The Briefing #099

15 Jan 2020 Posted by: Stephen O'Malley

The DataPOWA view on the most important talking points in the worlds of sport sponsorship, digital & AI.

 

BARCA TOP THE FOOTBALL MONEY LEAGUE
The 23rd edition of the Deloitte Football Money League, profiling the highest earning clubs in the world’s most popular sport has been released. Published just eight months after the end of the 2018/19 season, the Money League remains the most contemporary and reliable independent analysis of the clubs’ relative financial performance. FC Barcelona reach the top of the Money League for the first time and become the first club to break the €800m revenue barrier. It is a Spanish one-two for the second consecutive year; however, the positions swap with Real Madrid dropping to second place.
For more on this story, please visit Deloitte; read the BBC Opinion

 

AMAZON’S EPL PERFORMANCE ASSESSED BY ADVERTISERS
Amazon Prime Video’s debut of live English Premier League telecasts last month was largely well received by advertisers, although ad buyers have quibbles about the data they have received from the streaming platform thus far. Amazon has not released its viewing figures publicly. A buyer at one agency said he was told by Amazon that about 2 million viewers tuned in on Dec. 4 to watch Liverpool beat Everton 5 to 2 in the Merseyside derby. That’s a figure comparable to the audience on Sky when the teams last played each other in March. Agency executives said they received reporting on their specific campaigns from Amazon this week — a month after the first batch of games were aired and two weeks after the second set of games.
For more on this story, please visit Digiday

 

BUCKS TAKE ON MIAMI HEAT DATA PLATFORM
“They say that ‘data is the new oil’ because it’s the world’s most valuable commodity,” says Matthew Jafarian, Miami Heat Executive Vice President of Business Strategy, “and we collect a lot of it.” Jafarian and Edson Crevecoeur, Miami’s Vice President of Strategy and Data Analytics, lead a small, in-house group of innovative minds that works for the Heat. Their goal is to change the way that NBA teams use newer technologies to make data-driven decisions to increase revenue. To that end, they have developed a new platform that gathers data on everything from attendance numbers to sales of tickets and food and beverage items, and processes that information more quickly than ever before.
For more on this story, please visit Forbes

 

KSI READY TO BREAK AMERICA
On the 9th of November, 2019, audiences around the world tuned in for a historic night of boxing, broadcast from a sold out Staples Center in Los Angeles. The crowd was packed with celebrities, including Justin Bieber, Rick Ross, Wiz Khalifa, Mike Tyson and the supposed “King of Instagram”, Dan Bilzerian. A casual onlooker might assume Floyd Mayweather was about to make his big comeback; in fact, his uncle Jeff was sitting ringside. But this wasn’t the return of a boxing superstar. In fact, it wasn’t even two career athletes entering the ring, but two YouTubers: British-born KSI (20.9 million YouTube subscribers) and American-born Logan Paul (20.1 million YouTube subscribers), who were having their first ever professional fight to settle a half-joking internet spat they’d begun two years earlier.
For more on this story, please visit Vice

 

NFL GAMES DOMINATE USA 2019 TOP BROADCASTS
If 2018 was the year the NFL stanched the bleeding caused by two straight seasons of ratings declines, 2019 marked the end of any further discussion about what professional football means to the livelihood of the broadcast TV networks. Having closed out the fall campaign with an average audience of 16.5 million viewers across its Sunday, Monday and Thursday TV windows, the NFL grew its year-over-year deliveries by 5 percent and improved upon its performance in 2018 by a solid 10 percent. Given the ongoing contraction of TV ratings, any growth is noteworthy. As it happens, the NFL’s gains coincide with a 7 percent seasonal decline in the overall usage of TV and a 9 percent year-to-year drop in overall primetime deliveries.
For more on this story, please visit AdAge

 

GOOD SHOUT
Distractify: Marathon Runner Loses Sponsorship Deals After Kicking Dog in the Middle of a Race
Podcast – Done Deal: Why Would Anyone Want To Own a Football Club?
Hollywood Reporter: Warner Bros. Signs Deal for AI-Driven Film Management System
SportsPro: Ten Influencers 2020: The figures who will define the sports industry year ahead
Sports Tech Feed Podcast: Umberto Righetti from Atrium Sports
Bloomberg: Wanda Cinemas to Host U.S. Esports Firm’s China Tournaments
BBC: YouTube signs three top gamers away from rival Twitch