Magpie - Issue 5 - Sports

ISSUE

Sports

Summer 2019

TRENDS AND SIGNALS FROM CULTURE

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Trends and signals from culture Issue 5 — Summer 2019 hello@brandpie.com brandpie.com

E D I TO R I A L D I R E C TO R

Rik Haslam

PUBLISHER

MaryLee Sachs E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F

Austin Randall

C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R

Embracing a new definition of sports Today, all sports are increasingly shaped by data and analytics. Emerging technologies are helping the world’s most talented athletes gain that vital performance edge.

Coaches have access to insights their predecessors could only dream of. Still other innovations are enabling brands and franchises to reach larger audiences with a better, more engaging product and deliver new kinds of experiences. Technology like VAR (video assistant referee) in soccer are even changing how the game is officiated.

Michael Mackay

ART DIRECTION/DESIGN

Jonathan Herrera Santiago Gomez Ellen Rose Katy Scott

The rise of the second screen, esports and legalized sports betting are just the tip of the iceberg. Never has the sports landscape stood on the verge of so many radical and exciting changes.

HEAD OF PRODUCTION

Lauren Strickland Erika Dutton C O N T R I B U TO R S

Rosanna Beart Hannah Conway Rishi Dastidar Dustin Lawrence Sami Mallis Austin Randall MaryLee Sachs

N YC

154 W 14th St, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10011, USA +1 917 887 3202 LDN

10 Bloomsbury Way London, WC1A 2SL, UK +44 20 7831 4834

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This edition of magpie takes a deep dive into the forces changing the face of sports and examines how transformative new technologies are opening up new opportunities for athletes, franchises, brands, media and a massive globally connected fan base.

We’ll examine how these changes are creating the ideal conditions for innovation and driving unprecedented growth. And we’ll explore how new cultural attitudes are shaping the exciting opportunities that lie just around the bend.

As always, we hope that you’ll find our insights provocative, informative and entertaining.

@Brandpie

Austin Randall

I N STAG R A M

Editor-in-Chief

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linkedin.com/company/brandpie

©Brandpie Inc 2019. All rights reserved. This publication or any parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher. Published by Brandpie Inc, 154 W 14th St, 2nd Floor, New York, 10011, USA, telephone +1 917-887-3202; email hello@brandpie.com; www.brandpie.com. Where opinion is expressed it is that of the author and does not necessarily coincide with the editorial views of the publisher or Brandpie. All information in this magazine is verified to the best of the authors’ and the publisher’s ability. However, Brandpie Inc does not accept responsibility for any loss arising from reliance on it.

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The American formula

The rise of the sports fan who doesn’t actually care about sports

From advanced precision accurate training simulations to all-electric drivetrains, Fomula One motorsport is having a modern-day renaissance.

What does it mean for an athlete to be an “athlete?”

What does the mainstream public value in the sports stars they watch today? How does the changing nature of the athlete-ascelebrity affect the sports industry in a broader sense?

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A new generation of wearable textiles takes us beyond wearable devices.

Sport, like any other industry, has to innovate to keep fans and players interested. Sometimes these ideas don’t work out—but they can still have a lasting and sometimes unpredictable impact.

Dress coding for sports

Table of Contents

Game, set, crash

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Game on

A leader’s perspective on esports and the future of gaming

With the gap between competitive video gaming and traditional sports inching closer, who’ll win the battle and come out on top?

Lauren Strickland conducts an interview with Ted Leonsis, founding member of AOL and current owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment.

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Our favorite kits Employees from our London and New York offices get nostalgic for teams’ kits from years past.

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Out of the shade and into the light There has always been a notion that sports should be kept “clean” and that the introduction of betting would make them “dirty.”

But those traditional views may be changing faster than you realize.

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DRESS DRESS CODING CODING SS P OPR OT SR T S A NEW G E N E R AT I O N OF WEARABLE TEXTILES TA K E S U S BEYOND WEARABLE DEVICES

By MaryLee Sachs

FOR

Image courtesy of SUPA

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THE NADI X APP COMES WITH 40 POSES AS WELL AS MUSIC TO HELP YOU CHILL While the name of the game in sports is data in all its forms, the data is largely observational—athlete performance, conversations on social, event attendance and participation.

The new frontier is about tapping into the athlete on a very personal level and using data and machine learning to inform and improve performance. New players in the field are changing the dress code to marry bleeding-edge technology with apparel and design, and the results are some of the most interesting wearable innovations in a generation.

Image by Dynamic Wang

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And the market is responding with expected growth to $4 billion by 2024 from its 2016 level of $150 million (LiveMint, 2019). According to Gartner, the forecast of units of smart clothing shipments will increase from 5.65 million in 2018 to nearly 7 million in 2019 (Gartner, 2018).

KNICKERS WITH A TWIST Meet Billie Whitehouse and Wearable X, the company she cofounded in 2013, which manufactures and sells $249 tech-woven yoga pants that literally hit all the right spots.

Wearable X launched its first direct-to-consumer product, the “Nadi X” yoga pants, in May 2017 with initial success.

Featuring pulse sensors woven into the hips, knees and ankles, the Nadi X guides both women and men to achieve the ultimate Lotus, Downward-Facing-Dog or any other yoga pose or Asana while, at the same time, guarding from sports injury. And it’s not just a gimmick; Wearable X worked with an advisory group representing 600 physical therapists to perfect the design and functionality of the Nadi X. The corresponding app the Nadi X is paired with includes around 40 poses as well as music to help you chill.

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W H I T E H O U S E I S I N C R E A S I N G LY C A L L I N G T H E C AT E G O R Y

SMART

SMART TECHSTYLES

TECHSTYLES BUT THE REST OF THE WORLD IS STILL, FOR NOW, REFERRING TO THEM AS “WEARABLES”

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What Whitehouse and her brand have realized is that people need to be made aware of the value these types of products can provide, to really take this type of wearable mainstream.

“What’s important is that from seed growth, the industry is about to hit that tipping point when it becomes a norm, and I know this because of how deep I am in the inside track,” according to Whitehouse. “Everything now is a data game: to understand your customers properly you have to have sophisticated data, and it has to be meaningful to the customer—you have to make their life better, and that’s why I’ve always focused on consumer products because I believe I can have that ability to make a consumer’s life better through data.”

The Sydney-born Whitehouse first launched Wearable Experiments (now Wearable X) in 2013 with a

product centered around touch. Based on the haptic platform and in partnership with Durex, she created “Fundawear,” a range of vibrating underwear for couples in long-distance relationships. A range of fan jerseys followed, including The Alert Shirt with Fox Sports (Foxtel), Fan Jersey (X) launched at Super Bowl 50 in 2015, and the EURO Fan Shirt, which was featured as part of an activation during Manchester Citizens Weekend with 3,000 fans.

