Sport is more than a luxury, it’s the next innovation battleground
Sport is not just the players on the field and the rankings on the ladder. According to Nora Henriksson, it’s more important now than ever for sport to prove its worth.
2020 marked the sudden end of sport as we knew it. No games, no training, and players were separated not only from their fans, but from each other. Postponed tournaments and cancelled league games made headlines. And sponsors saw their investments evaporate into thin air.
Then came the return of (most) sports, and so far it has been somewhat anticlimactic for fans. This could also turn into the biggest crisis ever for a business that’s been growing tremendously the past 20-odd years. Global spending on sponsorship rights fees is set to fall from USD$46.1bn in 2019, to USD$28.9bn in 2020 – numbers based on projections from sports agency giant Two Circles.
Whether sports leagues aim to recapture growth and appeal to new fans, or brands aim to extract value from sponsorships now and in the near future, both challenges face a common solution: both must work together to innovate and redefine what a virtualised sporting experience looks like, and how it functions in fans’ digital lives.
