Digital is now the first-choice marketing platform for many brands in sport.

Before the start of the 2013 RBS 6 Nations tournament, O2, IBM and BMW, three key partners of the Rugby Football Union (RFU), which operates the England national rugby union team, chose new media as the vehicle to activate marketing campaigns via social media, PCs and smartphones, respectively.

Such a reliance on digital is a scenario that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, and illustrates just how the sports industry continues to adapt to engage with consumers on a more personal level.

Nick Shaw, the head of digital at the RFU, believes that the increasing popularity of such an approach is due to the promise of a better return on investment.

“It sounds silly, but they probably get more bang for their buck and think it’s a better way of engaging than television and print advertising, which can’t really be used across multiple channels,” Shaw told The Leader.

“We’ve put digital right at the core of what we’re doing. We know that there is a core fan base of people interacting. A lot of brands tend to think that if they just do one piece of creative marketing it can fit across all different channels, but that’s not true. People interact with each other on Facebook in a very different way to Twitter and YouTube.

“We try to work with our partners so that their campaigns can work across our channels as well as theirs.”

So how does an organisation like the RFU work with partners to open up a new, interactive channel of communication through digital media?

An important factor to consider is consistency across all channels. A message from a commercial partner that clashes with those of the central rights-holder, such as the RFU, would be counter-productive for all concerned.

“We’ve got strong editorial guidelines and principals around Facebook,” Shaw added. “and if the content isn’t right, we won’t put it out there.

“We don’t have the sign-off on what partners decide to do, but we always try to work together to ensure it adds value for our fans.”

The problem, according to Shaw, is that many organisations simply do not put enough emphasis on the importance of digital and social media, with the indifference often stemming from the top.

“Some organisations ‘do’ the whole digital media thing exceptionally well, but some don’t get it and don’t appreciate how it can cause damage if it’s done wrong,” he added. “They’re not laying enough importance in digital at board level.

“Organisations are slowly adopting it, but you see very few chief digital officer roles outside the US.

“There needs to be more attention paid at board level, as it is too often seen as just an add-on. But if you go in with that attitude, you are never going to succeed.

“At some places, one person is looking after marketing, communications and digital, and that’s a thankless task, particularly as digital has multi-faceted channels.

“When I started three years ago, the digital team was not involved in contract negotiations, but 18 months ago, when we were discussing partnership renewals, we were part of the conversation, ensuring that our partners knew that digital was at the core of everything we do.

“Digital is central to participation, fan engagement, getting more coaches and referees into the game, and so much more. It’s the shop window.

“We’re not getting everything right, but we’ve identified that one person can’t work across all digital channels. Different people are needed for different skill sets as it is a hugely complex area, and we’ve made a concerted effort to grow the team from a content perspective so we have specialists in particular areas.”

Another tip is not to try the ‘hard sell’ via social media, but rather use it as a vehicle to push followers to platforms where it is “more appropriate to sell to them, such as your official website,” Shaw added.

In April, a game from the RFU Championship was streamed live via Twitter for the first time, and the RFU is determined to keep pushing the boundaries in terms of exploring digital engagement, in partnership with its sponsors.

“Broadly speaking, the vision is for us to continue to be innovative, and focus on doing things that will add value to the fan experience,” he said.

Nick Shaw is Head of Digital at the RFU and was interviewed by Rory Squires for the Leader.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
STEPHEN NUTALL (YOUTUBE): ONLINE EXPOSURE
DAVID KERR (EUROSPORT UK): THE FUTURE OF THE “LIVE” BROADCAST

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Digital Sport.

YouTube has not always had a comfortable relationship with sport.

Back in 2007, several twitchy sports rights-holders were reported to be preparing legal action against the video-sharing website, worried that the platform was allowing their copyrighted content to be exploited.

That the outlook has changed so drastically in the six intervening years is testament to YouTube’s patience in collaborating with the sports industry, and the sports industry’s growing realisation that online viewing is to be embraced as an opportunity, rather than feared as a potential menace.