Other front runners in the space include Canadianbased Hexoskin with a line of smart shirts capable of tracing the wearer’s heart rate, heart rate recovery, heart rate variability, breathing rate, VO2 max, minute ventilation, activity level, acceleration, calories, cadence and steps. Hexoskin claims that its products have even been picked up by a number of space agencies, military organizations and professional sports teams

around the world—a selling point for athletes tracking and training to improve their performance in extremely small and precise increments.

French fashion-tech company Spinali Design has created a range of connected clothing, including jeans, dresses and bikinis. SUPAspot has created the Supa Powered Sports Bra, which is a mash up of neon, a heart rate sensor and AI. And Skiin, also from Canada, provides remote diagnostics and therapy smart underwear, a blood pressure shirt, and the first remote therapy knee brace that combines electric stimulation and heat therapy to help the wearer deal with acute and chronic knee pain. It seems the applications for this type of technology are endless and may end up in the near future being considered as reliable as the diagnostics one might undergo at a doctor’s office.

PAR FOR THE COURSE Most of the smart wearable textiles on the market are focused on physical performance—heart rate and such—whereas Nadi X is designed to help the wearer better his or her performance in a given discipline. In the case of Wearable X, yoga is the entry level product but stay tuned as the company explores new disciplines. The industry seems to be taking a similar path too, with different brands filling different niche audience’s needs and companies constantly broadening their offerings with every product.

One of the more advanced wearable products was launched earlier this year by a startup golf tech company called Guided Knowledge. Their GK Smart Suit is a base-layer garment that can measure and capture users’ biomechanical motion through speed, angle and direction. The motion data can be analyzed by coaches and players simultaneously via the GK App and can be viewed across devices and geographies—perfect for the pro working with a remote coach. Designed for elite

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assemble a digital swing signature. We can really break down the DNA of each person’s individual swing,” says Hindklev. “And for players who have been injured, finding it difficult to get that same swing back again post-recovery, having that baseline or benchmarked motion capture can be really helpful.”

Image courtesy of SUPA

EVERY SECOND,THE SUIT IS CAPTURING 9 0 , 0 0 0 D ATA P O I N T S athletes, the suit is designed to high-end specifications—1,000 frames per second— which is the fastest outside military- or NASA-grade application. “Every second, the suit is capturing 90,000 pieces of data,” according to Trine Hindklev, Chief Marketing Officer of Guided Knowledge.

“You might ask yourself—who needs that information about themselves? I don’t know that I’d want to know that much about myself, but for athletes who are working on trying to make just the smallest change, marginal shifts that will have tremendous gain on their overall performance, like a professional golfer, this type of data is invaluable to them. So we’re starting with an elite audience,” says Hindklev. “And we have been working with five “mega-watt” pros from the US and UK for testing what is effectively digitized coaching.”

In addition to the obvious coaching benefits, the product is able to allow for benchmarking. “Because we’re capturing so much data about their [the player’s] physical performance, we’re able to

Launched at the 66th PGA Merchandise Show in January, the GK Smart Suit won the Pinnacle Award—effectively the best in show—on the basis of the inventing process, including ideation, invention and commercialization. In March, Guided Knowledge won “Best Seed Funded Business” for its “Next Generation of Wearables” from the 2019 Yahoo! Sports Technology Awards Startups, and the company is planning to have its commercial pipeline up and running by April with product in the market by September 2019.

As with Wearable X, the “smart techstyle” approach from Guided Knowledge is applicable to sports beyond golf and the team there is already exploring what’s next. As these technologies are developed and become more affordable over time, we’re likely to see their proliferation in stages. Elite athletes and agencies—think NASA, Air Force, etc.—will likely be the early adopters because they have the funding and the practical need for such precise data. Following those elite customers, and after the technologies have been proven effective and lowered in cost, we’ll likely see amateur athletes and fitness enthusiasts begin to use these new wearable clothes in the same way they’ve adopted more traditional wearables like FitBit. We seem to be on the cusp of this change, and on the verge of a mass market debut.

Brands who are able to develop new wearable products at an affordable price first will likely become leaders in the industry as new consumers will be looking for the brands who have been doing it the longest.

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THE AMERICAN

Image by Todd Jiang

BY AUSTIN RANDALL

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FROM ADVANCED PRECISION ACCURATE TRAINING SIMULATIONS TO ALL-ELECTRIC DRIVETRAINS, FORMULA 1

t r o p s Motor IS HAVING A MODERN-DAY RENAISSANCE.

Formula 1, more commonly known as F1, has always been an international sport.

The first world championship was held in 1950 at Silverstone in the UK in front of 120,000 eager fans—even the reigning monarch, King George VI, was in attendance. And ever since Italian racer Giuseppe Farina screamed across the finish line in his supercharged Alfa Romeo in that first race, the whole of Europe was in love with the institution.

At the same time in America, Ford V8 power and the racing skills acquired outrunning cops on liquor-smuggling runs brought about NASCAR and similar outfits.

In stark contrast to the more European and decidedly high-class Formula 1, NASCAR at its birth was made up almost entirely of ex-bootlegger drivers and is perceived to be a much lower-class affair than its European cousin.

f o n o i t a r e n e g a s who grew rd iver racing in up ogames vide

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Image by Matthieu Joannon

FIGHTING FOR THE POLE POSITION

MAN AND MACHINE There are also less traditional ways F1 racing is entering American culture— like videogames. The use of simulators in driver training has been around for a while, but that has always been for established professional drivers. We are now seeing the first generation of drivers who grew up racing in videogames enter the professional ranks, and if their performance so far is any indicator, we’re likely to see some fantastic drivers and races in the coming years. Just a few months ago a “sim racer,” Enzo Bonito, beat a professional F1 driver on a real track in a real car and then beat an Indy-500 winner on a different track the next day.

It’s clear that esports will have a continued impact on F1 and motorsports in general and it may help to widen viewership in America and beyond.

In the years since the F1 began, it hasn’t been easy to be an American fan at all.

Doing so has usually meant waking in total darkness and venturing to a sports bar to watch the international broadcast. And even then, Americans haven’t had a truly American driver to root for since Mario Andretti who won the Dutch Grand Prix in 1978. That’s a long time for any fan to wait.

THE ELECTRIC FORMULA

However, the long wait just may be over. In 2017, Formula 1 had a change in leadership and was purchased by American company Liberty Media for $8 billion. Formula 1’s new CEO, Chase Carey, is bringing his American sensibilities to the league and forecasting some changes that will be favorable for American audiences in years to come. Many of the changes are aimed at making F1 content more easily consumable for fans in the US like more mobile and more behind-thescenes content. There is also talk of a new Grand Prix street course in Miami for the 2019 season, as well as rumors of a northeastern Grand Prix to come in the near future. All these changes represent a significant effort on the part of the league to tap into the huge American sports fan base in years to come.

