Brands may have to buy league and stadium rights to compete as live sport experiences evolve
Growing tension between improvements in viewing sports at home and the live stadium experience could force brands to double up to own both stadium and league sponsorships in order to leverage their brands across both spaces, marketers have been told.
Stuart Taggart and John Du Vernet say brands have to rethink the stadium and home experience
John Du Vernet, former managing director of DT (now AKQA) said the evolution of stadiums into high-tech entertainment hubs which engage fans through emerging technologies was changing the way brands had to approach sport.
Speaking at the Mumbrella Sports Marketing Summit in Sydney, Du Venert said marketers had to embrace the new opportunities.
“The reality is it is going to be a more complex synergy, probably more expensive and the reality is a brand may need to have stadium rights as well as league rights to leverage a benefit,” Du Vernet said.
“When you think about these fewer, bigger, better stadiums and a multi-use environment, that is going to create a whole lot more commercial complexity to try and navigate through.”
He said that the new world would also prove a challenge for brands that did not live in the technology space as tech-led brands dominated the next stage of the evolution of the live sport experience.
“If I were a non-tech brand I would think about where the big investments come from and how do these guys leverage and do things as a non-tech brand in a tech environment? That is a really interesting challenge for those brands,” he said.
Stuart Taggart, founder and CEO of Envision told the audience that fan expectations were now being redefined by the way in which sports and stadiums were using technology.
He said sports like the NBA and Major League Baseball were embracing technology through mobile devices and in the stadium and experimenting with ideas such as VR to find the next stage of engagement.
The arrival of futuristic sports such as drone racing are also pushing the boundaries of what a live and broadcast sport might look like, he said.
The entire sports experience was also wrapped in the arrival of over-the-top broadcasting, he said.
“Traditional media as we all know – and Ten is a great example in the last couple of weeks – its dominance is coming to an end.” Taggart said.
“It’s causing a reset – it doesn’t mean it’s going away, but it’s just casuing a reset and that’s something we all need to work with.
“OTT has arrived, it’s not coming, it’s not emerging, it’s here .”
He said at the same time new companies are emerging that are using the rich data generated by sports to create new levels of content and he said e-sports operators with major financial backers are also becoming serious players in the market, mixing onscreen entertainment with new ideas on the way stadium events can draw new fans.
Du Vernet concluded that brands now needed to be brave enough to take the lead.
“There is a real tendency for brands and businesses to be fast followers, but my contention is it is the right time now to go hard, be first, don’t be a fast follower,” he said.