“We have had to show our partners that we understand what they need and deliver on it,” Stephen Nuttall, the senior director of sports at YouTube’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division, told The Leader.

“We have to do a good job of distributing their content and, through our intellectual property (IP) technology, we can block an upload, if requested by the rights-holder, if the footage is detected in the reference library. No-one is doing as much as we are to protect our partners’ IP.

“Other rights-holders allow users to upload footage of their events, and they feel that it benefits them. For example, we have a number of large sports partners that make more than half of their YouTube-related revenue through user-generated, rather than official content.

“We are working more closely with sports bodies now than ever before. In the beginning, some sports bodies were perhaps a bit more entrepreneurial than others, and the likes of the NBA, Real Madrid and Barcelona, who started with us early on, have grown to establish really big presences on YouTube.”

The Google-owned website’s marriage with sport may have taken a while to settle, but now it is flourishing.

Countless rights-holders now choose to show sports action via the website, from the smaller events to the larger properties such as the Six Nations rugby union tournament and the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket competition.

As recently as April, World Snooker and the England and Wales Cricket Board announced plans to show live coverage of their events on YouTube, which is fast becoming a go-to destination for live as well as archived sports coverage.

“YouTube is still a very young and fast-growing business,” Nuttall added. “We’re famous for user-generated content, music and entertainment. We want to be as famous for sport as the other content.

“YouTube is becoming the default place for people to go to view videos of all kinds online.

“We have to convince sports bodies that it makes sense for them to have a channel on YouTube, and there are two good reasons.

“Firstly, there is the audience that YouTube delivers. We have more than one billion unique users every month, and it’s very hard to access that sort of audience elsewhere.

“Our audience represents an important group of customers, which accounts for $500 billion of spending every year in the US, for example.

“Secondly, there are direct and indirect revenues that can be generated through YouTube.

“That story is becoming increasingly visible to people and increasingly compelling. Lots of organisations are setting up YouTube channels, and the great thing is that it works for all sizes of sport.

“For example, gymnastics, archery, equestrian and badminton do very well on YouTube, but so does football, basketball and, as we saw last year, the Olympics. We have proved that we can deliver live events like no-one else can.”

YouTube is not the only company to operate in the online viewing sector. DailyMotion, and even the likes of Twitter and Facebook, have dabbled in showing live sports online over the past year.

However, in spite of the competition and their own intentions, YouTube is comfortable with its development in sport and its balance of live and archived coverage, and does not see a reason why it should attempt to acquire major, game-changing domestic rights that would place the company in competition with some of the world’s mega-broadcasters.

“People go to YouTube for sport seven days a week, and many go there for live sport,” Nuttall added.

“However, a lot of the European football clubs run a very successful sports channel on YouTube without any live content at all.

“We think about content differently to a television company, and we’re not in the market right now for the sort of super-premium events where one or two pay-television companies are battling over the rights.

“Our viewership of football increased by 42% in the last quarter, and we don’t need loss-leader properties.

“We would never say never to anything, but we do have a lot of choice and there are very few occasions when we look at something and think it is ‘must have’, so we are lucky to be in such a situation.

“We are pretty happy with focusing on our own objectives, delivering a quality service for our partners that works across all connected platforms, and bringing in a steady stream of new partners as a result.”

Stephen Nuttall is Senior Director, Sports at YouTube and was interviewed by Rory Squires for the Leader.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
NICK SHAW (RFU): DIGITAL INVESTMENT
DAVID KERR (EUROSPORT UK): THE FUTURE OF THE “LIVE” BROADCAST

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Digital Sport.

The resilience of linear television, scheduled on good old fashioned channels, has been well documented. Despite soaring PVR penetration, over three quarters of all viewing is still ‘as broadcast’.

Many shows, even recorded ones like The Apprentice or Sherlock, still require to be seen on the same night simply to avoid friends and colleagues giving you the result or the plot. Watching them ‘live’ allows us to be part of the conversation. The growth of live second screen apps and online chat generally via social media does if anything add to the appeal of the ‘live’ broadcast.