Similar to the innovative new training regimes being tested by young drivers, auto manufacturers large and small are also using racing as a test bed and proving ground for new technologies. The most exciting innovation in racing, however, is happening specifically in Formula E, the wildly popular and electric-only variant of Formula 1. In the past, innovative materials and mechanics from F1 cars have primarily trickled down into top-end performance street cars, but the industry now stands on the cusp of a new electrified era that’s changing everything. Formula E technology has a much broader set of benefits than those focused solely on speed and aerodynamics. Jaguar, for example, a leader in Formula E, is using the league as a way to reconnect with their racing heritage and market their new I-Pace line of all-electric vehicles.

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While they are indeed using the technical insights from the cars, drivetrains and racetracks, it’s clear the largest benefit is the marketing platform Formula E provides them. Formula E has already delivered crucial technical insights that they were able to translate directly into their consumer products, but the unique marketing opportunities seem even more promising. Jaguar immediately took action in 2016 by establishing itself as a leader and becoming the first premium automaker to join the FIA Formula E Championship. Building on their initial success, Jaguar has now launched the first international championship for productionbased electric cars following the 2018 season, with 10 races taking place in major luxury markets like New York, Paris and Rome (Jaguar, 2019).

THE FINISH LINE Still, with no Americans on the FIA lineup this year, it’ll be a long road to winning over the American audience. But perhaps for brands and marketers it’s a road worth traveling on for a while longer. 325 million Americans is a large audience to pass up, and while many of them are just starting to take notice of Formula 1 and Formula E, American fans still shell out $56 billion a year to attend sporting events (CNBC 2019). If the sport as a whole can continue to be made more palatable and accessible to American audiences, there will be significant opportunity in the space in the coming years. And with the entire world on the cusp of a major shift from a carbonbased fuel economy, perhaps the dawning age of electric vehicles marks the perfect opportunity for motorsports to reinvent itself and connect with new audiences both in the US and elsewhere.

Image by Wade Austin Ellis 14 M AG P I E 0 5

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WHEN INNOVATION IN SPORT GOES WRONG Sport, like any other industry, has to innovate to keep fans and players interested.

Sometimes these ideas don’t work out—but they can still have a lasting and sometimes unpredictable impact.

By Rishi Dastidar

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Modern professional sports are on the cutting-edge of media and business innovation.

It sounds startling when presented in this way— how can something organized for fun and entertainment be a hotbed of new entrepreneurial and technological thinking?

But it has been true, ever since sports started to be organized and professionalized in the late 1800s. An appeal to nostalgia and a sense of the unchanging roots of various games has masked something far more interesting: that the battle for competitive advantage, and the need to appeal to audiences, means wrenching change happens in sport much more often than you might think.

Introduction

Three particular case studies—from cricket, football (soccer if you must) and American football—all show that innovation in professional sports, whether successful or not, is fundamentally addressing a deep and enduring question: Are sports played to be won at any cost, or are they played to entertain the people who watch them? If there’s a theme through these three stories, it’s that both have to be held in a creative tension for the sport to survive, change and thrive.

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CASE 01

WHAT’s YOUR PRICE?

C

ricket is not a sport that people readily associate with innovation, or even modernity. For most people, or at least for those American readers who have heard of cricket, the cliché about it being a bat and ball game that is longer and slower than baseball, with matches that can end in draws, is mostly true—the image it throws up is of the fading sun throwing lengthening shadows across English village greens as men in shirts gently prod a ball about and not much happens, slowly…

If that was ever the case—and most histories of the game suggest not—then it certainly wasn’t during the 1970s, when a band of Australian television executives and renegade players came together to completely turn the way the sport was governed and broadcast upside down.

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The impetus for this radical change started with a then little-known Australian businessman, Kerry Packer. Having inherited his father’s media company in 1974 and, the cruel whispers had it, wanting to show people that he was not as dim-witted as his father thought him to be, he set out to demonstrate that cricket shown on TV could be a vehicle to make money.

r Ke ry er ck Pa

Having initially been rebuffed by the Australian Cricket Board (Packer famously said during the negotiations, “Come on, gentlemen; we’re all whores.

What’s your price?”), he then decided that, in Simon Lister’s phrase, “If he couldn’t buy the cricket, he would buy the cricketers instead and broadcast the matches on his TV channels.” (Fire In Babylon: How The West Indies Cricket Team Brought A People To Its Feet, 2016).

If he couldn’t buy the cricket, he would buy the cricketers Simon Lister instead...

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Who would Packer buy? For the venture to work, it would need the world’s best cricketers. Enter the West Indies team. At that point in the mid-1970s, they were just beginning their ascent to the pinnacle of cricket, especially the five-day-long, long “test” format of it, pioneering a lethal bowling attack of four fast bowlers capable of propelling the red leather ball 22 yards at speeds over 90 miles per hour. But they were historically underpaid by the West Indian Cricket Board, and so were open to offers to play in an unsanctioned competition that could see them earning up to three times what they might normally expect.

This paved the way for players from other nations to sign up to what was now called World Series Cricket (WSC)—big names like Tony Greig, Derek Underwood, Imran Khan and Barry Richards joining Caribbean superstars such as Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge. Ultimately, Packer hired 70 players to play in 16 “Supertests” and 38 one-day games across two seasons.

The money had to be good, because in essence, the players had made themselves “rebels” in the eyes of their domestic cricket boards, and therefore unlikely to be picked to represent their countries on the field ever again. Interestingly, Lister suggests that the wider public’s emotion favored the boards rather than the players.

Legal challenges to prevent the breakaway ultimately failed, and so play in an Australia v Rest of the World series began in December 1977. Initial spectator numbers at the grounds were embarrassingly low (the Australian board prevented the WSC from using any of its facilities) and TV viewing was similarly constrained. It seemed the end of this new venture for Packer.

But he held his nerve, issued more writs, and finally things started to improve, just in time for WSC’s next season. 50,000 people filled the Sydney Cricket Ground in November 1978, a sign that the high standard of cricket was enough to draw people in.

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... in essence, the players had made themselves “rebels” in the eyes of their domestic cricket boards, and therefore unlikely to be picked to represent their countries on the field ever again.

Not to say that Packer relied solely on this to put bums on seats—he tried many things. Instead of white, the players wore colored uniforms to represent their “countries”—yellow for Australia, pink for the West Indies and sky blue for the rest of the world. Games were played under floodlights—no more lengthening shadows—with a white ball and black side screens.

Microphones in the stumps meant viewers at home could hear the shots, the impact of the ball and what the players were saying to each other, sportsmanlike or otherwise. It’s clear he saw the massive revenue generating potential of the players themselves, going so far as to insist on players wearing helmets, telling Australian captain Ian Chappell, “I’m not paying you to lie around in a hospital for six months” (The Guardian, 2019).

The governing bodies didn’t have that long to digest what was happening. Seeing people losing interest in their “traditional” test teams and losing money, the Australian board in particular ran up the white flag.

In May 1979, Packer got the exclusive rights to broadcast Australia’s test matches for 10 years along with the power to control the marketing of the sport for a total of AUS$1 million a year, a significant sum for the time.

