My notes and collection of information from the Leaders in Sports Summit 2014 at Chelsea FC.

1. Leaders 2014 Summit
Presentation 1 –Pushing Boundaries in the North American Sports Market - Tim Leiweke & Tod Leiweke Presentation 2 – Digital Consumption: Revolutionizing the Way Sports Fans Get Their Fix - Ralph Rivera & Russell Wolff Presentation 3 – Innovation: Building an Enduring, Limitless Organization - Ajaz Ahmed Presentation 4 – Digital Fan Engagement: Building an Audience and Creating Deeper Relationships With Your Fans - Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, Glenn Miller & Rafael De Los Santo Presentation 5 – Defining the Cutting Edge of Digital Sports Media and What Fans Really Want - Dave Finocchio Presentation 6 – What are the Next Great Commercial Opportunities in Digital? Craig Howe, David Görges & Michael Leavey
My Notes, online notes and some Twitter comments

2. Who Attended

3. Pushing Boundaries in the North American Sports Market
Tod Leiweke – CEO
Tampa Bay Sports & Entertainment
Tim Leiweke – CEO Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment

4. NBA deal has started teams questioning their rev streams and strategy:
-We still realize that sports is the most unique content on TV, it’s a must have because it is must see.
-Top 20 programs last year on TV were NFL Games
-Live data is still number one aspect for sports
-Will gate rev continue to be important and not become more focused on Broadcast rev
-We have to look at EPL and see how it expanded as a model top follow for teams beyond NA
Netflix
-Great example of reinventing oneself as a distribution company
-Proved that traditional forms of distribution is changing.
-It’s a great example of how the world will change.
Stadium
-You have to enhance your stadium experience for fans, they demand it
-You have to review your ticket purchase process and improve it…online is still a pain to buy
-If fans cant connect in the stadium then it becomes a negative experience for them
-How do you balance the live experience vs the device in stadium
-80% of NA fans have a second device and follow stats and replays during the game…they want control of it.

5. Majority of money rogers makes is going to be from the handheld , they
believe the value in content above and beyond the broadcast is how they will
make the money
When its more interesting to watch on handheld , why is broadcast not putting
A compelling game experience together…our cathedrals
We ask a lot of our fans , to get parking , pay for tickets and concessions….its a concern
With at home experiences getting better.
Stadium experience – we tend to Celebrate what we have in common
Demonstrate and communicate the great things about our community
If we protect the unpredictability of sports and emotion of sports people will watch
There is nothing like live, its emotional, unpredictable and a community gets together
To celebrate together…only sports can do that.
Expansion of brands
-Soccer – expanding in NA
-Major growth area
-Be a pirate or pioneer when entering a market
-Ratings , gate and attendance still have a long way to go
-NA is spoiled , best Hockey , NBA, Baseball and Football , but not Soccer
-Harder time to compete and compare to others..like English Premier League
-In next 10 years we may have a international landscape to compete with, not NA
-NA has no idea how big soccer is across the world

6. Digital Consumption: Revolutionizing the Way Sports Fans Get Their
Russell Wolff – EVP / GM
ESPN International
Ralph Rivera – Director BBC Future Media

7. Hard to predict where things will land - look at tablets, or usage of data and video Understanding individuals and consumption patterns.
Highlights help drive interest in matches As rights seller should we sell all forms of intractability? Oculus rift is something we are looking at? Don’t think maximizing rights , think maximizing experience for consumers Shareholder=license fee payer = viewer Providing ability – technology and rights, to deliver an experience that will reach more people and give a better experience …why would we not do that?
People get exposed to sports differently , and like football interest is growing…a larger Younger audience learns via video games, they played it on the console and when the Game are on they show interest.
Interface with live technology at the event itself.
-Each generation has some backlash toward technology
-But it keep moving forward
-Technology now makes that live event available to many more people
-And it was a good thing

8. Advertising
-People still buy traditional ads
-Big upswing is video advertising
-Constantly producing more video so we can sell more
-Dynamic ad insertion
Future of game consoles in sports
-Increases viewership via game consoles
-When they interact what the video , they spend more time
-Those platforms enhance experience and are more engaged
-They are already into the digital space
-Its very complimentary – its one more step forward to make it emmersive

9. Innovation: Building an Enduring, Limitless Organization
Ajaz Ahmed – Founder & CEO AKQA

10. Take pain away from consumers so they enjoy what they are doing. Be the author of the brand - whats in line and whats not in line with the brand counter balance creativity with experimentation. Its hard to encourage employees to break the rules and try something, they don’t want to loose their jobs, it’s the opposite of what is needed to innovate for progress.
Rethinking how you engage with Sports
-Look at Nike Academy
-They let players have a second chance to be signed by bro teams
-3 players were in the past world cup
All that was analogue will be digital – look at digital basketball court in china https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2YhDQtncK8
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUDZ- Vp7Chk&list=PLmOt0Ey1uV4nrdlzVzWGgvKkREeGusPdk&index=1
Need to rethink our sites Once you start to collect data you can understand your fans needs Audi USA– helped people choose by changing their site, not just show everything…ie main page has 28 links, using data science we can tell that most people want. So we change mobile and the regular site to focus on those 6 link they want.

