In March 2022, Squash Australia announced they would be launching a new national registration and competition management platform with revolutioniseSPORT
Guiding sport through the next decade Emily Moore, Daniela Zapata, Anne-Sophie van der Sanden and Alex Mednis consider key trends that will influence sport in the years to 2032
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s we move toward the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane it is an appropriate time to consider the megatrends that will influence and shape the sporting industry over the next decade. The future will be personalised, and the four megatrends considered in this article are built around the core understanding that consumers want to deal with sports on their own terms, rather than those of the sport. This is a fundamental shift from the early 2000s, where the experience was firmly in control of the sport. To build a successful sporting ecosystem prior to 2032, sport needs to understand the following trends and more importantly, act now. Personalisation Have you ever wondered how you can be discussing exotic travel destinations with friends, and disturbingly specific advertisements appear within a day or so on every website? This is the world of artificial intelligence, machine learning and personalisation. Irrespective of whether it relates to advertisements, tailored content or individualised services, personalisation allows for delivering contextual member experiences that better suit consumers on their terms. Sport lags behind almost all other industries when it comes to personalisation, with very few sports using anything of the kind in their marketing strategies. However, in a world where attention span is shorter and the average consumer is 40 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 149
constantly bombarded, gaining brand attention out of the white noise is imperative. For sport to succeed, personalisation must be weaved into club activities from the grassroots to the national level. Three key areas in which personalisation can improve club operations include membership loyalty, behavioural and demographic cross-selling, and location data. Gamification Whether we are setting up a new mobile phone or taking suggestions from LinkedIn on how to ‘complete’ the profile we have had set up for years - a setup checklist awaits! And not just any checklist, but one that gives us shiny green ticks and ‘points’ for enabling settings and handing over more information in return for each reward. However you look at it, most of our lives are governed by clubs, frequent flyer memberships and ‘reward programs’ that see us happily trade our behaviour and data in exchange for the positive reinforcement of completing a series of micro-requests. Gamification aims to entice users to continue using a product or purchasing a service by completing specific tasks and rewarding them for doing so. Across the sporting industry: badges, leaderboards, points or rewards, social interactions, stories and incentives are all standard implementations of gamification. And when executed effectively, the benefits of gamification can reach far and wide to all members of your organisation, from fans to participants.
