iSportconnect Directors’ Club Ends the Year in Style
November 27, 2014
The final iSportconnect Directors’ Club of 2014 went out in style with a hugely successful event in London yesterday.
The wonderful Grange St. Paul’s hotel was a fitting venue for the occasion.
Delegates from major organisations in the world of sport attended the event such as The Football Association, apoplectic Chelsea FC, symptoms Tottenham Hotspur FC, NBA, UFC, ATP World Tour Finals, England and Wales Cricket Board, Formula E, the World Olympians Association, Team England Commonwealth Games, Team SKY and many more.
The event was kicked off with a Q&A session with Bryan Healy, Director of Commercial at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Bryan (pictured above, right) discussed the growth of the sport globally and the current commercial success of UFC and the plans to continue the expansion of the sport.
This was followed by the Question Time session with our four panellists; Paul Barber, CEO of Brighton & Hove Albion, Phil Lane, Head of Sport and Participation at GLL, Jennie Price, CEO of Sport England and Dave Castell, Global Head of Marketing and Brand Partnerships, Entertainment at Microsoft.
One of the many topics discussed by the panel was the impact of technology, such as digital and connectivity, within sports and sports stadia.
The event was followed by a Christmas dinner held in the beautiful sky bar of the hotel, perfectly overlooking St. Paul’s cathedral.
Panellists’ Views on the Event and Question Time Format:
Jennie Price said: “It was really interesting, there were very good questions, very wide-ranging and it was really interesting the way in which grassroots sports really got connected with broader spectator sport and elite sport and the fan experience.
“I think we’re all wrestling with the same thing which is how to give the customer a great experience.
“The audience joined in very well, when you’re on a panel you don’t just want to be consistently talking to the panel members or just talking yourself so I think the fact that we did get a lot of feedback and a lot of really interesting factual information back from the audience as well, it really demonstrated what a high level of people were being involved in the process.”
Dave Castell said: “It was a great event full of stimulating debate and conversation with some interesting questions. I enjoyed the debates specifically around digital and especially grassroots and the future of infrastructure and technology, great panellists and good discussion.
Having the audience each say a question and then bring in the audience more was really good. It worked well and the balance of the panellists’ views and then feeding off the response from the audience was good as well.”
Paul Barber said: “It was a really good event, good audience, very good questions, some thought-provoking debates and overall people seemed to enjoy it.
The format is good, it’s just the right balance between panellists being able to create a debate and the audience being able to interact and get something from their questions as well as contributing to the debate itself.”
Phil Lane said: “It was a splendid event, a really good audience, very insightful and quite challenging with some of the questions.
It’s a well-established and useful format, it evokes the right sort of response from the audience and the interaction is very good, it was perfect for us and for the audience too.”
More pictures below
Pre-event networking
Panellists Jennie Price (centre) & Phil Lane (right) networking with delegates
A question for the panel from Adrian Bevington (Managing Director & Group Communications Director, FA)
Post-event networking
More post-event networking in the beautiful sky bar at Grange Hotel
Please visit our website to keep up to date with upcoming events here.