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Best Sports Event of the Year – UK

Big Game 11 – Harlequins

Harlequins is a Premiership rugby club based at The Twickenham Stoop, a 14,800-capacity stadium in South West London. Each year the Club moves its Christmas fixture over the road to Twickenham Stadium for its annual Big Game. As the Club approached its 11th year, it was aiming to go bigger and better than ever before. And it delivered.

The ultimate aims are a win on the pitch and a sell-out crowd, which equates to around seven times the average attendance at The Stoop. Both were achieved. But the Club also uses Big Game as an opportunity to engage with children from local Community Clubs, raise funds for the Harlequins Foundation as well as innovating and develop a product that goes beyond a traditional rugby match and introduces the sport to new audiences. This is where the Club set its targets even higher this year – and was proud to overachieve against them.

Big Game is the best attended event in the festive sporting calendar. The fixture embodies the Harlequins Purpose; it is innovative, courageous and ambitious. Big Game 11 was the most successful of Big Games and Harlequins’ biggest and most successful match ever.

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BT Sport Pub Cup 2018

Aimed at BT Sport pub landlords and Sunday league football players, the BT Sport Pub Cup gave grassroots teams the chance to feel like Premier League superstars.

The initial phase of the campaign saw over 1,600 grassroots teams enter the competition.

BT Sport then followed the progress of each team, with live draws on the BT Sport Score Show and video content of teams training with players including Arsenal’s Petr Czech and Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler.

The final was held at Leicester’s King Power stadium, complete with high-profile managers. Fans of the teams who couldn’t make the final in person could watch the game live in their local pub.

This campaign gave landlords and their customers a unique, money can’t buy experience, connecting pubs to local football teams in the community. And for BT Sport, it reduced commercial churn by 20%.

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Deloitte Ride Across Britain – Threshold Sports

Deloitte Ride Across Britain is the largest Land’s End to John O’Groats ride of its kind, with 1,000 riders taking on the 9 day, 980 mile challenge every September. For most, this isn’t just a 9 day event, but a year long journey where people dedicate hours of training through all kinds of conditions.

2018 saw the Ride’s 9th edition, which has steadily grown from just a few hundred riders, helping to raise millions of pounds for hundreds of UK charities. With an average fundraising per head of £2,600, the 2018 event helped to raise £1.1m, with partners The Prince’s Trust, Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK, the main benefactors.

The Ride also has a huge impact on the economy as we travel up the length of Britain. An incredible £3.3m was contributed to UK sites, suppliers and local businesses as a result of the event, which was a 27% increase YOY.

Deloitte Ride Across Britain is a one of a kind event, which attracts global participation. From bucket list challengers to professional cyclists, and charity fundraisers in between – few walk away from this event without making life changing memories.

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Glasgow 2018 European Championships – Glasgow City Council

History was made when the inaugural multi-sport European Championships took place from 2 to 12 August in the great sporting cities of Glasgow and Berlin.

While Scotland hosted the Aquatics, Cycling, Golf, Gymnastics, Rowing and Triathlon, the Athletics was staged in Berlin.
More than 3000 athletes from 48 nations competed across 12 disciplines in Scotland. They competed in world-class fields with records broken and history made.

The ground-breaking event was broadcast across Europe, with a staggering 1.4 billion cumulative audience watching 850 million hours of action on television across the continent and beyond.

Festival 2018 brought a carnival atmosphere to the world-class sporting action, with live music, circus, dance, theatre and much more.

Glasgow’s George Square attracted thousands of visitors daily with a spectacular line-up that allowed Scotland’s renowned creativity to shine.

GO LIVE! at the Green also welcomed many thousands of people to enjoy a world-first attraction – a live experience which brought together sport, fitness, health, food and drink, arts and entertainment in an engaging and exciting way to encourage people to live more active lives.

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Lancashire Lightning v Yorkshire Vikings – Vitality Blast – Lancashire Cricket

Lancashire’s rivalry with Yorkshire is one of the biggest in cricket and dates back over 150 years which started during the famous War of the Roses.

