Debbie Hockley, buy former New Zealand captain, has been appointed President of New Zealand Cricket for the next three years.
Hockey replaces outgoing president Stephen Boock after being nominated for the role by Canterbury Cricket during the board’s Annual General Meeting in Christchurch on Wednesday.
The appointment makes Hockley the first female president of the 122-year-old cricket board.
Ingrid Cronin-Knight was also elected as the new director of the body.
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The National Football League (NFL) has expanded its partnership with YouTube and Google Daydream View and to produce an original nine-part virtual reality series.
The content will be produced by NFL Films and will offer a 360-degree perspective of life in and and around the NFL including players, asthma coaches, there executives, unhealthy cheerleaders and fans and how these stakeholders prepare for a gameday.
The VR content will be free and will be available to watch via the YouTube NFL channel on Thanksgiving Day later this month.
“We are always looking for new ways to engage with our fans. Virtual reality is an emerging platform that enables content experiences with a truly unique vantage point that brings fans closer to the game,” said Vishal Shah, Senior Vice President, Digital Media at the NFL. “It’s an exciting new medium to explore as we look to evolve and grow our offerings, and this partnership with Google is an important step in that direction.”
The NFL Films series is currently in production and being shot using Jump, Google’s 360-degree camera and capture system. In the first episode of the series, viewers will spend a week with the Philadelphia Eagles defensive line as they prepare for the upcoming matchup and gain exclusive access to the Eagles bench and sideline on game day. Other episodes will give viewers the opportunity to tag along with the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders, experience the distinctive football culture in Green Bay, and take a unique look inside the San Diego Chargers organization, to name a few.
“This series will give fans an opportunity to connect with the NFL like never before, whether they are on YouTube or using Google’s virtual reality headset, Daydream View,” said Amit Singh, Vice President, Google VR. “We’re thrilled to work with the NFL to capture the series with Jump and bring it to YouTube and Daydream.”
“NFL Films has always been known for telling great football stories and capturing the emotional essence of our sport,” said Ross Ketover, Senior Executive at NFL Films. “Now using Google VR technology, there’s potential to do that in a whole new way and we’re excited to bring that perspective to our fans.”
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Chinese technology company Alibaba has announced it is launching a new digital media group, erectile with $1.5bn to spend on new projects.
The deal would mean that Alibaba consolidates all of its media activities under the new Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group, including music, games, video service Youku Tudou, movies arm Alibaba Pictures Group and other digital properties in one unit.
In February, Alibaba bought a 4% stake in South Korean music company SM Entertainment, and unveiled its Alibaba Planet music social networking platform in April.
Yu Yongfu, former chief executive of UCWeb, will become the chairman and chief executive of the new group, reporting directly to Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang.
Youku Tudou chairman and chief executive Victor Koo will chair the Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Strategy and Investment Committee, which will manage the planned fund for the new digital media group.
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The PGA TOUR continued its commitment to growing the game of golf in Asia with the formation of an office in Tokyo and the hiring of Masashi Ishii as Vice President and Managing Director. Ishii, advice a Japan native, is a well-known sports executive who will guide the PGA TOUR’s Japan office’s activities as it increases the TOUR’s business efforts in the country and region.
Ishii previously had been serving as President of the Jupiter Golf Network since 2010, overseeing all aspects of that company’s golf entertainment distribution. Jupiter Golf Network, a PGA TOUR rights holder and broadcaster of PGA TOUR tournaments for more than two decades, is the flagship channel of Jupiter Telecommunications Inc., a company where Ishii has worked for the last 15 years. Prior to joining Jupiter Telecommunications, Ishii coordinated broadcasting rights for golf and tennis properties for IMG Media between 1996 and 2001.
“Japan has always been an important market for golf, and the PGA TOUR sees this as the right time for us to increase our commitment in a country that is rich in golf tradition,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem. “We have been involved in Japan with our television rights for a long time, and several of our partners are Japanese companies. When we look back on the 2001 World Cup at Taiheyo Club in Gotemba City, we consider it one of the great successes we’ve enjoyed in Japan. With golf’s return to the Olympics, and the Summer Games scheduled for Tokyo in 2020, this is an ideal time for us to continue working with all our stakeholders as we grow golf in Japan.