Thankfully for us, you would think that linear ‘general’ sports channels have a very decent future. The live experience is clearly our raison d’etre and even with recorded elements, the age old art of scheduling still has a power. At Eurosport we find that the clustering of recorded shows with similar live sports can still add significantly to a recorded programme’s audience.

Yet even with two channels we still have scheduling clashes on busy weekends. Indeed, one of the prime motives for fully localising British Eurosport 2 a few years ago was to minimise such clashes and we are proud to say we have done that. Yet even now we cannot always show everything of everything, on our linear channels at least and this remains the source of the majority of our (happily much reduced ) customer complaints.

Our online Eurosport Player service can however offer live streaming of some events that cannot make the schedule and it offers a harbinger of how IPTV can perhaps change the way we watch and what we watch.

The Player is effectively a portal or app where for a small subscription, you can watch our two linear channels, catch up on some shows on VOD, but also watch individual live streams of events that do not make the schedule that weekend. This extra streaming can ensure that fans of particular sports can tune into their favourite event when they like and watch as much as they like. We can also expand coverage of events like the French and Australian Open, with multi-court coverage.

No matter what the sport, this is certainly what the hard core fans want. And as transmission costs come down it will be more and more possible to deliver this totally comprehensive coverage. If the BBC’s bold delivery of 28 streams and every minute of every event in the London Olympics is out of the financial reach and justification of most commercial operations, IPTV bandwidth makes this much more feasible, especially when a signal is being produced already, for the rest of us.

So if you can show every minute of every sport relatively easily, how long is it before the general sports channel does in fact become redundant? If we can all easily watch individual and fully comprehensive streams of the various events we show, will we be watching the ECB’s own cricket channel or the ATP’s tennis channel in a few years time and will channels like Eurosport, ESPN and Sky Sports be abandoned?

The answer of course is no, except perhaps for very minority sports. The business model of sports selling rights to broadcasters currently works really very well for most sports and those sports remain unwilling to take on the responsibility and risk of setting up their own broadcast operations.

The few times this has happened around Europe, it has hardly been a roaring success. On top of the business motive, I think associations and leagues realise that viewers want objective, independent coverage and something would be lost if broadcasting was taken in house.

Crucially, the aggregator brands like ourselves still have a big future because individual sports see the value in sitting alongside other, perhaps more popular sports. To be part of a general sports channel or app is first and foremost very good marketing.

It may well be that the nature of our broadcasting may change from a linear to a portal model over a period of 10 years or so. We ourselves already have our Player App on various Smart TVs as well as mobile devices, so our development in IPTV is well underway. But at the heart of our app are the current general linear channels and this type of channel is likely to be a big part of the mix for some time. It is very interesting that, despite having the content to create sports specific channels for a number of years, Sky has only just chosen to do this with F1.

As they move into ‘Pay as you Go’ with their Now Service on IPTV, it may be there is a market for people only wanting golf or tennis on a pay per view basis at a lower price point than the all in package of Sky/Sky Sports. This would supply a whole new market of subscribers and could prove lucrative while at the same time giving people what they want.

So far however there is life left in the old model because most consumers still like the simplicity of a package and subscription and both broadcasters and rights holders/federations/leagues tend to benefit from being on a general sports channel. It offers them a route to a wider audience by sitting alongside bigger sports like football or rugby for example. It can increase audiences for them via viewer inheritance and to be more separate is to become more niche and can marginalise a sport. After all, many minority sports still bemoan the death of Grandstand!

One trend that really does seem to be constant however is the ascendancy of live over delayed or highlights coverage. The availability of IPTV via wifi on mobile devices is set to grow exponentially and work aside, there are fewer and fewer situations in which you will not be able to watch your favourite team or player when you want. The big events, like the biggest shows on TV, are set to get even bigger and their live audiences away from traditional TV seem set to grow.

The growth of wifi access and the development of integrated (one payment for multiple points of access) services like Sky Go, which includes Eurosport, will accelerate this and I think mobile viewing will grow quickly. I note that IMG are already developing a service to supply live streaming on planes.