The Club’s Vitality Blast fixture against Yorkshire has become one of the most highly anticipated games in the domestic cricketing calendar. Attendances and match day revenues have increased significantly over the past five years with Lancashire Cricket aligning with the Aspire ticketing model so the right fans are sitting in the right stand, enjoying the right experience, whether that be in the Party or Family Stand.

Last year’s fixture, the second most watched domestic game on Sky Sports Cricket this decade with nearly 900,000 viewers, welcomed the biggest ever attendance in domestic T20 cricket (excluding Finals Day) outside of London of 22,515.

The Club wanted to provide an experience that encompassed a number of appropriate and relevant partners and sponsors as part of the event, in this instance Emirates, who continued their previously successful ‘Catch a 6’ competition whereby an Emirates cap was placed on 4,000 seats in the stadium and they were then offered a free holiday for the first person to catch a six wearing an Emirates cap.

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Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup – England Hockey

The Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup was the culmination of four years of major event hosting by England Hockey. Buoyed by the women’s Gold Olympic medal success in Rio, the scale and stature of the event exceeded all expectations.

• Recorded 115k tickets sold generating £3.16m net revenue, a staggering three times the initial target and more than any other women’s stand-alone sports event
• Stadium capacity doubled to 10600 to accommodate demand
• An innovative Fan Zone was built on a second site to provide spectator experiences that couldn’t be hosted on the Arena site
• Spectators rated the event on average 9 out of 10
• 1960 hours of coverage was aired on 44 channels across 98 markets with an audience of 9.7m
• High calibre brands such as Vitality associated with the event
• PR activity such as #behindeverygreatplayer, Team Captain’s launch on the banks of the Thames, and adidas kit launch boosted the profile and helped to evolved perceptions of the sport
• 1506 grassroots club hockey events were staged as part of the ‘Your World Cup’ campaign

 

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Best Sports Event of the Year – Overseas

2nd Teqball World Cup – International Teqball Federation

Teqball has experienced an astronomic rise since it was founded by three Hungarian businessmen experimenting with a table-tennis table in their garage. Now a weekly feature of BT Sport Saturday Savage, it has dominated sports headlines following the 2 nd Teqball World Cup in France just a few months ago.

PR has played an integral part in raising the profile of the little known sport, encouraging people to give it a go, establishing its trademark events and helping to legitimise the sport so it can one day feature in the Olympic Games.
The 2nd Teqball World Cup in Reims, France in 2018 served as the catalyst for Teqball, a once-obscure sport played in Central Europe, to explode onto the global stage. Male and female athletes from 42 countries around the world took part in two days of thrilling singles and doubles competitions, attracting thousands of live spectators and millions more through television broadcast and social media coverage of the event. The number of competitors more than doubled on the previous year, with organisers welcoming UK teams for the first time and representatives from Asian, African, European and Pacific nations.

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Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships – Dubai Duty Free

Through the organiser’s continued commitment to excellence, the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Tournament has firmly established itself as one of the most popular and prestigious tournaments on the ATP and WTA world tours, and is one of the most eagerly anticipated events on the Dubai sporting calendar. The organisation of the event is seamless and results in an outstanding experience for players, spectators and officials. The organizers challenge themselves to improve the delivery of the tournament each year, resulting in an event which not only offers great action and excitement on and off the court but also supports and enhances Dubai’s international reputation as a sporting and business destination.

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Heart of The Lion | ONE Championship

Martial arts is a true sports and entertainment phenomenon, capturing imaginations around the world with its stories of bravery and courage Martial arts, especially in Asia, represents true Asian values such as integrity, honor, respect, humility, discipline, courage and compassion ONE Championship is the celebration of Asia’s greatest cultural treasure — martial arts It is the world’s largest martial arts organization and the home of martial arts, hosting bouts from Muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, silat, sanda, mixed martial arts, lethwei, tae kwon do, submission grappling, and more Since 2011, ONE Championship has helped build martial arts and its values through various in-depth promotions and PR efforts, which place great emphasis on educating viewers on the core rules and regulations that govern martial arts With these rules in place, athletes are given a global platform to showcase the beauty of martial arts as a competitive sport Over the years, ONE Championship has put together a brilliant formula of developing martial arts athletes into heroes and role models that fans can connect to on a personal level, sharing similar upbringing, culture, and background The appeal lies in not just turning athletes into superstars by strictly promoting them as such, but by giving