“Bringing in Masa is an important first step,” Finchem continued, “and employing his expertise to oversee our efforts is a critical part of what we’re trying to accomplish. I am thrilled that Masa has agreed to guide our team in Japan.”
With the opening of this office, the PGA TOUR will also work closely with the Japan Golf Tour Organization as the two tours continue to help strengthen the game in Japan.
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New sports don’t come up often, and when they do they can take years to reach TV screens. Which makes the rise of the Drone Racing League, who have just signed TV deals with Sky, ESPN and 7Sports, even more remarkable. The movement only started in 2012, just four years later a pro league with a substantial TV deal is in place.
Arguably it’s the first new sport to arise off the back of a new technology, only Formula-e could claim to come close.
CEO and founder of the Drone Racing League (DRL) Nicholas Horbaczewski thinks that drone racing is the first of many to come.
“We think there’s a whole new robotic sports revolution coming and that technology-enabled sports will become increasingly common.” said Horbaczewski. “E-Sports has done a good job in changing public perception of what a technology-enabled sport means and what it can look like. People said it couldn’t work 5-6 years ago, and now we see e-sports as a major business – it’s a huge sport with tens of millions of fans around the world. Part of the rise in drone racing is that technology crosses language and culture barriers very easily, so you could instantly have a global sport that has people of both genders and all ethnic backgrounds and all nationalities participating in it. I think it opens up the possibility for a sport that can be more global as opposed to regional.”
eSports has been key to drone racing. DRL’s mantra is that it is ‘a real life video game’, but crucially it takes place away from screens. For Horbaczewski, that’s key.
“There’s definitely a difference in how people feel about eSports and how people perceive it. We get senior people at major e-sports companies telling us ‘you guys have something we want’ — whereas the highest form and lowest form of eSports competition look identical — really the only difference is how big the screen is that you’re playing on — the highest form of our competition is obviously real life. That changes how people feel about the experience.”
This is a sport created by, and marketed for, millennials. Starting a sport from scratch may have its challenges, but it does mean that it can be designed for a digital audience, something more traditional racing has struggled with. Horbaczewski professed his love of the traditional racing series, but feels his sport has an advantage in the hard to reach millennial audience.
“The traditional sports world, especially racing sports, and MotoGP, F1 and NASCAR, who have all probably spoken about this, is really seeing a big decline in younger viewers – they’re just not picking up younger viewers. As viewers get older, there’s just fewer and fewer of them. One of the great things about drone racing is that we know from our demographic data that those young people are watching. A huge chunk of our viewers see it as a cool new technology-enabled sport. Another big chunk just think of it as a traditional racing sport – but our viewers are much younger. Our viewers are 18-35 and this is a racing sport for that generation. I think it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out because I think traditional racing has been particularly hit hard by not being able to find a younger viewership.”
“Drone racing is a sport that shares a lot of dynamics with eSports and video games. That’s something that we know that 18-35 year olds really enjoy. The other thing about our sport, specifically DRL, is because we have a particular form of drone racing, I can sit down and show you a 60-second video on your phone which is a complete race with drama and passion. It has a winner and a loser. Or, you can sit down and watch two hours of content that weaves together all those races and background on the pilot, and technology overview – you can choose whether you watch as little as a minute or as much as two hours. In traditional racing you have to be glued to the screen. I love F1 but you watch two hours and it’s one pit-stop and one pass that mattered – I was getting a beer when those things happened and I missed all the action. I just don’t think that type of content suits a millennial audience terribly well.”
Drone racing is already starting to resonate on social media. The nature of the races means they are easily consumable online. A race from Miami was given to the publisher Quartz, who put it on their Facebook page. A few weeks later it had amassed over 24 million views. Numbers Formula-e would kill for.
But drone racing isn’t just showing off new tech, it’s at the forefront of creating it itself. Horbaczewski explained that a lot of IP is tied up in the series:
“Our challenge is intense. One of the bars of doing drone racing is having the right technology — which we develop in-house — and being able to film it. You’re talking about drones the size of a dinner plate going at 80 mph through close, indoor spaces. We had to go back to the drawing board on how these were filmed. We couldn’t have outsourced that part of the business, so we have had to develop deep, in-house expertise in terms of techniques of filming as well as some pieces of technology that allow us to film the drones, and when you see our content you see these really fast drones, in focus, large in frame and you know exactly what’s going on.