11. Digital Fan Engagement: Building an Audience and Creating Deeper Relationships With Your Fans
Melissa Rosenthal Brenner – SVP Digital Media - NBA
Rafael De Los Santo – New Media Director Real Madrid CF
Glenn Miller – Head of Sports Entertainment and Partnerships EMEA Facebook

12. Use Data CRM to engage audience, sponsors want to know and have a solution Many fans are using their devices at the game, collecting and sharing content.. including video. How do you engage them? Great example of innovative sponsorship – Arsenal Running Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xK_5CpPLhw
-They talked to their sponsor show flew the kid over to England for a game
-Great story and great traction for social media
Social media may be free and easy to use, however it is not for the team, it has to be a 24/7 even off season. There is not just one way to engage the audience, you use the platforms in the ways The fans use them. Pre and during is a good time , but don’t miss out on after the match Even f you loose.
NBA "Mundane family photos" accounted for some of the most engaged-with NBA content
It is the amount of engagement, not the amount of followers, that determines how well a sports property uses social media. Over a third (36 per cent) of footballer Wayne Rooney's Facebook friends or likes are fake.

13. Players are more and more adaptors of new platforms, you hope to have players that are engaged and marketing their own brand as yours on social. Use digital to bring the world courtside, fans around the world can join in. When we win its smooth and easy and high , when we loose, what content do we bring? From the game , from the players, focus on past accomplishments Facebook
-What days people are online is important, ie weekends are not a time to slow down…people are never offline…or think they are online
-You can also see what brands resonate with fans in different areas and go after them as a sponsor
-fans do not want minute-by-minute coverage of a game, and prefer content such as squad formations
-Announcements or big moments are what seems to drive more interaction and more traffic…then interaction with fans and pictures/video.
-Don’t burn their feed with too much info

14. Defining the Cutting Edge of Digital Sports Media and What Fans Really Want
Dave Finocchio – Co-Founder & GM Bleacher Report

15. Three tips for successful online sports content, from Bleacher Report 1) Stay True to the Target Audience Bleacher Report is heavily used by a young demographic, it is committed to delivering content to that specific demographic, rather than the widest audience possible. "When we think about who our audience is, we think about a 25-year-old. So it's great if a 65-year-old loves our products, that's fantastic, but when we're figuring out what we want our voice to be we have a 25-year-old in mind," he said. 2) Sharing is the New Views Sharing is a vital metric Bleacher Report uses to judge whether a piece of content is successful. one of our main filters our editors are forced to look at is whether they are creating content people want to share with their friends 3) Use Data to Guide Coverage Sport is unique in that events take place at roughly the same time every year. Bleacher Report looked at how and when users consumed content around specific events - using Google analytics tools - and then put together a plan to produce the right content at the right time the next year. The NFL Draft was an event Bleacher Report found was under-covered compared to the demand for coverage, and so began to increase the amount of content around it.

16. Biggest Sports
1.NFL
2.NBA
3.Soccer
Type of content
1.Video – News and Social
2.Breaking news
3.Features
4.Aggregation
5.Lists/Rankings
6.Team Analysis
Top Teams – Based on Articles Read
Reads
LA Lakers
43.7M
Manchester United
41.3M
Miami Heat
40.2M
Arsenal
29.9M
Liverpool
25.3M
NY Knicks
24.7M
Chelsea
20.7M
FC Barcelona
19.0M
Cleveland Cavaliers
18.1M
Real Madrid
17.5M

17. Mobile 80% of visits to BleacherReport via mobile user experince at heart of all design & content decisions. Calling your smartphone second screen drives me nuts; it's clearly first emphasizing that data is key to understanding fans

18. What are the Next Great Commercial Opportunities in Digital?
Craig Howe – Consulting Head of Digital San Fran 49ers / Chicago Bulls
Michael Leavey – Director
Media, Marketing & CRM
Arsenal FC
David Görges Head of New Media & CRM Borussia Dortmund

19. Selling the followers Rights-holders must sell the benefits of their social media platforms, including their data on their followers, to brands. Social media follower data can be relayed to sponsors to increase value, and can also be put to organizations looking to advertise on club digital platforms, “Instead of existing sponsors just expecting to be a part of your digital strategy when you sign commercial deals, clubs should actively tell them what their digital platforms can do for them.” The key, however, is collecting data on social media followers and their interests, even outside of sport. This may require significant investment, and there is little point in doing it half- heartedly. “CRM is like religion - it's either central to your business or you shouldn't bother with it at all Sponsor LEVIS were strategically picked and approached because they fitted the demographic of our fans. We look at content first and fan engagement. Then analytics kicks in for us to understand how to achieve ROI from those fans. (Similar to FC Barcelona –DM Note) Access to players most sought after content but difficult, as players are not actors and don’t focus on it or know how to switch roles well.

20. In-stadium experience (connected) Tailored social media content should be used to engage overseas fans, and this can sometimes be very simple, such as acknowledging a certain country’s major public holiday in its local language. “Overseas fans’ expectations of acknowledgement on digital platforms is so low right now that just two messages written in Chinese, for example, a year is enough to engage them,” he said.