The ramifications of the hectic three years of WSC still reverberate through the sport today. The broadcast innovations are still around, players play the oneday version of the game in their colored uniforms and most crucially, players retain a lot of power—and the ability to be paid more. As journalist Andy Bull argues, you can see a lot of WSC in the current Indian Premier League (IPL) “in the way the IPL is packaged and sold to a mainstream audience, the pressure it puts on players to choose between representing their country and playing in a lucrative league. Like WSC, the IPL has forced the sport into accelerated evolution.”

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CASE 02

Can thousands o f members produce a winning team?

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f you have any form of connection or attachment to a sports team, then no doubt you will have been guilty of it. Monday morning quarterbacking. Second-guessing a substitution, a play or a call—knowing that you could have picked a better team, bought a better player, got a better result. What sports fan hasn’t thought, even more likely said, “I could do a better job than this current loser.” The popularity of simulation games like Football Manager is testament to the fact that people absolutely think—know—they can run their favorite teams and clubs better than the current incumbents.

In the next five years, it might happen that social media substitutes players during a match.

—Arsene Wenger

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ut a time is rapidly approaching when fans’ input into team decision-making could move out of the realms of overheated bar chat and gaming consoles and into reality. No less a figure than former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has suggested that, very soon, fans via social media will be able to pick the substitutes that come on to the pitch during a soccer match.

“In the next five years, it might happen that social media substitutes players during a match,” Wenger pronounced in an interview with German newspaper Bild in 2018. “They will have a hookup at halftime and determine which players get substituted and who will be brought on during the second half.”

(Stuff.co.nz, 2019) Once fans have a taste of picking the team, why wouldn’t they want to go further and try to actually run the club or the franchise? Who hasn’t decried the skinflint owner who refuses to make funds available to secure the best player available in the transfer window or free agency? Who hasn’t bellyached over the ludicrous price of a beer or a hot dog at the grounds? And why are ticket prices so high exactly?

Of course, you’d run this famous club, not for profit but for glory!

What you might not know is that, for a short period, this state of affairs actually came to pass, with fans in the lower reaches of English soccer actually running a real-life club. You might be less surprised to hear that the experiment didn’t end well.

In 2007, MyFootballClub (MFC), a community investment vehicle set up by the journalist Will Brooks, asked people to donate money—as little as £35—in order to buy a football club. Around 50,000 people gave a total of £1.4 million to be used as a takeover fund, and among those taking part there was the hope that famous names such as Nottingham Forest and Leeds United could be on the shopping list.

As it turned out, reality was not so glamorous, with clubs made desperate by financial distress approaching MFC as a potential savior. In the end, the winner of this reverse beauty show was Kent-based Ebbsfleet United, a semiprofessional club just outside of the main leagues in English football, taken over for £635,000.

Not that there wasn’t excitement at what the future could hold. Then Ebbsfleet Manager Liam Daish said, “We all agree the club needs something extra to take it to the next step. As a football fan, I think the MyFootballClub idea is fantastic. And as the coach, I look forward to the challenge of working with thousands of members to produce a winning team.”

(Wikipedia, 2019)

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There was initial confusion as to what decisions the members of MFC as owners of the club could actually vote upon and take—everything from budgets, sponsorship deals, transfers, even team selection were up for discussion. In the end, it was agreed that the latter was a step too far (Pixelsport, 2019), but the members certainly weighed in on the first transfer under the new regime, approving the sale of a forward, John Akinde, for £140,000. Success at Wembley, in the form of winning the FA Trophy in May 2008, gave the impression that this was a model of club ownership that could work going forward.

But look a little closer, and even in the early heady days it was clear that there were problems. The highpoint in terms of member involvement in decisions was the takeover itself, which started to fall immediately after. Active numbers of members declined precipitately and despite promotion back to the Conference (the highest level of non-league football in England) in 2011, people with an active interest and willingness to vote on club affairs had fallen to 5,000. By the start of the 2012 season it was a paltry 1,300.

And of course, the drop in membership numbers also meant a drop in the amount of money for the club to use. While enough could be rustled up to pay for new equipment for its grounds, there wasn’t much else available. An emergency fund-raising drive at the end of 2011 made £50,000 to keep the club going, but it was clear that the situation was unsustainable. The remaining MFC members—1,000 of them—voted to sell the club to the Ebbsfleet Supporters Trust and KEH Sports, a group of Kuwaiti investors, in May 2013, who promised to clear the £100,000 of debts that had accrued during MFC’s ownership.

It’s notable that no one since has tried to replicate MFC’s ownership model in English football. Maybe a bigger, more famous club might have encouraged more people to stay involved as members for longer, but the endless demands for cash and time clearly call into doubt the desire for many people to become more than just fans. And while many Spanish and German clubs have for years had a membership model, few if any allow them anything more than a consultative say in major decisions. It may be that collectively crowdsourcing the running of a sports club is just too complex.

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n its 100th anniversary year, the dominance of the NFL on the American sporting and cultural landscape looks inevitable. Of course, this is a case of the winner writing history—dig into the past and you actually see that the league has always faced challenges, from its earliest days as a collection of scrappy, semipro, sandlot ball teams and even into the 1960s, when the American Football League (AFL) seriously threatened the NFL’s dominance with new franchises in previously unserved markets and innovations in playing style. The merger between the two in 1969 was the foundation of the modern NFL’s current and ongoing success.

Since then, the money it generates has inevitably led to people trying to break into the market—not least because there is an obvious gap waiting to be filled.

If you really, really love your football, what do you do in between the Super Bowl and the start of training camps at the end of July? Various attempts have been made to provide spring football, most notably by the United States Football League in the early 1980s—one of the team owners being a certain Donald J. Trump.

All that haven’t been sanctioned by or worked in close collaboration with the NFL have failed.

Perhaps the most notable—certainly the most high-profile—of these attempts at spring football was the sensationally short-lived XFL. Founded in 2001, this was football with a difference, a mashup of football and…professional wrestling.

The driving forces behind the league were Dick Ebersol, a high-ranking US network TV executive, and Vince McMahon, instigator, founder and creator of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Starting immediately after Super Bowl XXXV, it promised something brash, bold and perhaps even more violent than football fans were used to.

The sensationally shortlived XFL was football with a difference, a mashup of football and… professional wrestling.

An original plan to take over the entirety of the Canadian Football League and move it south having failed, the league was centrally controlled without individual franchise owners. This meant that it could dictate, without contradiction, some of the wilder ideas that were meant to shake up the sport, such as the use of “kayfabe” (the portrayal of staged rivalries and events as “true”) and other stunts more associated with wrestling than pure sport. The general vibe was that it would be “real” football, without penalties for roughness, cheerleaders wearing only lingerie, and fewer rules in general; this was a vibe reflected in the team names—Outlaws, Maniax, Demons, Enforcers, Hitmen and even the Orlando Rage.

