The UP Big Idea Hall of Fame; In praise of obviousness; So farewell then, BT Sport; Adam Silver's magic; Rich golfers make bad TV; A billion for a LIV franchise v You'll make it back in shirt sales
Overthinking the sports business, for money
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Introducing The Unofficial Partner Big Idea Hall of Fame, or UPBIHOF as the kids are already calling it
Great creative is like porn, you know it when you see it.
For a while now we’ve wanted to do something that talks to creativity in sports marketing.
There’s a gap. A bit of white space.
The sports biz media is largely about the deals. Who did what to who and for how much.
The marketing trades remain wedded to TV advertising and generic digital stuff.
Sport gets a look in during the big quadrennials.
You’ll have had the call: ‘There’s a World Cup next week; Sport sponsorship, what’s that all about?’ Etc. Blah.
So we need somewhere.
A place to house ideas. To pick them apart, notice themes, wonder about provenance - where have we seen that before and have they just copied it or done something new?
Like you, I’ve judged award shows. Everyone has.
And quite often, the first time I encounter a sports campaign is when I’m being asked to give it a gong.
This talks to filter bubbles: ‘Yeah, but you’re not the target market’, like that’s my fault, and not just another way of saying the idea wasn’t big enough to reach me.
I’ve also been on the other side, labouring over the award submission process, which is as much fun as a root canal, only more expensive (Steve Martin on winning a Lifetime Achievement Award: ‘I’d love to win an Oscar, but I just can’t afford it’).
So, no health and safety form filling, no tables, no carriages at midnight.
Objectivity doesn’t exist.
It’s a fallacy. We’re all biased. Accept it.
Which leaves us with: we like this; we don’t like that.
And then, why did we like it, what was it about the idea that drew us in?
By definition, awards assume a piece of creative work is the end of a process.
A crowning.
It’s not, it’s something borrowed, made anew.
Ideas are always moving forward.
Sounds tiring doesn’t it.
In praise of obviousness
There’s a temptation to reward the obscure.
But often this is just a pose: Look at me, I’m someone who finds hidden gems. (That person will almost certainly have a vinyl record collection).
In the launch podcast of The Big Idea, sidekick Simon Moore celebrates P&G’s Thank You Mom campaign, by W+K.
You can’t get more obvious than that.
But it’s a good choice for entry to the UPBIHOF.
Scale - of budget, of brand profile, of the Olympic platform - brings risk of very public failure.
Fear kills creativity.
Yet they found a way to do something interesting.
Sporting excellence can be really boring and alienating: They’re super human weirdos and we’re not.
Mums on the other hand are universal.
We all have one, or had one, or desperately wanted one.
In every home, in every Olympic market, emotion trumps intellect.
There’s more on the UPBIHOF here:
Had to be someone ffs.
He’s a northern, chippy, art school kid off the council estate.
So a diversity hire basically.
The growing pains of golf’s Drive to Survive wannabe.
From this week’s WhatsUP chat, the sports business backchannel:
Ode to a Media Rebrand
So, farewell then BT Sport
You were always just another sub
A millennial’s Setanta
Borne of Brussels meddling; you were meat in the Premier League’s room
You existed to keep Sky’s pencil sharp
And now you’re TNT, whatever the fuck that means
See also, from the WhatsUP Group:
Look over there, not over here: Adam Silver’s week of magical thinking
You know about The Prestige, right?
“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".”
―Christopher Priest,The Prestige
Adam Silver came on all Steve Jobs this week, selling the future.
Meanwhile, same week, the numbers on the NBA All-Star Game were pretty awful.
Related: Average concurrent audience
Spoiler: The kids are not revolting!
Phelan Hill of Nielsen brings good news for those believing the lie that young people don’t like sport.
Here's a great example of behavioral change and innovation
RMC Sport, official broadcaster of the Europa League in France shared its television rights for the Barcelona vs Man Utd game with the streamer Domingo, who broadcast live and free of charge on his Twitch channel with two other content creators
The result... on linear French broadcast average concurrent audience was around c.390k. On Twitch a popular streaming platform for young people, the average concurrent audience was 162k with a peak of over 200k
Overall a real interesting move to see a traditional TV rights holder and content creators collaborate to help rejuvenate and engage different audiences
Sport as Asset Class - Bargain Bucket Edition
If you don’t want to buy Man Utd for $5billion, you can still get a LIV franchise for the giveaway price of …$1bn
What does a billion get you?
Four male golfers.
The right to exploit the global IP rights to the name ‘4Aces’.
The Eisenhoweresque leadership nous of Dustin Johnson.
Greg Norman’s promise that ‘you’ll make it back in shirt sales’.
A commitment from some of the golfers to wear the same uniform, some of the time.
Player apparel is considered one of the primary billboards for such sponsorship. Though most LIV Golf members did not wear matching uniforms during its 2023 season, the outfits are expected to have more conformity this campaign.
LIV Golf lacked any formal sponsorship during its inaugural season, while spending $784 million to launch the circuit.
See you here next week, same time, same place.
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