The important thing for a brand and a content provider like ourselves is to be as widely available – as ubiquitous – as possible. That’s what appeals to both our rights holders and our audiences. With a popular website, rich in video clips, alongside our TV Channels and our Player service online and on mobile, we feel we are in a great position for the future.

David Kerr is the Managing Director of Eurosport UK.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
STEPHEN NUTALL (YOUTUBE): ONLINE EXPOSURE
NICK SHAW (RFU): DIGITAL INVESTMENT

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Digital Sport.

Following 6 months of dedicated research, and guidance from an expert Advisory Board comprising, amongst others, BSkyB, BBC, Manchester City FC, Yahoo, Twitter, RFU, Chelsea FC, ESPN and AC Milan, a number of key topics and guest speakers have been identified for the 2013 programme.

Moore has been the COO at Electronic Arts since August 2011 and have previously held director level positions at Reebok, SEGA and Microsoft. He will give the invite-only audience a unique insight into how Electronic Arts deliver sports entertainment across multiple devices and link up with sports fans all around the world.

He will be one of 20 top name speakers to deliver perspectives on digital fan engagement, commercialising digital assets, innovation & technology to a limited audience of 400 digital experts from brands, broadcasters, rights holders and agencies.

Leaders CEO, James Worrall, says “For Leaders in Digital Sport 2013 we’re bringing the top people from across sport to examine global best practice in digital which always throws up some great innovations. Apart from this we’ll also be enhancing the overall event experience with more panel debates, interactive workshops, roundtable discussions and case studies.”

With the conference having sold out in its first two years, places are very limited and will only go to individuals and organisations with a keen interest or track record in this area.

To register your interest for the event or to learn more about Leaders in Digital Sport please contact one of the team on +44 (0) 207 042 8666 or email enquiry@leadersindigitalsport.com.

The event has grown in stature in that time and now hosts 1800 Director level delegates from over 45 countries and 40 sports attending, 52 per cent of which come from outside the UK. With 5 conferences covering Football, Performance, Sponsorship, Digital Sport and Racing, all running simultaneously in 2012, the programme hosted 100 speakers from all over the world.

James Worrall, CEO, Leaders says “After an extensive consultation period with all delegates, we are delighted to confirm a 3 day programme for the Leaders Sports Summit from 8-10 October in 2013. It will enable us to incorporate even more content into the programme and thereby provide additional value for delegates whilst also ensuring people have the time to attend what is important to them. We have also identified a number of exciting changes to keep Leaders fresh, relevant and of value to our clients which is what we strive to achieve each year.”

Leaders in Football, Leaders in Sponsorship, Leaders in Performance & Leaders in Digital Sport will run concurrently over the 9th & 10th October and Leaders in Racing will be held on the 8th October alongside a series of specific symposiums, workshops and networking opportunities, making Leaders the must attend international sporting event in the calendar.

If you would like to learn more about Leaders or to enquire about opportunities to get involved in 2013, please contact one of the team on +44 (0) 207 042 8666 or email enquiry@leadersinevents.com.

They were followed by an exclusive keynote speech by Barney Francis, Managing Director of Sky Sports and one of the industry’s most influential figures who covered Sky’s positive role in sports and digital innovation. The discussion on sport and technology continued with top executives from Premier League Champions Manchester City, Sky Deutschland and leading US broadcaster, Fox.

The debate then changed direction to how sports properties can better use digital platforms to engage with fans, as top marketers from the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the MLS and Sports Interactive covering topics from loyalty schemes, to social media and location based services. It was the benchmark for what sport can do with digital platforms.

Along with fan engagement, the other big talking point was how to monetise digital and the audience had access to original thinkers from two of the world’s biggest brands, FC Barcelona and Orange, and the world’s most popular social networking site, facebook. They shared ideas on digital and social sponsorship activation, drawing on Orange’s sponsorship of the EURO2012 football tournament, FC Barcelona’s industry leading online initiatives and facebook’s cutting-edge work with Olympic sponsors during the 2012 London Games.

