{"id":5716,"date":"2024-05-16T09:03:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T08:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportaccord.sport\/2024-wsbs\/?p=5716"},"modified":"2024-05-16T09:35:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T08:35:21","slug":"sportaccord-2024-insights-sports-perfect-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportaccord.sport\/2024-wsbs\/sportaccord-2024-insights-sports-perfect-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"SPORTACCORD 2024 INSIGHTS: Sport\u2019s Perfect Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SportAccord 2024 saw a line-up of world class speakers tackling the hottest industry opportunities and challenges &#8211; and as moderator <strong>David Eades<\/strong> pointed out, in sport we\u2019re often faced with a fine line between the two: \u201cthe critical thing is to recognise both when they come along!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This, in a nutshell, is what <strong>Roger Mitchell &#8211; corporate financier, founding CEO of Scottish Professional Football League and author of the newly released book \u2018<\/strong><strong><em>Sports Perfect Storm: An Industry Now Totally Adrift\u2019<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; brought to the fore in his Summit session with Eades.<\/p>\n<p>Exploring some of the serious structural challenges International Federations and sports rights holders are facing, including the fragility of the financial structures supporting the sports ecosystem, Eades and Mitchell took SportAccord Summit delegates on a journey through sport with some helpful tips.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sport&#039;s Perfect storm with Roger Mitchell #sportaccord #wheresportmeets\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7GJUHa4UwKc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Weathering the storm<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are multiple weather fronts hitting sport,\u201d explained Mitchell. \u201cI like to categorise them across money, demographics and geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell focused on the influx of capital investment in sport, with new stakeholders attracted to the prestige and returns the industry offers, and sports rights owners keen to use this \u201cavailability of cheap cash\u201d &#8211; as Mitchell put it &#8211; to expand and develop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut now that has ended, and in a vastly changed media landscape that offers significantly smaller margins\u201d, said Mitchell, as he pointed that this is also happening in a world where sponsors demand detailed, direct and tangible fan response data against the cost-of-living crisis backdrop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings are much more expensive, ticket prices are going up &#8211; north, north, north. There\u2019s going to be a breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sport\u2019s \u2018attention economy\u2019 battle <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The challenges of targeting the younger generation audiences with sport content was also highlighted by Mitchell &#8211; with the risk of \u201closing the battle in the attention economy\u201d being very real for the sport\u2019s industry:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe as an industry over-estimate our importance &#8211; \u2018it\u2019s sport, everybody must love sport\u2019 &#8211; well, not really. We\u2019re selling a product &#8211; in football\u2019s case 90 minutes &#8211; to a younger demographic that doesn\u2019t care about 90 minutes. They will not have that attention for 90 minutes. Sport over-estimates its must-have factor for young audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sport\u2019s \u2018known and unknown\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mitchell, a former EMI executive, also warned the sports industry of complacency and under-estimating risk, drawing parallels with the music industry and using the launch of Napster in 1999 as a prime example:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw the start of Napster. And the answer was what I see now: \u2019small thing, won\u2019t affect us. We\u2019ll be fine.\u2019 In two to three years, their business was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Napster, the free peer-to-peer file-sharing network &#8211; which at its height had tens of millions of users who could search for and share MP3s stored on their personal computers over the internet &#8211; almost brought the music industry to its knees and caused a blizzard of law suits.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell drove home the message: \u201cPeople generally under-estimate risk &#8211; known unknowns, and especially unknowns &#8211; I have a whole chapter on that!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roger Mitchell - Author of \u2018Sport\u2019s Perfect Storm\u2019 #sportaccord\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DhfA1xkqvxs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Best direction for sport<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Eades underlined the importance of looking at the positives and routes out: \u201cWhat would be the best direction for sport to start taking now, to turn your ship around, to keep it afloat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell highlighted the opportunity to risk share with sponsor and broadcast partners: \u201cTake less money up front, enjoy the success together if it comes &#8211; together, i.e. revenue share &#8211; and take that to your athletes. We do not talk enough about athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The potential of the younger generation in this new era for sport was also underscored by Mitchell: \u201cThe younger generations have understood that we\u2019ve messed up &#8211; this goes beyond sport. The younger generations have understood that we have to do things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Roger Mitchell\u2019s \u2018Sports Perfect Storm: An Industry Now Totally Adrift\u2019 is a book about three very interconnected industries &#8211; sport, media and finance &#8211; now all facing \u201c<\/em><em>hurricane headwinds.\u201d The book explains the general principles of finance to the sector of sport and entertainment, the intelligent use of finance techniques to reduce risk profiles and make for better operational management, decision-making and sustainability.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for more exclusive insights from SportAccord 2024, coming your way over the next few weeks. Our series reveals parts of some of the most exciting discussions from Birmingham, centred around the horizontal theme \u201cThe Power of Sport\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SportAccord 2024 saw a line-up of world class speakers tackling the hottest industry opportunities and challenges &#8211; and as moderator David Eades pointed out, in sport we\u2019re often faced with a fine line between the two: \u201cthe critical thing is to recognise both when they come along!\u201d This, in a nutshell, is what Roger Mitchell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":4883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.9.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SPORTACCORD 2024 INSIGHTS: Sport\u2019s Perfect Storm - SportAccord World Sport &amp; 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