Sport Tech NEWS

Do you like tech in sport?

With the Six Nations rugby union tournament under way, leading online tech retailer Ebuyer has conducted a survey to see what fans really think about the use of technology on the pitch. For pro-techs and traditionalist alike, the results make fascinating reading and could surprise you.

Whereas rugby seems to have its house in order with on-field tech, other sports continue to have problems. For example, football fans have been critical of the VAR system which was introduced to make decisions accurate and illuminate cheating, but it seems that not many people like the idea of those decisions coming down to a millimetre!

POLLING Nevertheless, despite the negativity surrounding VAR, the Ebuyer poll found that over 71% of people thought technology in sport was a positive move. Of those polled, 35% thought technology was slowing the game down, with teams losing flow as they wait for refereeing decisions. According to 27% of the replies, the wait ‘dampens the atmosphere’ of the game,

INTERESTING POINTS The survey did however throw up some interesting points about the influence of

technology in sport. It may be controversial when making refereeing decisions on the pitch, but tech used behind the scenes to monitor performance has proved vital in the personal development of players and overall team strategies.

Players also seem to be more accommodating about on-the-field tech in their thinking. “Technology is making players play in a different way,” was one survey response.

The majority of replies tended to agree that technology was improving fairness with most people wanting teams to start on a level-playing field. While, 19% of people thought human error actually contributed to the drama of sport.

“It seems there will always be opposition to new technologies,” says Ebuyer E-Commerce Director Andy Roberts, “It’s almost the fear of the unknown. But in time, people do get used to things, and the technology will be fine-tuned. A couple of years from now, we’ll probably wonder what all the fuss was about.”

THE BAD OLD DAYS A popular poll response was that technology is making sport too clinical. However, despite all the criticisms, most people were reluctant to go back to the ‘old days’ when bad decisions and human error had the impact of teams being relegated and managers being sacked. One person said, “bad decisions create bad atmosphere and volatility in the stands, which is not good for the family experience.”

When football goal line technology was first introduced in 2013, there were similar concerns, but now it is accepted as making the game fairer. Cricket, tennis, athletics and major US sports basketball and [American] football have been using cutting-edge technology for years and the processes have been streamlined and accepted. It may be unemotional, but it’s honest.

Time to Leap In! launch “LEAP IN”.

Sported Foundation and WePlay throw down a challenge to young inactive adults to sign-up to community club activities across the UK

Leading sport for development charity Sported appoint WePlay as their digital agency to drive awareness of, and attendance at UK community clubs.

Research demonstrates that people in lower socio-economic groups are much more likely to be inactive, i.e. do less than 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, with children from the poorest families 3 times more likely not to participate in any extra-curricular activities compared to those from wealthier families.

In a new initiative, leading sport for development charity Sported have appointed WePlay as their digital agency to conceive and execute a pilot marketing campaign to drive attendances to community clubs amongst 16-25 year olds in lower socio-economic areas across the UK.

Launching this week, the campaign which has been entitled “LEAP IN”, will support a selection of the 2,600 UK wide Sported partner community clubs, calling local community members to use their extra leap day in 2020 wisely and try something new.

Using insights derived from the analysis of target audience consumption habits, WePlay have conceived the campaign idea which features spoken word and rap lyricist Emmanuel Speaks, and draws upon inspiration from trending music videos and gaming graphics. With research identifying cost, accessibility and lack of confidence as key barriers to entry for physical activity for low-socioeconomic groups, the lyrics and ad copy have been crafted to confront these commonly experienced concerns, in order to resonate with and drive maximal engagement from the target audience.

Senior Campaign Manager at WePlay, Stephanie Green said, “Based on our audience analysis it was clear that video gaming and current music were passion points we needed to encompass. We wanted to ensure that the campaign video could be a standalone piece of content that our audience would not only resonate with but want to engage with and share. Producing a track and stylised music video which conveyed the campaign message and contained gaming references ticked all of the boxes and we are really happy with the result.”

The hero campaign will be activated across multiple social platforms throughout participating regions of the UK, utilising specific audience targeting in order to reach more sedentary individuals. Bespoke creative and granular postcode targeting will ensure awareness of individual club initiatives in relevant neighbourhoods, and subsequently, achieve the campaign objective of event registrations and club attendance.

The three-week campaign launched on February 17th and aims to demonstrate how the power of social media advertising can help clubs achieve their attendance objectives, with a view to the project being rolled out across the UK to all of the 2,600 community clubs that Sported supports.

Nicola Walker, CEO at Sported said: “It is exciting to be using social media to drive participation from this user group. We hope by sign posting young adults in deprived areas to community groups already in existence we can overcome some of the barriers to participation and see activity levels increase. Having WePlay as a partner has been invaluable to the process of curating the right message/creative and targeting the correct audience.”