How to ambush the World Cup; FIFA as Apple; FTX Ripples; Does it stick; Adi v Nike, then and now; The Will Smeed Experiment; Fun with war metaphors; Twenty is plenty redux; Objects of value
Overthinking the sports business, for money
How to ambush the World Cup
This week’s episode.
The rough episode plan:
Be careful with war metaphors
Gabi Mostert’s point: ‘the language is so war-like, so male. Guerrilla, ambusher…this is sport. Where’s the fun?’
FIFA as Apple
Shaun Whatling gave the episode its future facing conclusion.
FIFA should embrace ambushers, use them in the way Apple uses Belkin to build on their ecosystem.
The more public oxygen the World Cup takes up, the more space we occupy in the public consciousness, the better.
And so, if your advantages as a sponsor are solid they should welcome people celebrating and participating unofficially in the moment, because they're actually raising your position as a sponsor. They're generating more excitement, more energy around it.
But you - the sponsor - have the Crown Jewels.
Smart no?
See also:
Anatomy of a World Cup ad
FIFA partner Adidas released its World Cup ad, which has no reference to FIFA or Qatar.
Whereas Nike went with an idea that seems to borrow heavily from Adidas’ 2006 effort - old players v new etc.
Here’s the new Nike ad:
Compare and contrast with the Adidas ad from 2006.
Mo Bobat and the Will Smeed Experiment is a good name for a prog rock band but is actually a story about sport’s near future
Cricketer Will Smeed was referenced in our recent podcast with the ECB’s Director of Performance, Mo Bobat.
Smeed is an emerging star player but has never played a first class - red ball - match. This week he signed a white-ball only contract extension with his county Somerset.
It’s a case study of incentives and the challenge facing cricket’s governing bodies to manage the rise of the T20 franchise player. Club v country, sport as entertainment, format wars: The Smeed story contains macro trends.
Good build by Omar Chaudhuri, who was on that Bobat pod.
Seen in the wild: Sports marketing activations that become local speed limit campaigns
Q: Which recent sponsorship does this tree based graffiti reference?
What’s sportswashing?
It’s Qatar Week, in case you hadn’t noticed.
News editors are commissioning World Cup content.
They’re asking the big questions - why are we playing football in the desert in a country with a dodgy human rights record?
It’s just that they’re asking them ten years too late.
This happened on one of my favourite new podcasts - The News Agents.
It was their Qatar episode, with guest Gary Lineker being asked to justify himself.
But listen to this 45 second clip of Lewis Goodall in the set up, talking with co-host Emily Maitlis:
Hear that? Goodall says he’d never heard of the term sportswashing before this week.
Given Goodall’s career - Sky News, BBC Newsnight - this is quite the revelation.
He might be playing the too cool for school anti-sport card, but even so...wtf?
Meanwhile, over on Netflix, FIFA Uncovered is presented as revealing dark secrets of football’s past.
Again, really? This stuff isn’t new, you just haven’t been paying attention.
When Jurgen Klopp blamed journalists for not reporting on Qatar, my initial response was defensive, quoting the incredible work of people from Andrew Jennings on to the current sports news lobby. There’s been brilliant and relentless reporting on FIFA and its inner workings.
But then, when I pan out, I can see Klopp may be right.
Beyond the sports bubble, the mainstream gatekeepers remain obsessed with the same old horse race coverage of Westminster politics, that led to them missing Brexit and Trump.
Qatar is just this week’s story. Next week it’ll be something else. See you in four year’s time.
Meanwhile, here are some typical England fans in Qatar.
And did you hear that Gianni Infantino is running unopposed for FIFA President? What will the new term bring?
See also: Matthew Barrett took UP to task for a recent newsletter
From UP Yours, the Unofficial Partner Guest Blog:
The FTX Ripple
See this week’s podcast:
Follow up questions:
Does the shit stick?
Post-FTX (a proxy for The Bad Sponsor), is there enduring damage to the rights holder? This can be defined in reputation or financial terms, relating to the future commercial value of sponsorship rights.
You might have some data to share.
My hunch is there’s a micro - macro lens: clubs get away with it, the fans don’t care and see it for what it is, a money grab for the new left back.
But there’s a macro hit for the sport or league as a whole. This seems to be the case for betting brands, when you hear of the ‘football in bed with online gambling’, and with it a slow degradation of the shirt as a premium brand placement.
Something in that?
2. Where does a football club’s responsibility for its fans start and stop?
When selling to a potential sponsor, commercial departments like to talk of allowing access to our fans, like they’re a homogenous blob of gullible idiots.
But if this is what they’re selling, is the reverse true?
Does doing a deal with FTX or some other crypto Ponzi scheme, mean the club is liable for exposing their fans to bad actors?
Either way, this story from WSJ is worth keeping an eye on:
A consortium of investors has sued the founder of FTX — along with several high-profile athletes who promoted the cryptocurrency exchange — alleging they took “advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country.”
Included in the class-action suit are FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, in addition to seven-time Super Bowl champ Tom Brady, NBA superstar Steph Curry, and NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal.
3. What is sport selling?
I think the answer is trust, btw.
The great crypto sponsor gold rush has chipped away at it.
We’ll see if it’s hard to win it back.
See also, this ad on the tube makes a big assumption imho.
Objects of value
Ali Bin Nasser, the Tunisian who refereed the match (but did not see the handball), a rich man. The estimate for the now rather deflated ball at auction is around £3m ($3.5m). The number 10 jersey Maradona wore that day, and swapped after the game with England’s midfielder, Steve Hodge, sold for £7.1m in May.
I once sold a book idea but never wrote it: a biography of the England shirt. Still think there’s something in it.
Leaked: the new Sport Industry Awards criteria
Fair play to Nick Keller, his money’s in the vicinity of his mouth.
Sports Biz Job of the Week
Job: Mid-weight designer for We Are Fearless
Blurb: Talented? Sports Obsessed? Ambitious?
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Apply here: Send your CV, portfolio and salary expectations to: jemma@wearefearless.com