Capping off the ground breaking agenda were a series of talks from top digital executives from other industries including speakers from McLaren Automotive and Disney, as well as Universal Music who told the story of the industry’s decline and revival in the digital era in a fantastic compare and contrast with the sports industry.

The attendance of the conference was strictly limited to 300 with 41% working at rights holders, 50% attending from outside the UK, over 60 brands represented and a buyer seller ratio of 60:40. The feedback from the event has been overwhelmingly positive with over 83% declaring it the best forum for digital debate and networking in the world of sport.

The planning is already in place for 2013 with an expanded programme of high level and workshop sessions due to be announced in the coming months.

In order for sports brands to do this, we recommend that they follow two key principles for success:

1. Invest more in owned media and leverage fan participation so you don’t have to buy your media, you can earn it.

2. Build out from the ‘live’ sporting engagement moment to effectively drive fan participation.

These principles will govern the shift from the attention to the participation economy. But before we look at them in greater detail, let’s consider the four major themes that are emerging in the changing world of sport.

1 – Fans: The shift from ‘Story Telling’ to ‘Story Participation’ in sport
The biggest events in social media are ‘live’ sporting events. Two of the top-ten ‘Tweets-Per-Second’ moments are football events, eg: UEFA Champions League and the Final of the Women’s World Cup ’11. This demonstrates a fundamental shift in how people engage with sports. Fans are no longer passive recipients of an armchair experience, but are now a fully contributing part of how these sporting dramas play out.

2 – TV / Broadcasters: Financial value is increasingly about the ‘live’, social and multiscreen entertainment experience
TV / Entertainment Broadcasters are investing heavily in new platforms to enhance the viewing experience. Broadcasters are increasingly looking to create new financial value around the ‘LIVE’ engagement opportunity (live game). Sky has been particularly aggressive in this space with the development of new platforms that help enhance the viewing experience, for example the SKY GO platform and their investment in Zeebox, a second screen social TV platform. As second screen and micro payment opportunities evolve, more and more clients will look to utilize live engagement opportunities for financial gain.

3 – Clubs / Owners: Helping fans get closer to the players and action to maximize potential revenue streams
Despite a record price for the recent sale of the Premier League TV rights, it is increasingly difficult for clubs to increase profits. Whether it’s the saturation of stadium capacity limiting potential match day revenues, or the increasing costs associated with players’ wages, clubs are increasingly looking to the digital space to drive new financial opportunities. Given the celebrity status of footballers (and athletes), and the ability for digital technology to connect people in ways that weren’t possible 10 years ago, it is no surprise that more and more clubs are looking to help fans ‘get closer’ to players, staff, clubs’ stories and histories. Of course these are all in an attempt to generate new revenue streams. For example, Manchester City’s deal with YouTube to broadcast online video footage is a direct attempt to use unique video content to drive desirability and interest to build their fan base. Similarly, brands such as Nike are more and more directly engaging with players to enhance their marketing activity. This can sometimes backfire, as demonstrated by Nike’s “Make it count” campaign, which was banned after the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that tweets made by Wayne Rooney on behalf of Nike did not clearly state they were adverts.

The real challenge however, is that if clubs and owners don’t adapt to this new commercial opportunity, the players themselves will ultimately drive the exclusion of clubs and owners. David Beckham is the archetypal example of a footballer super brand, and others are now following in his footsteps. For example, Rio Ferdinand has recently launched his “♯5” style brand and uses fashion clothing and magazine editorial platforms to capitalize on his celebrity brand status.

4 – Marketers: Shifting from sport campaign messages to sporting brand experiences
There has been a shift in recent years in how marketers have conducted their activity around sports. Whether it has been Adidas “Take the stage”, Nike’s “Make it count” or Coca-Cola’s FIFA ’10 “Longest celebration” campaign, we are increasingly seeing brands looking to build more participatory executions. The value these types of brand experiences offer is not only in the fan engagement they can drive, but also in their cumulative effect. As we shift in to an ‘always-on’ world, brands can no longer afford to be driven by a campaign mentality alone, with dependencies on disposable and expensive bought media. Instead, a ‘brand experience’ approach allows marketers to continuously engage audiences over time, adding incremental reach as well as deeper engagement.

