views sports teams’ season ticket policies as key to understanding Live Nation’s “tentacles” in the primary ticketing services market. In this market, Live Nation allegedly harms “artists, venues, and fans” by suppressing competition.

Primary ticketers for major concert venues, the DOJ underscores, often “must provide support for distributing a team’s season tickets” when that venue also hosts sporting events. In other words, the sale of tickets to live concerts is linked to the sale of tickets to games.

As Sportico explained Monday, the DOJ has previously expressed concerns about the role of Ticketmaster and the sale of tickets to games given that venues are expected to bundle sports and concert tickets. This is not an isolated phenomenon; in 2010 the DOJ claimed that 66 major concert venues hosted pro teams, including those that sell season tickets.

Through Ticketmaster, Live Nation is described in Thursday’s complaint as a monopoly in primary ticketing services for major concert venues. In 2022, Ticketmaster allegedly accounted for “at least 70% of total face value associated with all tickets sold at large arenas and amphitheaters,” with no rival ticketing more than 14%. The DOJ contends Live Nation uses this power to “threaten and retaliate” against venues that don’t agree to its terms.

This alleged conduct, the DOJ insists, amounts to a violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. That provision bars illegal monopolies, with the Justice Department arguing that Live Nation threatens to divert live music shows to other venues, delay the sale of secondary tickets and refuse to publicize shows when a venue uses a competing ticketer.

The complaint contains other allegations of unlawful activity, including through exclusive dealing. There are 27 total claims, most of which are brought by states under their antitrust laws. A jury trial is sought, monetary and injunctive relief demanded.

The sports industry and fans who like to attend games could have sizable stakes in the outcome of the case. The DOJ suggests that should it prevail, the sale of tickets would become more competitive, leading to lower prices, fewer fees and better customer service.

But the DOJ’s arguments will be aggressively challenged by Live Nation’s attorneys. As a preview of legal defenses, Live Nation issued a statement Thursday blasting the complaint as betraying basic logic and ignoring economic realities. The company says the DOJ might gain a “PR win” by calling Ticketmaster a monopoly, but empirical evidence shows “the bulk of service fees go to venues” and that “competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit.”

Live Nation’s portrayal of facts suggests that if the DOJ wins, consumers, artists and venues would be worse off. Entertainment services—including sports—would be reshaped by a court in ways that might prove haphazard and inconsistent with the market.

Expect the case to last years unless a settlement is reached.

The Raine Group and Deloitte to work as financial advisors for ECB to attract investments

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has confirmed the advisory team who will support the game’s efforts to attract private investment into the eight teams in The Hundred.

Entering its fourth season, The Hundred has brought new fans into cricket, attracted more women and children, brought significant revenue into the game, and given young home-grown cricketers experience of performing on the biggest stage.

Given the context of the global cricketing landscape, and the significance of The Hundred as an important source of the revenue which funds English and Welsh cricket at every level, it will play a vital role in the future of our sport.

The ECB has consulted extensively with its members over recent months, and they have been supportive of the direction of travel for seeking private investment into the eight teams. The ambition is to seek partners with the expertise to help take the competition to the next level, while ensuring any investment benefits the whole of the game.

The ECB will continue working closely and collaboratively with its members through the process, including finalising how proceeds will be distributed among the First-Class Counties, MCC and the recreational game.

The Raine Group and Deloitte will work together as financial advisors on the process to secure private investment into teams in The Hundred.

The Raine Group, a global merchant bank within the sports, media, entertainment and technology sectors, will be the lead advisor on the transaction process, including sourcing partners and negotiating investment terms and structure.

Deloitte will be providing strategic advice to the ECB throughout the transaction process in respect of proposed team investments. Deloitte’s Sports Business Group has advised on some of the sport industry’s most ambitious M&A transactions and are renowned for their work supporting the long-term growth and financial sustainability of sporting organisations.

Latham & Watkins and Onside Law LLP will act as legal co-counsel. Latham & Watkins recently led on the sale of Manchester United and Dorna (MotoGP), and the acquisitions of Chelsea FC and a minority stake in Liverpool FC. The firm regularly advises on investments, strategic partnerships, commercial agreements, and regulatory issues across global sport, including in football, rugby, motorsport, fight sports, tennis, and the major US sports.

Onside Law LLP is the long-standing primary legal services provider to the ECB and a market-leading sports law firm with unrivalled knowledge and experience of the sector.

ECB Director of Business Operations Vikram Banerjee, who is leading the process on behalf of ECB and the wider game, said: “We have identified this moment as the opportunity to take The Hundred to the next level while capitalising on the global interest in the competition to underpin the structure of the whole domestic game.

“The opportunity to engage new global strategic partners will help us unlock the future potential of The Hundred. We will be looking to engage the very best in world sport to grow The Hundred into a competition which can benefit the whole of cricket for years to come.

“With proceeds from any investment going direct to the recreational and the county game, it will support the other parts of cricket which are so cherished by fans and players alike and play an important role in identifying and developing talent.

“We are delighted to have appointed an advisory team with the experience, nous and ability to ensure any deals that are brokered are the right ones for the sport. The Raine Group, Deloitte, Latham & Watkins and Onside Law LLP will be valuable partners and advisors as we take this step forward as a game.”