What's the point of British Cycling? The Good Sponsor myth; W Series as mineshaft canary; Late Redknapp; Wise UP, the movie; CNN NFT WTF; OTT as commodity pt2; Personal Best; UP Yours etc.
Overthinking the sports business, for money
What’s the point of British Cycling?
To answer this question, it’s useful to examine our own starting line.
My lefty priors: Council house, state comprehensive school, uni grant, 8 years as a teacher in the state system, married to an NHS midwife.
Spoiler: I’m pro big government.
This is the bias that colours my views on the sports business conversation.
I’m sentimentally - unthinkingly? - in favour of the national governing body model: Sport is more than an asset class; a strong society needs robust public institutions; The FA as NHS: frustrating as hell but we’d be worse off if it didn’t exist. Etc.
To be of any use as a writer, it’s essential to recognise these prior assumptions and actively question them.
My starting position leads me to be vulnerable to some obvious errors: innate scepticism of the market’s ability to solve big problems; public-private collaboration as state capture; suspicion of the motives of private investors, conflating hard-earned wealth with entitlement.
This leads to: an underestimation of the importance of the profit motive on driving creativity and innovation; the economic necessity of entrepreneurship, the reality of creative destruction and the personal freedom that comes with making money.
That’s a long way of saying, I have a problem with British Cycling.
What happened?
This week the national governing body announced an eight year sponsorship deal with Shell.
Cue outrage:
Friends of the Earth campaigner Jamie Peters said: "Cycling is the epitome of environmentally friendly travel. It's deeply disappointing that UK Cycling [sic] could think it's appropriate to partner with a fossil fuel giant.
"Shell is continuing to invest billions in oil and gas projects, while using cynical PR initiatives like this partnership to attempt to greenwash its harmful activities."
The ‘cycling community’ hated on the decision.
Shaun Whatling of Redmandarin wrote a very good piece on why it’s made cyclists angry.
The kind of reactions expressed on British Cycling’s Facebook betray a real rupture in relations. They’re the sort of reactions normally reserved for comments about the Glazers. An acute sense of personal affront – signs of a grievance that will not just fade away. In my experience, British Cycling has always struggled to unite a very diverse membership, segmented – sometimes passionately – by discipline and by motivation. Shell’s sponsorship has clearly united a sub-group. The question is, how large is that sub-group?
So, it’s about hypocrisy. Sleeping with the enemy.
The Shell deal gives fresh context to previous BC overclaims to its broader societal purpose:
See previous note: ‘Power of Sport’ overclaims: We don't talk about the limits of sport very often.
See also, first do no harm. When you’re main sponsor’s a climate change denier.
Three builds
This won’t work for Shell, and will probably make things worse: see previous note on ‘Why sportswashing doesn’t work like dictators think it does’. For bad actors, sponsorship acts like a naming rights deal. From this day on, Shell’s name will be attached to terms such as ‘Greenwashing’ and ‘Climate disaster’ when mentioned in the context of sport. The idea of using cycling as a platform to demonstrate change is a Powerpoint slide that explodes on contact with Twitter.
Can the sports economy survive if only reliant on The Good Sponsor? What sponsorship category is free of criticism in a social media driven culture war framework? Which causes are unambiguously just and worthy of sport’s marketing support? Is the crusade for perfection getting in the way of change?
Why is British Cycling so desperate? After three decades of being hosed with public and Lottery money, so many governing bodies remain dependent on outside sources, be that tax payers, Shell or the IOC. This is the most troubling bit for someone with my priors - see above - because it undermines my whole world view, not just on sport. What if, British Cycling is crowding out innovative and exciting privately owned and run cycling initiatives just by being there? What if, the money has created a series of perverse internal incentives that reward the wrong things, causing those in charge to chase attribution and take credit for other people’s work in driving up cycling numbers?
In short, what if British Cycling is the problem not the solution?
Counter point:
'There is nothing perverse about British Cycling taking up the offer of sponsorship from Shell. These are two organisations which are both trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and which can maybe learn from each other.'
W Series as mineshaft canary
Ironically, there’s another sports body that would love a Shell sponsorship this week.
The W Series is one of those things I never watch but am glad exists. And that might be part of the problem.
What happened?
The women-only race series has been forced to finish its 2022 schedule prematurely, because ‘the required funding due to the business from a recent contracted investment was not received’ when it was expected in mid-September.
Who said what?
CEO Catherine Bond Muir told SportsPro:
“I had a Zoom call with the drivers and it was incredibly similar to the conversation I had with them about cancelling 2020 because of Covid.
“They are drivers in their blood and all they want to do is race and they were incredibly upset. At the same time they were understanding, but really the feeling that came out of it was ‘yeah, this is rubbish, but Catherine, this is what we’ve dealt with for 20 years.
“‘We’ve had promises of money, we’ve had contractual commitments for money and they haven’t come through, we’ve had lots of people saying they are going to support us and it doesn’t happen’.
“It was more of a feeling of ‘welcome to our world.’ I think they are concerned about the structure of the business going forward, and whether they’ll be asked to supply money next year, and I’ve said as far as we’re concerned at the moment we want to keep the DNA of W Series going, and that it is our intention to still be providing all of the expenses for the drivers.”
What’s next?
Fingers crossed this is a blip not the end of W Series.
But it’s hard to think this won’t be the last such story, as the macro economic downturn causes third party funders to bail on their sports investments.
Late Redknapp
Wandering the aisles of the brand graveyard that is Sports Direct, I was confronted with Jamie Redknapp pushing Skechers.
There’s something a bit Gloria Swanson about seeing a former bright young thing flogging the merits of arch supports and all-day comfort.
‘I am big, it’s the endorsements that got small’
Vault by CNN - a sports biz warning
CNN has taken the ‘fail fast’ cliche and run with it.
Vault by CNN was the news org’s foray in to web3.
The idea: Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that commemorated major news events.
Launched mid-2021, CNN said the project represented a chance for collectors to own a piece of history.
Now they’ve shut it down.
Two outcomes: both bad.
Punters feel ripped off. CNN made ‘a few hundred thousand dollars’ from the scheme. Those who bought ‘historic moments’ are left with…a jpeg of JFK’s day trip to Dallas.
‘Jason’ on CNN’s Discord poured oil.
“The distribution will be either FLOW tokens or stablecoins deposited into each collector's wallet,” he wrote. “We are currently working out the details, but expect the distribution amount to be roughly 20% of the original mint price for each Vault NFT owned.”
The ‘Web3 as scam’ trope gathers pace. More fear, less experimentation.
Hear the Unofficial Partner Web3 Live Brainstorm.
Great thread by the brilliant Alex Amsel, an UP brainstorm guest:
Randoms
Commoditisation is killing the OTT agency. Are we all doomed? (This is written by Stream AMG CEO Hugo Sharman, in response to our recent podcast UP267, with Mike Emery and Murray Barnett).
Your Netflix sub is only going up and up and up
Boom in audio drives rush to sonic branding
It’s more than tokens and NFTs: Eddie May and David Orman on sport and web3.
Personal Best
Sportsbiz people reveal their favourite things
Sanmi Balogun, Founder of Escal8 Management
There’s no denying, the man’s got good taste…