CREATING VALUE THROUGH DIGITAL:

Through technology, fans have never been so close to sport, and yet in some ways they have never been so far. To capitalize on this and to create value from sports sponsorship in the digital age, brands should look to put participation at the heart of their objectives, and thus make the shift from the attention to the participation economy.

This brings us back to the two key principles for success, which businesses should follow to drive participation.

PRINCIPLE ♯1:
Invest more in owned media to leverage fan participation so you don’t have to buy your media, you can simply earn it:

- Invest more in long-term owned media than short-term bought. Generate earned media through fan participation and fuel not only sports activations, but also wider business programs (acquisition, e-commerce, content generation, retention, business intelligence, data insight and customer preferences). For example, Foot Locker’s Sneakerpedia platform is a great example of a brand investing in owned media to harness the passion and enthusiasm of sneaker fans for business benefits.

- Sport can give a brand something interesting to say and talk about with its customers long-term. Done well, it can drive earned media effectiveness, allowing brands to not only move towards a more authentic type of communication, but also a more cost effective one. Thus, breaking dependencies on expensive and disposable bought media-led strategies to fuel conversation.

Establishing a program for how to use sport to drive earned media conversations with and between fans, and identifying how and where to incorporate this across wider business programs (i.e. acquisition, CRM) is the first step to capitalizing on the participation economy.

PRINCIPLE ♯2:
Build out from the ‘live’ sporting engagement opportunity to effectively drive fan participation
(THE PRE/ DURING/ POST/ TRANSITION FRAMEWORK):

- Build out from the ‘live ‘sporting moment to create maximum fan relevancy and engagement, as the live moment is when fans are at their most passionate and enthusiastic. Identify fans’ needs, and use the framework to plot relevant approaches to help ensure not only active, but also mass, and on-going fan participation.

Figure 2: The ‘live’ and extended engagement opportunity space:

There are three potential approaches sports brands can use to maximize the ‘live’ engagement opportunity:

1. Broaden fan engagement
2. Deepen fan engagement
3. Extend (pre or post) fan engagement

BROADEN FAN ENGAGEMENT:
Sports brands can look to digital technologies as a means of broadening the appeal of the ‘live’ event experience, helping to amplify the intensity and awareness of ‘live’ moments. Extending fans’ engagement to include other fans will open up experiences to the widest audience possible.

DEEPEN FAN ENGAGEMENT:
Alternatively, sports brands may wish to consider more of a ‘lean forward’ strategy and look to deepen fan engagement. Use the ‘live’ moment to draw fans deeper into experiences and empower them to contribute and add to it. For some fans and some sports however, drawing fans’ attention away from the ‘live’ moment can become a negative, and it is important that clients find the right balance between ‘lean forward’ and ‘lean back’ strategies when trying to extend fan engagement.

EXTEND (PRE OR POST) FAN ENGAGEMENT:
All true sports fans are driven by hope and belief, and as such the moments leading up to, and directly after, the ‘live’ event can be exceptionally fertile areas for brands to extend fan engagement. As fans begin to prepare and plan for a sporting event, brands have the opportunity to directly engage them in the build up hype; from stoking fan rivalries through social, to enhancing the lead up experience on the way to and in the stadium through mobile and digital outdoor technologies. However, it is the immediate moments after the event itself that are often the most social, as fans discuss, debate and relive the events and drama. Leveraging this innate desire to talk about the event and looking for ways to carry on the conversation are key, as are planning for the ‘transitions’ between events which help build up continued momentum and fan engagement overtime.

CONCLUSION:
Lessons learnt from these two key principles will help sports brands make the transition from the attention to participation economy. By doing so, brands can ensure they use digital to their best advantage, creating genuine value for fans, and bringing transformational value for the wider business. Ultimately, this will help brands to guarantee a genuine sporting ‘Brand Legacy’ for their business through sports sponsorship.