It was a disaster. TV ratings fell away quickly, and the critical reception was worse. People were unsure whether to treat the matches as true meetings, honestly contested, or as scripted entertainment. Stunts like a scramble to grab the ball first instead of a coin toss and pretending to break into a cheerleading squad’s locker room at half-time quickly palled. The overall style of the league was lambasted too, with heavyweight broadcaster Bob Costas quipping, “Why doesn’t someone combine mediocre high-school football with a tawdry strip club?” XFL only lasted the one season, and the WWF and broadcaster NBC each lost a reported $35 million in the failed venture.

But despite the hype and the failure, the league had a lasting impact, both in terms of rule changes for the sport and broadcast innovations. The XFL wanted to do away with the monotony of guaranteed points after touchdowns, and this has filtered down into the NFL now offering both the two-point alternatives and moving the extra point kickback. Additionally, the “sky cam” that allowed viewers to see the action from either side of the line of scrimmage, and on-field cameramen, are now staples of TV sports coverage everywhere.

Perhaps it’s fairer to say that the XFL was simply ahead of its time. Certainly, McMahon feels that way, enough to announce in January 2018 that the league will be coming back in 2020 in a new, revamped form. He told The New York Times, “Not reinvent. It’s football. But you want to reimagine it” (The New York Times, 2015).

To add credibility to the venture, he’s hired some heavy-weight NFL front office names, including Oliver Luck as commissioner, father of quarterback Andrew of the Indianapolis Colts and a former chief of NFL Europe. Of the vision for XFL version 2, Luck has said, “This version is much cleaner. It’s not a joint venture at all or even the WWE; it’s just Vince. I think health and safety is a lot more important today and plays a much more important role than it did in 2001 and I think that is woven into everything we’ve done in trying to reimagine the game” (Gridiron, 2019).

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CASE 03

IT’s FOOTBALL, BUT YOU WANT TO

REIMAGINE IT Luck has already talked about some of the innovations he wants to try such as shortening the play clock, giving every player an earpiece and trying to make kickoff returns meaningful again, all in an attempt to focus, as he puts it, “an eye to what we want this game to be: fast-paced, more rhythm, more flow, fewer stoppages, more meaningful plays.”

Will the XFL work this time around? Who can be sure? If it does, it just may demonstrate the most important lesson in innovation, and perhaps sports more broadly—timing is everything.

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What does it mean for an athlete to be an “athlete?� What does the mainstream public value in the sports stars they watch today? How does the changing nature of the athlete-as-celebrity affect the sports industry in a broader sense?

By Hannah Conway

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port stars have always occupied space in the cultural zeitgeist. From Babe Ruth to Michael Jordan to Muhammed Ali—none of these figures were known solely for their athletic prowess. For example, Ali made headlines in the 1960s when he spoke about his opposition to the Vietnam war. Ruth’s penchant for drinking and womanizing was the topic of discussion just as much as his ability to hit home runs. And Jordan is probably known today as much for the popular Nike shoe made in his name as he is for his basketball record. The celebrity status of athletes is a notable reason that these figures are able to draw such enormous fanfare.

But today, there’s a change: because athletes can communicate directly with fans through their social feeds, they now have control over their own narratives, unmediated by their team’s public relations squad or the tabloids telling their story. And as the line between the viewer and the viewed erodes, we’re witnessing a new age where athletes are considered for much more than just their physical ability. The company they keep, the way they present themselves and their views on the world around them…all contribute to their fame, and their ability to draw a crowd.

As athletes gain exposure for their side hustles, audiences react. Enter the fans who don’t care much about sports: from fashionistas, to foodies, to reality TV fanatics, to political activists. But now these once indifferent consumers are engaging with sports in entirely new ways.

Image by Pat Kwon

THE BASKETBALL WIFE — THE ATHLETE ENTOURAGE

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hat’s the difference between watching sports and an episode of Love Island? Both shows focus on a group of young, fit people playing a game. Viewers check Twitter frequently as the shows unfold to read the reactions of other spectators in real time. The sports stars are frequently turned into memes (think about “Petty Kobe Bryant” or “Crying Jordan,” which have made the rounds of Instagram and Twitter for years at this point). Many athletes end up on reality TV shows, either as the focal point or at least as part of the accompanying cast. Take The Bachelor—this year, the reality TV hit featured retired NFL athlete Colton Underwood as its romantic lead (the second pro football player to star on the show). ESPN developed a Fantasy League game in partnership with ABC to be featured on its app. Sports news sites such as The Ringer and Barstool Sports recap episodes of The Bachelor every week, often assigning “points” to contestants and scenes that happen on the show. In 2017, marketing intelligence platform Affinio noticed a specific overlap of “Male Sports Fans” who were engaging in discussions of The Bachelor finale on Twitter (Adweek)—a nod to this overlap in cultures and viewing habits that surround the show.

Parallels between sports and reality TV do not end there. From the TV screen to mobile, viewers follow athletes’ lives on multiple platforms. A result of this is that an athlete’s significant other

becomes another figure to be watched, in part due to their being tagged on their famous partner’s feed. A notable example is Shaunie O’Neal, the former spouse of basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who created her own reality television empire around “how difficult it is to deal with dating a prominent figure in the world of sports.” The show, aptly named Basketball Wives, presents the lifestyles of the women who are dating, have dated or have married NBA players.

The show has been running on VH1 for seven seasons. Ayesha Curry, married to NBA player Steph Curry, has made a name for herself on her YouTube cooking channel. She’s now the owner of her own meal kit company and has a line of cookware at Target and JCPenny—not to mention she’s a New York Times bestselling author. Her Instagram channel is followed by 6.3 million people. Family members of sports celebrities have made hugely successful careers in different verticals, drawing in an audience who may not be primarily concerned with sports but is interested in the lifestyles associated with it.

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THE SNEAKERHEAD — ATHLETES AS THEIR APPAREL Image courtesy of NIKE

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treetwear’s rising status in high fashion, evidenced by the growing popularity of sneakers, sweatshirts and T-shirts on the runway, has shifted the way we perceive (or define?) “low” and “high” culture in 2019. The influence of sports on culture in this instance shows the intrinsic connection between two realms that at first might have seemed far apart.

Basketball is noteworthy in the overlapping of fashion and sports, with many players evolving into fashion icons in their own right. In the fall of 2018, Lebron James commissioned custom Thom Browne suits for the Cleveland Cavaliers to wear as they walked on the court to their games. The fashion world was quick to take note—the move was covered by Vogue and Vanity Fair, among other fashion-first publications. Similarly, Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder has made a name for himself in this space as the model for high-fashion line Acne Studios when they released their fall collection in 2018.

Skate shoes and skate culture is another example—their celebrities are more niche, which in some ways makes them even more influential. A New Yorker magazine journalist

commented, “The logo for Thrasher, the irreverent monthly magazine and longtime skate bible, is so ubiquitous on clothing worn by nonskaters that it’s become divorced from its origins.”

Paralleling this phenomenon, platforms that cater directly to the sneakerhead emerged, distancing the sneaker from its athletic origins. Highsnobiety (started in 2003) perfected the art of the quick drop. The platform aggregates “sneaker news” from different platforms, and curates the content on a daily basis to make sure their primary audience is always in the know about the freshest kicks. The athlete is ancillary to the sneaker design in these spaces.