That’s not a coincidence; that’s a year of investing and sweat put into making that happen.”
“We have designed our own radio system which is why you see us having large races that weave through different parts of a building in a way that drones haven’t been able to fly before. Then on the media side as well, each one of those definitely has real world applications. As the company gets bigger, we’ll have a little more bandwidth to focus on things outside of our core mission. I think we’ll start following up with some of the inquiries we’ve had about licensing our technologies.”
Drone racing certainly has the industry’s attention. Backed by Sky, ESPN, VCs and now Eurosport, the market will wait to see how the first video game inspired sport performs. Many will look to follow in the DRL’s wake, starting their own sports. What advice would Horbaczewski have for those looking to follow his, and DRL’s, lead?
‘I think you have to create something that is going to capture people’s attention and imagination. I meet a lot of people who are interested in creating a new sport, and that ranges everything from robot boxing to a new one-on-one basketball league. Part of the question is, is there an opportunity in the market for this? Is there a void where fans will do this?”
Another thing I hear people talking about a lot is, to create sports or recreate sports where you get to start fresh and say this is for a digital/millennial audience and is going to be media first – what would you do with that if that was the case? What would basketball, or soccer, or football look like if they had been created today? I think there’s an opportunity to do that, and I think that the big sports companies are reinventing themselves and young entrepreneurs with a sports base can create things that will really capture people’s attention.”
Sports franchises of all shapes and sizes would do well to think on Horbaczewski’s parting thought – if your sport was created today, what would you do different? Those that don’t may well see drone racing marching into their fanbase.
It’s easy to find a ticket agency that says they’ll sell your tickets but it’s not always easy to find one that lives up to this promise. Partnering with a ticket agent that values your business, offers speed of response, flexibility, data insight and a true partnership approach is key to a long, happy and commercially beneficial relationship.
Are they asking the right questions?
When choosing a ticket agent, it’s one thing knowing what you’ve been promised but has the agency really asked enough to know what they’re singing up for?
What’s the target audience and its relevance to their data? Anticipated sales and the likely sales cycle? What’s your marketing plan and when do you need the agency’s activity to kick in? These are just some of the questions a ticket agent should be asking you. Otherwise, how can they truly know what they need to do and when in order to deliver.
Will they share the pain for driving sales?
Not everyone will. Some agents might get you set up and plugged into their standard marketing packages super quick but you don’t want that to be the end of it.
The best agents will understand what you need to sell, and by when, and act in a consultative way when you need to stay on track. Also, standard marketing packages are great when you go on sale but what about when your event is nearing? You need to be confident that there will be additional marketing channels and activity that you can activate when you need to. Or the chance to switch tack and try new things if campaigns aren’t working or the world changes and a new approach is needed.
Ultimately, will they put their money where their mouth is and put in place a commercial model that rewards success and penalises under-performance?
What happens when your ticketing website goes live?
In today’s world, there’s no such thing as a finished website, app or mobile experience. Again, it’s great getting set up and on sale quickly but once your ticketing website goes live, that’s just the beginning. Once customers start transacting and the data starts building this is where there’s a golden opportunity. Using what you’ve learnt to increase sales and drive revenue through new development…
A smart development team and consultative agent should be analysing your website data regularly, looking at trends and conversion paths, AB testing changes, and then regularly releasing updates to your website to improve conversion.
Are they boasting about big data numbers or planning targeted marketing?
Yes, email marketing can be a numbers game but relevance wins every time. A sales focused marketing team will never send irrelevant emails to their data. Irrelevant events and content mean that people switch off, which really means they unsubscribe. It also works both ways – no event organiser wants their customers bombarded by irrelevant information just because they signed up to hear from that agent.
Targeting and re-sending campaigns to the right demographic, geographical region with intelligence from previous purchases, or click behaviour, is the way to go.
What’s their ethical stance in the world of ticketing?
No-one wants to see their tickets appear on secondary sites for inflated prices, lining the pockets of touts. In this industry, it’s hard to stop – especially when there’s a hot ticket.