Author: Andrew Gregoris is a Senior Strategic Planner SapientNitro.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Digital Sport.

The invite only sell-out international event saw over 1500 delegates and 100 speakers from over 45 countries, representing 50 different sports in attendance. 60% of the delegates were rights holders, 89% were Director-Level and 95 different sponsors in sport enjoyed the top quality content and networking. In fact 92% stated they were “extremely satisfied” with the quality of attendees.

Perhaps most pleasing of all was the fact that 48% of all attendees were from overseas, with significant director level delegations from Brazil working on the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Abu Dhabi Sports Council, Qatar 2022, Singapore Sports Council, Scandinavia, numerous Australian rights holders, and a major group representing the biggest sport franchises in the US, the events second biggest market.

Millions of people more from around the world followed the news stories as they happened live with 12 international TV networks covering the event (including BBC, Sky Sports News, ITV, Bloomberg, ESPN, MBC, CNN, CNBC, NHK ) and 150 international journalists in attendance. Recognising the growing importance of social media, the organisers had 15 people covering all 40 sessions and debates at the summit with the official hash-tag #Leaders2012 proving to be a huge success.

James Worrall, CEO, The Leaders Sport Summit said “The 5th Leaders Sports summit reached new heights on every level with the quality of delegates, relevance of content and media coverage it generated making it the premium event in the sports business calendar. I am so grateful to all the speakers, sponsors, exhibitors and delegates for travelling to London from all over the world and for all the supportive messages we have received in the days following the summit. Whilst we are delighted with the outcome for 2012 we are already working on the 2013 edition to ensure we continue to improve and deliver a first class experience for all concerned”

More Facts about the event:
Leaders in Football hosted more than 30 speakers over 12 sessions, with 92% of delegates “delighted” with the content and learning. Panels made up of players, referees, MLS owners, Brazil 2014, FIFA ExCo members and CEO’s from the biggest clubs in Europe, as well as interviews with Juventus president and owner, Andrea Agnelli, President of the Spanish Football Federation, Angel Maria Villar Llona and a panel with Qatar 2022 were spread throughout the two days.

Leaders in Performance hosted 21 world class speakers over 10 sessions with 90% of delegates “delighted” with the content and learning. Sessions concerning subjects such as talent identification, athlete development, sports science, technology, analysis, psychology and physiology, as well as what sport can learn from the business world, took place across the two days. The conference’s highlights included in depth interviews with Head Coach of the South African World Cricket Champions, Gary Kirsten, England Rugby National Team Coach, Stuart Lancaster and a fascinating panel on Innovation in Sport from NASA, UK Sport and McLaren F1.

Leaders in Sponsorship hosted 18 world class speakers over 7 sessions with 89% of delegates “delighted” with the content and learning. A world class roster of speakers were present for the Sponsorship conference on Wednesday and Thursday including speakers from the NFL, P&G, Hublot, FC Barcelona, ABInBev, Orange, SAB Miller, Investec, DHL, Western Union, Jacksonville Jaguars and GE. They spoke on a range of issues such as the latest trends in sponsorship from the US sports market, where global brands are spending their money, Olympic sponsorship, creating rights, the future of brands and how to harness the fans to activate sponsorships globally.

Leaders in Digital Sport hosted 20 world class speakers over 8 sessions with 94% of delegates delighted with the content and learning. A stellar line up of speakers were present for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s event, with the crowd addressed by prestigious representatives from companies such as Facebook, Sky Sports, Fox Sports, YouTube, NBC, BBC, Terra, Maple Leaf Sport and Entertainment, Pittsburgh Penguins, MLS, Universal Music, Manchester City and more. Sessions concentrated on the major topics within the industry, including; Digital lessons outside sport, how fans will consume sport in the future, the digitalisation of the Olympics, Digital fan engagement, building new digital platforms and finally a session on how the music industry has coped with content rights issues.