THE ACTIVIST — ATHLETES AS THEIR OPINIONS Image courtesy of NIKE

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ports culture has often denoted a larger collective system of values: teamwork, sportsmanship and endurance. And as a result, athletes end up acting as “role models,” or at the very least, spokespersons for our cultural mores. As political conversation becomes more pronounced in our society, athletes occupy an important space in the discourse of right, wrong and everything in between.

Take the issue of female empowerment. We know this is not a trend—it’s a movement to create a new understanding of the role women play in society. It’s also a conversation in which the athletic community has been hugely present. Serena Williams most obviously comes to mind as the voice of the newly released Nike ad. The spot centers around the idea of women being “crazy”: co-opting a language of “dramatic,” “nuts,”

“delusional,” “unhinged,” “hysterical,” that has been ascribed to women in media over the years. American gymnast Aly Raisman has also spoken out on the issue of female representation following her public testimony at the trial of Larry Nassar, the former doctor of the American women’s gymnastics team who was accused and later convicted for sexually abusing his patients.

Raisman posed for Sports Illustrated in 2018 as part of the magazine’s “In her words” series, which featured women with words painted on their bodies and photographed in the nude. The gymnast responded to criticism of the feature: “Women don’t have to be modest to be respected. You can wear whatever you want. You can still be powerful. You can still have a voice. You can still advocate for change. You can still be a good person.”

Women don’t have to be modest to be respected. You can wear whatever you want. You can still be powerful. You can still have a voice.

Men are as much a part of this conversation. In his interview for Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year, Egyptian soccer player Mohamad Salah discussed how women are treated in his culture and “the culture of the Middle East.”

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Let’s think about how an athlete rises to prominence. His or her achievement is not determined by background, economic circumstance at birth, race or gender—it’s determined by ability and effort. Because of this, athletes are able to bring authenticity to conversations about values in part because they are not politically motivated—their stance stems directly from their individual experiences. Given their public platform, these individual stances give the public a more nuanced understanding of cultural conversations that are happening today.

THE TAKEAWAY — THE NON-SPORTS FAN

Image courtesy of Ally Raisam-Olympic

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hanging the definition of “athlete” has major implications for sports marketing. The merging of the fields of sports, fashion, reality TV and even politics means that athletes come to symbolize much more than their ability to play. In marketing campaigns, they should be recognized for their personal brand, their platform, and most importantly, their individuality. An important watch out: not all athletes are all of these things.

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LEVERAGE OVERLAPPING VIEWER BEHAVIORS

PARTNERSHIPS THAT BLEND HIGH & LOW CULTURE

PROVIDE A PLATFORM FOR ATHLETES AS INDIVIDUALS

Fantasy leagues and a focus on the entourage speak to a new audience by highlighting parallels in behavior between their favorite shows and sports games.

Fashion and art have collided with sports, and brands have the opportunity to create bespoke content that speaks to these new audiences.

Brands can and should align themselves with the right athlete who shares their values, beliefs or cultural sensibilities.

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OUR FAVORITE KITS

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SPRINGBOKS

NHL QUEBEC NORDIQUES

This green and yellow rugby kit is my favorite mainly because the Springboks are from my home country, South Africa, but I also feel that the kit’s bright colors capture the diverse collective spirit of the team.

I love this uniform because of its bold royal blue color and artistically shaped “N,” along with an iconic fleur-de-lis representing Quebec City. The away version in reversed white with blue lettering is equally pleasing to my eye.

-DUSTIN LAWRENCE

-AUSTIN RANDALL

1990s–Present

1970s–90s

THE METS

ACF FIORENTINA

BUFFALO BILLS

I love this jersey because it’s from a time period when the Mets were actually really good, and my favorite player, Mike Piazza, was on the team. This jersey has a different look from the other uniforms the Mets have had in the past, and though I’m a big Mets fan, I only have one jersey—this jersey.

When it comes to style, a wise person’s thoughts turn to Italy. It is no different when it comes to football kits. Purple rarely makes it onto the pitch, but there is something fitting about a team from a city so associated with beauty wearing something so deep, so rich, so beautiful.

-ANDREW SACKS-HOPPENFELD

-RISHI DASTIDAR

The city of Buffalo has gone through rough times but is currently enjoying a renaissance of sorts.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the city’s love for the Buffalo Bills—their fan base is so passionate they’re called the “Bills Mafia.”

Being a Bills fan is about so much more than football. It’s about pride for our city, love for our community, and our incredible resilience.

1998–2001

1990s

1980s-1990s

-JENNIFER GOODCHILD

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QUEENS PARK RANGERS

ITALY WORLD CUP

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

A classic from back in the day— visually, it’s very simple and the color combination shouldn’t work, but it does. A real classic. This was before kit design fell off a cliff in the ’90s and became far too complex.

For me, this kit symbolizes the change from a shirt that simply identifies a team, to sportswear that is designed, built and manufactured specifically to aid in performance. From its cut and tailored details, it was just pure class.

I chose this one because I actually designed the jersey along with the splendid team logo. Twenty20 cricket is my favourite sport, and the Indian Premier League rocks!

1980s

-CHRIS HOLMES

2002

2008–Present

-SOPHIE LUTMAN

-MELVYN JOHNSON

LONDON OLYMPICS

MAN CITY

The home nation needed a kit that it could be proud of; a kit that would fly the flag and inspire our sporting heroes to greatness.

Step forward Stella McCartney to design a kit that was both iconic and inspiring. It gave prominence to an abstracted Union flag, often a symbol of divisiveness, but used here as a symbol of unity.

Combined with the British heraldry lion as a symbol of strength, the kit drew a proud nation together.

This kit was perfect for so many reasons. First off, it was amazing to have a fashion brand like Kappa design it, and secondly the shirt’s release coincided with Brother becoming the club’s sponsor.

Brother is a Japanese company that makes electronics like printers and photocopiers, but the brand’s name connected fans together as a tribe of “brothers.” Although the team was at a historical low-point, there was still immense pride and community among supporters.

2012

-CLAIRE STUART, NICK RANGER

Late 1990s

-RIK HASLAM

EMPLOYEES FROM OUR LONDON AND NEW YORK OFFICES GET NOSTALGIC FOR TEAMS’ KITS FROM YEARS PAST

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With the gap between competitive video gaming and traditional sports inching closer, who’ll win the battle and come out on top?

by Sami Mallis

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When you think of a superstar athlete, where does your mind go? Maybe you’re thinking of Messi. Possibly Serena. You probably aren’t thinking of a 14-year-old strapped to a keyboard warding off hordes of enemy monsters.