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The Ryder Cup – PGA European Tour

The 42nd edition of the Ryder Cup saw the most high-profile event in golf come to Paris between 25-30th of September 2018. Four years of work by the dedicated staff culminated in the most successful edition of the event ever hosted in Europe. The list evidencing the Ryder Cup as best-in-class goes on and on, but some of the highlights are as follows:

– The most spectator-friendly venue ever, in terms of visibility and on-site technological-integration to improve their experience
– A record attendance – Over 270,000 attendees at-event, representing a record Ryder Cup attendance in Europe
– Record TV audiences for golf & the Ryder Cup across various broadcasters
– Over 22 billion impressions on all social content around the event
– A resounding commercial success

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World Table Tennis Day – International Table Tennis Federation Foundation

“TABLE TENNIS FOR EVERYONE, EVERWHERE” is the slogan to share the joy of playing Table Tennis worldwide on APRIL 6. WORLD TABLE TENNIS DAY (WTTD) forms part of ITTF Foundation’s Table Tennis for ALL – Programme and aims to reach most quantity of people and different target groups. It builds up on 3 pillars: POPULAR, UNIVERSAL & INCLUSIVE.

The focus is on social outcomes presenting Table Tennis as a sport accessible for everyone. FEW MATERIALS AND SKILLS ARE NEEDED to play, have fun and spread positive messages among players. EVENTS ARE SET UP ALL AROUND THE WORLD bringing Table Tennis closer also to laypersons.

OVER 94,000 PERSONS celebrated World Table Tennis Day 2018 all around the globe. Many of them usually don’t play or train Table Tennis. The number is set to grow from year to year.

Beyond competitions, Table Tennis serves as a vehicle for POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE, a HEALTHY WORTHWHILE USE OF LEISURE TIME and an opportunity to BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER, an excellent tool for SOCIAL INCLUSION. Table Tennis has a unique value where people from different ages, gender, skills or physical condition can play together. It is SPORT FOR LIFE and It´s FUN! Stay updated on www.TT4ALL.com

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Best Sports Governing Body Initiative

Fighting Chance Scholarship Programme – British Martial Arts & Boxing Association (BMABA)

The BMABA’s Fighting Chance Scholarship Programme is the martial arts industry’s first grass-roots initiative to help lift children out of poverty through martial arts.

The programme provides completely free training in martial arts for children living in poverty through to the age of 18. At the age of 16, the programme then pays for their journey into coaching, through qualifications and training. This leads to a fully-fledged instructor license at the age of 18+.

The programme aims to tackle youth knife crime, gang culture and the often traumatic effects of growing up in violent or impoverished households. It does this by providing a stable, inspiring role-model through the club and instilling the values and training of martial arts. It also provides better prospects for early adulthood, as well as working in partnership with schools to maintain conduct in the classroom. In turn, this provides access to an independent opportunity for the young person to earn their own living once qualified, whilst inspiring and mentoring future generations.

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GolfSixes League – The Golf Foundation

The Golf Foundation is the national charity which encourages young people from all backgrounds to ‘Start, Learn and Stay’ in golf.

‘GolfSixes League’ was created in 2018 with the aim of helping more young people to ‘Stay’ in golf clubs, through an innovative new format which sought to foster a sense of belonging in junior sections and boost the involvement of parents.

Through GolfSixes League juniors play in competitive inter-club golf leagues – developing regular players and new members through team practice and play; six-a-side, six-hole matches for boys and girls, wearing team shirts, supported by high numbers of parents.

Replicating the fun ‘team golf’ found in the European Tour’s creation of ‘GolfSixes’ and also recent Ryder Cups, in 2018 GolfSixes League created 24 UK Leagues, featuring 1,160 players from 102 clubs. 25% of players were female, 65% of parents volunteered at events, and there was a 34% increase (42% in England) in affiliated membership at these clubs.

The Foundation aims to grow GolfSixes League to 83 leagues, 366 clubs and over 4,000 youngsters by December 2021.