It’s worth finding out whether the agent you’re talking to has any particular stance on the secondary market. Chances are if they are against it in principle, they’ll be more proactive in terms of helping customers who get duped, cancelling their tickets which pop up on secondary websites, and blocking bots which buy tickets in big numbers.
How will they treat your customers?
When a customer buys a ticket, it’s often the first interactive point of engagement with your event. If that experience is positive, they’ll be left feeling excited about the event and looking forward to hearing from you.
Sometimes things can go wrong and customers may have questions about their tickets and orders. When that happens, you need to feel confident that the agent’s customer service team is going to keep your customers happy and represent the brand of your event in the right way.
Is your event going to suffer from small fish syndrome?
Find out who the ticket agent’s other clients are and what else they’ve got going on at the time of your on-sale. How do you think your ticket sales rank in comparison? At the start of your contract, make sure you agree expectations and ways of working. This isn’t just about technical aspects and marketing.
If it suits you, schedule a weekly check-in with your account manager. Ultimately choose an agent who shares the same values as your business.
Is their commercial deal fair?
Pricing will often drive the conversation when all other factors are equal. However, consider what the cheapest price reflects or misses out? If someone is more expensive, are they factoring in additional services, and more importantly, do you need them?
Equally, ensure that everything your customers expect is going to be covered by this deal. If there are problems, can someone resolve them? The last thing you want is to be inundated with ticketing queries when you’ve employed the services of an agent. Ultimately, for most organisers ticket sales is one of the biggest revenue streams and the custodian of your online brand experience. So, knowing the cost of everything but not the value could be your downfall.
Is their data clear and reporting useful?
To do your job properly, you need 24/7 access to up-to-date data. Ticket sales are one thing but data with powerful insights, like where and when, and by who those sales have been made, is something else. Ensure the agent that you’re considering hiring has a rich reporting suite that you can access, and ideally is bespoke to the types of metrics you’d like to see.
Are they thinking about the future of the industry?
Ticketing should be their bag but the world of ticketing is changing. Largely driven by technology and consumer buying behaviour, ticketing will look very different in 10 years. It’s worthwhile working with an agent that’s going to share these insights with you.
As your event changes and develops, you’re going to need a partner who will keep you at the forefront of ticketing technology, ensuring that you don’t miss out on a new way to drive sales, engage customers, or enrich the in-event customer experience whilst your busy focusing on delivering your events.
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NBA basketball franchise Philadelphia 76ers have acquired two esports teams, erectile Apex and Dignitas and will merge them both together under the Dignitas name.
Team Dignitas will compete in games such as League of Legends, prostate Counter Strike: Global Offensive, viagra Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm while the 76ers will be responsible for operations such as player recruitment, marketing and sales.
Team Dignitas was founded in 2004 and and is registered in the United Kingdom.
“The attractiveness of this deal is as much about the people as it is the opportunity,” Philadelphia 76ers CEO Scott O’Neil said.
“Bringing together gaming industry luminaries including Greg Richardson, Michael O’Dell and David and Michael Slan puts us on track to build the most respected and dominant franchise in the esports space, spur fan engagement, and reimagine corporate sponsorship to create a vibrant, global e-arena where the greatest players in the world aspire to compete.”
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World Olympians Association (WOA) has condemned the actions of Russian cyber hacking group Fancy Bears and the public release of athletes’ confidential medical information.
WOA believes that by illegally disclosing the private Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) records of athletes held on WADA’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management system the hacking group is seeking to intentionally tarnish the reputation of clean athletes.
WOA President Joël Bouzou said today: “WOA firmly believes in the need for transparency in the battle to protect sport from corruption. However, for sale this illegal release of athletes’ private medical information is clearly designed to undermine the work of international federations and anti-doping bodies and damage the reputation of clean athletes. It cannot be right that clean athletes are seeing their good record unfairly questioned by innuendo.
“WOA wholeheartedly supports the need to sanction those who have been found guilty of doping infractions but athletes that can prove with certainty they are clean, ed by means of thorough and independent testing and through the proper use of TUEs, sale should not be punished or called into question. And clean athletes should never be prevented from competing at sporting events from the Olympics and Paralympics on down.