Leaders in Racing hosted 17 world class speakers over 6 sessions with 91% of delegates delighted with the content and learning. Leading representatives from some of the racing and betting world’s most prestigious brands and rights holders gathered to speak at Thursday’s event, with sessions focusing on the business of racing, promotion of the sport, international racing and betting and the finance of racing.

For the 3rd year running Levy Restaurants provided world-class food and drink at the event with a superb menu created by a team of leading chefs and in house hospitality experts. Levy restaurants operate globally at prestigious venues including Chelsea FC, Cardiff City Stadium, The O2 Arena and the Dodger Stadium in LA and created a similar first class experience for delegates. Similarly SIS, the experts in host and outside broadcast production and facilities, returned as a Main Partner of the summit covering every conference session and beaming relevant footage all over the world.

if you would like to learn more about Leaders events or to enquire about opportunities to get involved in 2013, please contact one of the team on +44 (0) 207 042 8666 or email enquiry@leadersinevents.com.

With a confirmed attendance of 50% delegates from overseas, it truly will be an international experience, and Leaders would like to ensure that industry professionals unable to attend the conference this year can still interact with the world-class audience and content via Twitter.

To keep up to date on the latest conference news, submit questions or to join the conversation, please follow the conference specific Twitter accounts below, or follow the general hash-tag that has been set up in order to follow the events in real time, wherever you are.

Conference specific accounts:
Leaders in Football – @LiFootball
Leaders in Performance – @LiPerformance
Leaders in Sponsorship – @LiSponsorship
Leaders in Digital Sport – @LiDigitalSport
Leaders in Racing – @LiHorseRacing

General account:
Leaders Sport Summit General Twitter account – @Leaders_Summit

Official hash tag:
Leaders Sport Summit 2012 – #Leaders2012

Both conferences run simultaneously over 10th and 11th October making it the biggest and most prestigious gathering of sponsorship and digital leaders ever to be assembled in one place at one time. Enquiries continue to flood in and both conferences already have a growing waiting list of hopeful delegates.

The full speaker line up and conference agenda is now available with the following list confirmed:

Leaders in Sponsorship: Jean-Claude Biver, Chairman and CEO, Hublot; Eelco van der Noll, Global Sports and Entertainment Director, AB InBev; John Constantinou, Global Head of Partnerships, Orange; Laurent Colette, CMO, FC Barcelona; Rob Fleming, Head of Sponsorship, SAB Miller; Chris Katsuleres, Olympic and Sport Marketing Director, GE; Raymond van Niekerk, CMO, Investec; Fiona Taag, Global Sponsorship Manager, DHL; Gordon Lott, Head of Olympic Marketing and Group Sponsorship, Lloyds TSB; Kevin Roberts, Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi; Marc Audrit, Global Brand Director, Western Union; Shahid Khan, Owner, Jacksonville Jaguars and Mark Waller, Chief Marketing Officer, NFL.

Leaders in Digital Sport: Claude Ruibal, Global Head of Sports Content Partnerships at YouTube; Rich Cordella, General Manager, NBC Sports and Olympics Digital; Sandra Pecis, Vice President of Media, Terra; John McCauley, Senior Director of Digital at the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC; Olivier Robert-Murphy, Head of New Business at Universal Music Group; Carsten Schmidt, Chief Sports Officer, Sky Deutschland;; Richard Gentile, Senior Director of Broadcast and Multimedia Production, New York Jets; Chris Schlosser, General Manager, MLS Digital; Christian Hernandez, Director of Platform Partnerships, Facebook; Russell Stopford, Head of Digital, Manchester City FC; Jeremy Zimmer, Senior Director – New Media, Pittsburgh Penguins and James Keady, Global Manager-Digital, CRM & Social, McLaren Automotive.

Leaders in Digital Sport and Leaders in Sponsorship take place within the Leaders Sports Summit, a coming together of 5 leading conferences including Football, Performance and the business of Horse Racing, over 10th and 11th October at Chelsea FC. For more information visit www.leadersinevents.com, contact enquiry@leadersinevents.com or call +44 (0) 207 042 8666.