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International Table Tennis Federation – ITTF Foundation

“Solidarity through Table Tennis”

Since 2018, the world has a new organisation working in the field of sports for development and peace. The establishment of the table tennis related ITTF Foundation was endorsed by all members of the International Table Tennis Federation in 2018. Less than one year later, the Foundation was officially recognised by German authorities. The ITTF Foundation promotes solidarity and understand itself not as a mere charity, rather an executing partner on the field. We not only offer support, supervision and promotion, we are also involved in the execution, the coordination and problem solving. We have a capacity building approach, striving for excellence in project execution in each of our six programs;

TT Dream Building: supporting and executing humanitarian projects using table tennis for positive social ouotcomes on the field;

TT4ALL: making table tennis accessible to a broad public, focussing on minority groups;

TT4Health: divulging the healthy benefits of table tennis on a social, mental and physical level;

NeTTworking: connecting people wishing to help with people in need Ping Pong Diplomacy: promoting a peaceful behaviour among opposite individuals, groups, regions or nations;

TT Legacy: leaving a positive social legacy of table tennis events in the host locations.

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#LoveSwimming campaign – Swim England

How do you get a nation talking about swimming?

#LoveSwimming is the first ever industry-wide campaign that is getting the UK talking about swimming. Through collaborative working with key partners in the sport & leisure industry, we are delivering massive reach, engagement and action. We believe Swim England to be the first National Governing Body to deliver a marketing campaign in a fully collaborative way, with the campaign funded by its partners.

This digitally-led campaign highlights a number of real-world stories, from people who have experienced some of the many benefits that swimming has to offer. These stories have been filmed and shared widely across social channels and have also hit ‘mainstream’ national and local media.

The results to-date show almost 500k views of the digital films, with 150,000 people saying they will swim more. This campaign has grown to include 12 funding partners and is going from strength-to-strength in terms of reach and impact.

The concept was delivered in less than six months from conception to roll-out of Wave One of the campaign, including securing all funding from the swimming industry partners.

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Transforming an International Federation – International Netball Federation

Netball is a well organised sport with a huge participation base, predominantly in Commonwealth countries; well over 20 million women and girls (and some men and boys) play, coach, officiate or administer the game. However, it is not recognised globally for its high-performance game. With a very limited income derived from Membership fees, surpluses from its premier event and some partner funding, the International Netball Federation (INF) has to be creative and innovative in its approach to increase its voice in the international sporting world.

Through the delivery of its Netball 2020 strategic plan INF is leading a transformation. The process began with changes to its own internal governance processes. The global membership has been empowered and the national netball associations are motivated and engaged. The key stakeholders in global sport including the IOC and the CGF are noticing. Women’s sport is finally being given the profile by the media that it has sought for decades and INF is poised, ready to seize the moment. INF is delivering on its mission and women’s lives are being changed.

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Sports Innovation Award

ASB LumiFlex – ASB GlassFloor

We would like to introduce the sporting innovation which is the ASB GlassFloor. The GlassFloor comes in two variations, both of which benefit the sportsperson and increase participation in various ways, whilst serving as a multi-functional floor area for events outside the sporting world.

The MultiSport GlassFloor, hidden beneath the glass are a series of LED strips which shine through the glass, displaying the desired game lines for any desired sport on the surface, eliminating confusing line crossovers. The individual game lines of specific sports are illuminated independently according to the desired sport selected via touchscreen.

The LumiFlex GlassFloor is another variation of the GlassFloor and has mostly the same properties but can display full video output on the floor via a HDMI interface, as well as sports game lines. This makes the playing surface a multifunctional monitor which can be utilised in any way the owner sees fit, developing training and practise through the use of interactive training. Interactive training takes brings practice to the next level, your coach can draw a path via tablet and the tracked player must complete the course, all the time the score / time of the player is displayed on the floor.

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Born Barikor – Our Parks

Our Parks was founded by Born Barikor in March 2014 with the aim of creating an accessible pathway to exercise by providing free fitness sessions in parks across London and the UK. Our Parks delivers over 300 hours per week of outdoor group exercise classes across the UK, predominately in London, to activate outdoor spaces and parks, targeting inactive people. Their aim is to provide everyone with the opportunity to exercise and get fit together to improve their health.