“These latest developments are a reminder that the time is right for a debate on the future and that changes are needed in the anti-doping system which, in our view, is failing clean athletes.
Amdocs has closed the acquisition of three privately owned companies – including a partner of iSportconnect in Vindicia.
The acquisition of Vindicia, Brite:Bill and Pontis was for a similar price as they were acquired for a combined amount of approximately $260 million in cash, net, and may be subject to certain adjustments including small earnouts. Together, these acquisitions are expected to contribute 1.5% to 2.0% to total company revenue for the full fiscal year 2017.
“Communication and media service providers, including those with over-the-top offerings, are transforming to capture the world of on-demand services and digital immediacy. When combined with business-driven analytics behind the scenes, this ensures a simplified, intuitive and engaging customer experience,” said Eli Gelman, the Amdocs Management Limited president and CEO.
“These acquisitions, alongside Amdocs’ existing platforms which include multi-channel, digital care and commerce, customer management and big data analytics solutions, position Amdocs as the market leader to help communication and media providers on their journey. I am excited by these companies joining Amdocs, as their cloud-based technologies will augment Amdocs’ rich offering and shorten our time to market,” added Gelman.
Vindicia is a market-leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription management and payment solutions. Vindicia makes it easy, flexible and frictionless for digital enterprises to onboard customers and process payments for digital content, over-the-top (OTT) entertainment, online subscriptions and on-demand services. Utilising cloud-based operations for greater business agility, Vindicia’s ultra-fast time to market allows customers to easily experiment with various service offerings and pricing schemes to quickly introduce offers and attract new users. In addition, Vindicia’s advanced retention capabilities reduce user churn and increase top-line revenue for online service providers.
Brite:Bill’s design-led, user-experience experts turn the customer bill into a unique, customer-centric engagement channel. Brite:Bill’s technology and services transform invoices into a personalised, digital, interactive billing experience in the channel of the customer’s choice. The invoice’s customised and engaging design reduces customer confusion around the bill, thereby cutting service provider costs around inbound inquiries, and also provides an engagement opportunity for service providers to promote new services. The Dublin-based company counts several large North American CSPs, some of which utilise Amdocs BSS, among its customer base.
Pontis is a provider of contextual digital engagement solutions. Pontis’s real-time decisioning and learning technology enables service providers to offer their customers personalised contextual interactions relevant to where that individual customer is in their journey with the service provider. With Pontis, Amdocs is uniquely positioned to help service providers determine the next best action for customer engagement and then to offer the customer, across outbound and inbound channels, the most appropriate service at the right time and the right touch point.
The New York State Assembly has criminalised the use of ticket ‘bots’, capsule or automated ticket-buying software.
Stuart Cain, managing director at The Ticket Factory, says it’s time for the UK to follow suit and declare a war on online touts.
“Last month, a report was published highlighting the problem of ticket touting. You’d think this report would have been welcome news to the industry but for me, it was yet another kick in the teeth for artists and true sports or music fans.”
“Ticket touting has evolved drastically over the years. It’s no longer the stereotypical ‘dodgy dealer’ trying to flog you a ticket outside the venue – these are global, well-financed organisations and cyber-warriors that we’re dealing with.”
“At The Ticket Factory, we’re fighting a war with ticket touts on a daily basis and have invested significant resource into trying to combat the issue. We’ve implemented intelligent software to actively look to block malicious attacks and fraudulent activity without damaging the sales process for genuine fans.”
“We also have a pioneering partnership with Twickets – an ethical secondary ticketing agency that allows genuine fans to buy and sell tickets to events that they can no longer attend at face value so nobody loses out.”
“Ultimately, all we’re concerned about is making the discovery and purchase process as easy and seamless as possible for our customers and protecting our industry but we need more help and protection to take these guys down and make it harder to access tickets in the first place.”
“The recent move by the New York State Assembly to make the use of ticket-buying software illegal highlights the scale of the problem. At last – an official body that recognises ticket touting as a criminal offence and is taking steps to expose these individuals.”
“New York is the entertainment capital of the world and our government should be following in its footsteps and making ticket touting illegal.”
“The faceless, online secondary market in its current form is hurting the industry and we need the government to pull its finger out and work with us to address touting and cybercrime once and for all.”