But with “Fortnite” streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins becoming the first professional video game player to grace the cover of

ESPN Magazine, and esports featuring at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, the likelihood of sport’s next biggest star being a headset-wearing, sunlightavoiding, button-mashing teenager might not be so far-fetched.

esports will be worth

by 2021 Because today, video games have grown far beyond the console, esports is now one of the fastest-growing spectator sports in the world. By 2021, esports will be worth a whopping $1.7B (Newzoo, 2018), and the US will have more viewers than every professional sports league but the NFL (Activate, 2017).

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Image courtesy of Red Bull Content Hub

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This begs the question, can video games really be considered to be in the same league as soccer, football or basketball?

Most think not——only 20% of esports viewers consider professional gamers as athletes (YouGov, 2018). But we’ve seen perceptions of what makes a sport change in the past, and it’s not impossible that it’ll happen again. Skateboarding has gone from a fringe pastime for misfits to an official Olympic sport that is set to make its debut at at the Olympics in Tokyo 2020.

Strict training Strict nutritional program

The US Government already recognizes esports players as professional athletes——at least when granting of visas——and on paper, there are many similarities. Esports players follow

Compete in stateof-the-art stadiums Millon-dollar prizes

strict training and nutritional programs, they compete in state-of-the-art stadiums for million-dollar prizes and they are at risk of career-crippling injuries.

And with the F1, Manchester City and Michael Jordan all investing in esports, the relationship between traditional sports and video games are growing ever closer. Increasingly, we’ll see professional gamers battling professional athletes not just in real and virtual stadiums, but in entertainment and business, too.

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Annual revenue for esports (N.A. only)

League of Legends World Championship 2018 viewers

Ninja’s social media interactions in April 2018

Avg. player age for League of Legends LCS Avg. career length for a pro gamer

Avg. reaction speed for a CS:GO player

ESPORTS ATHLETE

Avg. heart rate of an esport athlete

Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test score of LOL player Eugene “Pobelter” Park

Avg. Team Liquid training schedule

League of Legends player Eugene “Pobelter” Park’s daily caloric intake

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Annual revenue for the NFL

2018 Super Bowl unique viewers

C. Ronaldo social media interactions in April 2018

Avg. player age for Major League Baseball

Avg. career length for a Major League Baseball player

Avg. reaction time for an NFL player

Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test score of an average NFL quarterback

Avg. time a football player spends training

Tennis player Venus Williams’ daily caloric intake

Breaking down the unique abilities of esports players versus traditional athletes

TRADITIONAL ATHLETE

Avg. heart rate of a marathon runner

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There has always been a notion that sports should be kept “clean” and that the introduction of betting would make them “dirty.” But those traditional views may be changing faster than you realize.

OUT OF THE SHADE AND INTO THE

By Austin Randall The rise of legal sports betting in the US

The sports betting spread It’s been estimated that over $249 million were spent on legal sports betting in Nevada alone last year, while the illegal sports betting market was estimated to be upwards of $150 billion over the same period. This represents a literal goldmine for a variety of brands and services that stand to benefit from the federal legalization of single-game wagering.

Still other more visionary entrepreneurs see the change as the first step in a technological revolution in sports. They believe that the proliferation of betting venues will spur on advancements in real-time sports data, broadcasting and streaming technology, and even change the familiar layout and features of our sports stadiums.

It’s clear to most that the change will be a positive one—even those who have opposed sports betting in the past are rethinking their position. Proponents of this new, more lax view on sports betting actually think it will make sports more exciting and help appeal to a broader audience, which in turn would increase overall revenue. It’s almost certain sports betting will be profitable for all parties involved and it may even draw more people into sports, but perhaps the larger question at play is whether or not it will fundamentally change sports and how they’re played.

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249m dollars spent on legal sports betting in Nevada in 2018

Now accepting bets In the United States, gambling has traditionally been seen as a vice, frowned upon by polite society. It took place in smoky backrooms and dingy basements, but a growing number of leaders and entrepreneurs are taking a much different position. As the United States Supreme Court ruled that banning sports betting on a federal level is unconstitutional, it will be left up to each state to create a law or laws to define the rules in their jurisdictions.

It will be in individual states’ interest to create such laws quickly because of the huge financial opportunity for state agencies, but also for local economies. The changes would bring a massive cash infusion around betting venues as third-party companies

and investors seek to build new businesses and services around the fringes of the industry. Sports betting will require infrastructure, regulatory agencies, venues, communications, data, security, concessions—and the list goes on. It’s likely that there will be significant competition to attract these jobs and benefits.

The future seems bright for sports betting and that has a lot to do with the sports-betting evangelists. These visionaries see the future of sports and they’re not keeping it to themselves.

They believe the change will fundamentally alter how we experience sports, particularly in the sports arena.

They envision glass-encased stadiums of the future with betting screens and

TVs everywhere—within tables, on walls and on smartphones. Sport stadiums that traditionally only opened an hour or two before a game will now be 24-hour betting arenas, where games from all over the world are broadcast and bet upon. You could enter the stadium at 7:00 am and bet on a curling match in Switzerland while drinking your coffee and have lunch in a lounge while you bet on a soccer match in the UK. You could take a nap in the bedroom of your luxury box and have a fresh shave just in time to catch a mahjong match in Beijing.

If sports betting takes off like these evangelists are predicting, it should be a pretty exciting transformation for the fans.

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Preserving the integrity of sports Legalized sports betting will change the game, that is certain. But it may not be in the ways you might expect. Professional sports salaries are high enough in most cases that bribery from fans would be a highly unlikely occurrence, and while you can’t completely protect against fraud and crime, the industry will be highly regulated and under constant scrutiny. Additionally, it wouldn’t be in the best interest of the teams and athletes to be dishonest because the lucrative sponsorships, licensing and broadcasting deals would far exceed any profits they could make dishonestly. While the specific mechanics have yet to be worked out fully, each state would ensure that proper consumer protections were in place before betting begins. What is certain however, is that sports teams will become even larger generators of cash. Their owners will need to figure out how to leverage these new opportunities and simultaneously maintain control over their image.

sports betting itself will be much more like trading on wall street than playing dice in an alley Sports-betting evangelists Along with other sporting industry big shots like Mark Cuban, and politicians like ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ted Leonsis is one of the sports-betting visionaries and enthusiasts who wholeheartedly believes in sports betting. As an owner of eight professional sports teams, several arenas and one of the largest professional sports networks in the country, Ted wields significant influence in his hometown of Washington, DC and far beyond. He would tell you that this is the best thing to happen to sports in a generation and would probably cite the numerous advances and investments being ushered in by legalized sports betting.

Ted also believes that the sports betting itself will be much more like trading on Wall Street than playing dice in an alley. He hates the word “gambling” and prefers to call it “sports wagering” because he believes that it will be a game of skill that requires careful research, consideration and planning. He also acknowledges that protections should be in place to prevent fraud or unhealthy gambling activity, but he truly believes that it will be overwhelmingly positive for all parties involved. Ted is already planning for sports betting to come to DC and we’re likely to see some of the first and highest-quality sports-betting innovations to come from his company, Monumental Sports and Entertainment.

