IF Seminars 2023

Reach versus Revenue: Media Rights & Streaming Strategy for IFs

The question of reach versus revenue is one of the inevitable conundrums for IFs when deciding how to package and distribute their rights. IFs must navigate a fragmented sports media market and still drive awareness of their sport, grow their audience, and retain them while taking advantage of monetization opportunities.

Although many sport organisations prefer to assign their rights to third parties in exchange for immediate and guaranteed revenues, new technologies, streaming products, and social channels offer a myriad of new possibilities. Indeed, the right holders of niche or specialized content now have more options to monetize their content than ever. Therefore, IFs should periodically re-assess their strategy and consider new ways of allocating their rights.

By embarking on a direct-to-consumer (D2C) journey, IFs can monetize their content, reach audience demographics, or even achieve financial independence. Through a D2C approach, IFs can leverage the appeal of secondary content, such as player interviews, docuseries, archives, and digital highlights, and access their fans' data and insights to improve the offering.

Lastly, IFs should recognize the media rights of women's sports and whether broadcasters should be shared or unbundled from the men's competitions when establishing a strategy.

This seminar will cover the main trends, opportunities and challenges rights holders face in the current media and digital landscape and will provide an overview of the primary considerations when establishing a long-term strategy. Speakers will present the possibilities unlocked by new OTT technologies, platforms and functionalities in terms of growth, visibility and monetization and will present case studies of the best approaches to seize the current opportunities.

Gender Equity in Sport: Advancing the Rights & Health of Women

In the name of gender equality, women’s sports development has often mirrored men’s sport without specific regard to the physiological needs and realities of women athletes, coaches and officials. However, when not considered by sports organisations, certain key factors such as physical characteristics, the menstrual cycle and pregnancy impact the health of girls and women and their participation rate in organised sport.

Studies have shown that many elite women athletes end their sport career prematurely before they achieve peak performance and often well before the age at which their male counterparts stop competing. The lack of institutional support also impacts women acting as referees, coaches and officials at the highest level. Yet there is a tremendous opportunity for international federations to use women's sport as a powerful vehicle to promote gender equity and the rights and health of women and girl athletes and to assist in the development of women's sport globally.

This seminar will highlight the latest research findings and initiatives from the sport industry, including legal – such as maternity protections – and health-promoting measures for women athletes and officials. In addition, speakers will share various existing initiatives to help increase participation and grow women's sport and its commercial potential.

From a Sport Event to a Sport Festival

Sports fans increasingly demand new ways to attend and interact with sports events. Emerging sports, in particular, are trying to tap into this trend to build events that offer participants more than just a sport competition to attract younger fans, promote their sport, and generate more revenues.

Already, many event organisers are transcending the realms of sport to incorporate new cultural and social dimensions, effectively building a festival around their events. Live and showpiece events, promotional activities and other satellite activations – including introductory sessions to new disciplines, new product drops, parties, film screenings, etc. – are now organised to engage fans better, include non-attending spectators, grow the excitement around the competition and build a strong sense of community around sports events.

To meet the demand and adapt to the new dynamics, all sports organisations – from emerging, urban, to traditional sports – must adapt and innovate how they organise events. In this regard, International Federations should seriously consider the commercial opportunities the concept of “festivalisation” can create for rights holders. Host cities are also looking for sport events that create value and impact on the population, not only to boost tourism, investment and social cohesion, but events that increase the participation in sport and physical activity.

This Seminar will present an overview of the evolution of this phenomenon, current successful initiatives in this regard, and the commercial opportunities IFs could grasp by trying to shape their sports events as festivals. Speakers will share their experiences, challenges, and strategies for creating an engaging and memorable experience for fans – leading to an enriching discussion on the emerging trends transforming the landscape of fan experience.

Esport and gaming strategies for IFs

Gaming and esports have emerged as indispensable tools for building and securing the long-term relevance of international federations (IFs).

In today's landscape, this booming sector is gradually becoming mainstream, blurring the lines with traditional sports – notable examples are the recent years and new addition to the official program of the 2022 Asian Games and the inaugural edition of the Olympic Esports Week, set to debut in 2023 in Singapore.

However, while IFs excel in governing "physical" sports, venturing into the "digital" space presents an entirely different challenge. It's not just a matter of different sports but also a rapidly evolving world driven by innovation.

So, how can IFs successfully embrace this challenge and incorporate gaming and esports into their growth strategy? How can they leverage the immense potential of this domain to generate new revenues, reach new audiences, and make the physical experience more appealing to evolving consumer behaviours?

This Seminar will provide an overview of the recent developments in esports, including case studies on recent initiatives launched by international sport organisations. In addition, stakeholders from the gaming industry will share their insights on the current opportunities, challenges and risks in the field, as well as strategic positioning options.

IF Seminar – Fan Engagement and personalisation

In an ever-increasing competitive and fast-paced environment – combined with decreasing attention time from consumers – sport organisations are always looking to enhance the ways in which they engage with fans to match new expectations and behaviours.

Today's technological landscape, driven by the rise of AI and data analytics capabilities, unlocks a wealth of opportunities to grab attention and engage with fans in the right way and at the right time. One way to better connect with fans is through personalisation – interactions being tailored with precision to maximise the impact and monetisation potential.

Recent surveys conducted by Deloitte highlight that consumers now expect personalised experiences and that companies that excel at personalisation can generate significantly higher revenues.

Consequently, the following question arises: Without the right strategy and capabilities to target individual fans, do sports organisations risk falling behind?

This Seminar aims to answer this question and provide an overview of the important recent developments in the area of personalisation. Through case studies and expert insights, participants should gain useful knowledge on leveraging technology to enable deeper connections with fans.