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Image by Alexander Mils

This idea is both terrifying and exciting and, as more states sign on and platforms advance and compete for customers, the practice is likely to proliferate exponentially. New exciting and engaging features and games will draw in new fans, and expanded broadcasting will help expose American fans to games and sports not traditionally offered locally. It’s likely that as sports betting becomes more mainstream, it will be more generally accepted and enjoyed by people who previously had no experience with gambling.

118 countries have beaten the US to the punch in sports betting

Gambling’s reputation problem Many other countries have beaten the US to the punch in sports betting, about 118 to be exact. Due to different cultural values and legal systems, much of Europe and Asia have had legalized sports betting for years and has a much wider appeal than Americans might realize. While the media often focuses either on the financial opportunities or the risk of criminality, it’s often overlooked just how good the changes will be for everyday sports fans. Based on what we’ve seen so far in places like Las Vegas, gambling on sports will be fun and it will be accessible. As betting platforms progress in the US, and as the teams and industries embrace the new laws and begin to innovate, every aspect of the game would likely be “bettable.”

Various bets would be made available in real time on the outcome of the next shot, possession or period. Potentially, you could even be able to bet on what color socks your favorite player wears to the next game.

Still, some have a puritanical aversion to the idea of legalizing anything, much less gambling. The NBA (even though it has since switched sides) had a gambling fiasco as recently as 2007—and we all know about baseball’s famous Black Sox Scandal during the 1919 World Series. But even though cheats will always exist and gambling addictions are a real problem, it seems that the detractors trying to use these facts as a reason to block the legalization aren’t having much success. Those who stand to lose from legalization, similar to the marijuana industry, will be businesses operating on the fringes or in gray areas, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that your local bookie will not be excited.

Betting on the future Overall, it seems that the positive benefits of legalized sports betting will outweigh the negatives. Americans love things that create jobs, empower entrepreneurs and small businesses, and offer a chance, no matter how small, to win some easy money. It will no doubt be exciting for the business world to watch the developments take shape, especially against the backdrop of financial benefits for the economy.

Even the casual sports fan will benefit from a more exciting and engaging experience. It’s hard to argue against sports betting, so maybe it really is time for us as Americans to embrace what the rest of the world already knows— betting on sports is a mostly harmless way to have a bit of fun and add a touch of magic into our otherwise busy and monotonous lives.

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ts is, uc ns nd eo and al t co L d ed OL en an T A m kl ith of nu t. ric w er o n St ew mb f M me en rvi e r o in ur te g m ne rta La in din ow nte an un nt E fo rre ts & cu por S

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esports aren’t coming, esports are here and they’ve taken over.

LAUREN The younger generation is so immersed in digital and things like esports, which I know you’ve been investing for a while now. What do you find so compelling about the esports opportunity?

TED Well, I’ll let you in on a little esports are here and they’ve taken over. I’ve never seen a phenomenon as misunderstood by parts of the general public and the media as I have on esports.

Image courtesy of Monumental

secret——esports aren’t coming,

LAUREN Do you see that changing in the next maybe five years? What did esports look like when you first started becoming interested?

TED Just to take a step back, the industry is about 35 years old. It was created by Nolan Bushnell, who created Pong. And if you remember Pong, it was the first social media. You went into a bar and you would play the game and your friends would be standing behind you cheering you on, and then they would come and play against you.

So, Pong and then Atari began like that. When America Online was originally founded as Quantum Computer, we were a multiuser game network connecting Atari game console users together. Once you could connect people who are playing video games over (then private) online services, and now the internet, it became a community and it was intrinsically global as opposed to most media that stays within North America or stays within a region. This was its birth as a global phenomenon.

LAUREN Wow, that’s a little before my time but the significance is not lost. So, you see esports as a type of social media? That’s an interesting perspective…

TED Yes. In esports today, for the most part, you take a game like League of Legends, which is produced by Riot Games and owned

by Tencent. Tencent is a halftrillion dollar Chinese selfexpression company essentially.

About 70 million people every month are active users playing in a multiuser setting. People have misunderstood Fortnite. They think it’s just a casual game.

It’ll morph now into esport, but the platform itself probably

Its birth is a global phenomenon.

will become bigger and more of a connector of young people than Facebook is because the game of Fortnite is like the perfect game.

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Image courtesy of Red Bull Content Hub

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LAUREN When do you think esports will get the mainstream attention from large brands and sponsors it deserves?

TED The answer to that question is that some already have, and it will be harder and harder to ignore. Let me explain it this way——you enter a game lobby, you’re talking to your friends.

Those games will start streaming on Twitch which Amazon now owns.

Twitch has more activity on it than ESPN. More people watch esports streaming games on Twitch than will watch perhaps even the NHL Stanley Cup finals on NBC. The phenomenon is worldwide and it’s just a matter of time before the big sponsors start coming to their subscription services.

And with esports, anyone can do it; I mean not everyone can go out and play basketball. You can play Fortnite for free. You can’t come into an arena and watch a basketball game for free. I just think it’s not a coming trend, I think it’s already there before us. That shocks me all the time when it’s like, “Can’t you see this? What am I missing?” And I think for my grandchildren that being the best League of Legends player, the best Fortnite player, VP of the new Fortnite League or Overwatch League would be just as significant as saying, “Oh look, there’s LeBron James. There’s Steph Curry.”

Being the best Fortnite player would be just as significant as saying, ‘Oh look, there’s LeBron James.

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LAUREN With such a huge audience for sports and the crossover into esports, combined with more social ways of consuming entertainment, how do you think things like data ownership and sports betting will affect the future?

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About

TED Well, first I’ll talk about your notion on sports betting. The other day I was asked, “Don’t you have concerns about the integrity of the game and people betting on sports?” And it’s like... excuse me, what do you think is

worth of illegal gambling goes on around the four major sports leagues.

happening today? It’s estimated that there’s about a hundred billion dollars’ worth of illegal gambling that goes on around the four major sports leagues.

That’s from bookies; that’s from offshore mobile betting. And we want to bring, the states want to bring, the federal government will eventually want to bring all of that illegal revenue generation into the light. Nothing bad happens when you take something in the shadows and bring it into the light. The revenues will create jobs, there’ll be tax revenues that can be deployed. It also will create a fairness on setting the odds. The integrity of the game will be much more transparent than what is happening now, just because of the way technology can monitor the tiniest micro differences in performance and can shine a new light on that.

LAUREN So, it’s fair to say you’re optimistic?

TED I only see good things happening with the ongoing digitization of sports and games. Direct-toconsumer, over-the-top, and then gaming and gambling are really enhancing the engagement of video.

If you’re watching the TV and you have a second screen, you’re consuming data, you’re gaming and gambling, you’re much more prone to being engaged. You’re now sharing that information with the people that are in your network.

So, the stickiness of the content and the viewing go up.

LAUREN Well, great. Thank you so much for your time, Ted. It was great talking to you today, you’ve given us so much to think about. We hope to catch up with you again soon!

TED Thank you.

Image courtesy of Monumental

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