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DAZN

In 2018, DAZN completely elevated itself from an unknown to a major multi-sport broadcaster, a trajectory many assumed to be impossible. The market by nature was resistant to challengers,, and to become a prominent sports rights holder in the most prominent market, DAZN needed to be creative in striking deals and find a different way to build credibility.

With John Skipper at the helm, DAZN first upended the pay-per-view model and struck a historic $1 billion deal with Matchroom Boxing, establishing a new channel of access for U.S. boxing fans. DAZN then secured a nine-figure deal with Bellator MMA, bringing in one of the most popular MMA entities. To round out a complete fight sports package, DAZN solidified the richest athlete contract in sports history by partnering with Golden Boy Promotions to put Canelo Alvarez exclusively on their platform for five years.

In November 2018, DAZN elevated its value proposition to sports fans by securing a partnership with MLB that will provide live look-ins to MLB games, positioning DAZN as a platform ready to compete for any premium sports rights that come available in 2019 and beyond.

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Everton Football Club

Everton made technological and sporting history by helping a child too sick to travel to become the world’s first ‘virtual matchday mascot’ – experiencing the excitement of going on the pitch via a specially designed telepresence robot carried by captain Phil Jagielka.

The lifelong Blue, Jack McLinden, a 14-year-old boy from Liverpool, suffers from multiple health conditions and his oxygen-dependence – and use of a wheelchair – severely restricts his mobility.

Jack was able to fulfil his dream of being a mascot through the robot; meeting players in the changing room before being carried on to the pitch by skipper Phil Jagielka.

‘Jack’s Virtual Mascot’ resulted in global media coverage and praise for Everton’s efforts from Kick It Out – Football’s equality and inclusion organisation – as well as influential figures from within the gaming world.

The project highlighted Everton’s commitment to equality and set an example of inclusive practice for sick or disabled supporters throughout the Premier League.

The story resonated beyond football achieving impressive broadcast, online and print coverage across sports, tech and general news media globally and helped generate enquiries from news organisations worldwide.

Everton’s involvement helped solidify Everton’s position as a pioneering Club of firsts.

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Huddersfield Town Football Club

Huddersfield Town wanted to create a real impression with the announcement of our new Head Coach Jan Siewert.

The day before the announcement, Sky Sports were showing our Premier League game against Manchester City One of the reporters thought they had seen Jan Siewert in the Directors Box, so went to approach him to get an ‘exclusive’ He went up to him and asked “Are You Jan”, to which the gent replied “No, I’m Martin from Wakefield”.

Sky Sports relayed this error to a worldwide audience of millions.

We as a Club had to act very fast on this to get the full reactive effect, so the day after we met to look at how we could use this to our advantage.

We filmed Martin sat in the Head Coach’s chair in his office, pretending to be on a phone call, before being interrupted by a knock on the door from Jan Siewert wanting his seat back.

The results led to the most viewed video in the history of the Club, with thousands of likes and retweets. On Twitter alone, 1.6 million people viewed our launch video, with the Tweet becoming a viral sensation.

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Movement Module – Catapult

Historically, the detection of limb stiffness, asymmetry and limb dominance (all major injury risk factors) has required extensive laboratory-based assessments which are often impractical and unrealistic in the busy and time-poor environment of team sports.

Identifying individual movement patterns using nothing more than a wearable GPS device, Catapult’s Movement Module is targeted at coaches and sports scientists who are looking to approach standardised fitness testing in innovative ways and is already having an impact on practice in this crucial area.

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Presca Teamwear – GRN Sportswear

The World’s Most Sustainable Pro-Cycling Kit

From launching a new teamwear brand in February 2018, to creating “the world’s most sustainable pro-cycling kit” and becoming official teamwear sponsor to a UCI Continental professional cycling team, within the space of a year.

In 2018, GRN Sportswear Ltd (an award-winning sustainable cycling and triathlon wear company) launched its teamwear brand, Presca Teamwear, having created a niche for bespoke, sustainable team apparel for cycling and triathlon. The company is known for creating garments from recycled materials including plastic bottles, fishing nets and other post-industrial nylon. In 2018, Presca set itself a huge goal – to prove that recycled materials can withstand the challenge of professional cycle racing, proving once and for all that sustainability and performance go hand-in-hand.

An intensive period of development followed, working in partnership with Vitus Pro Cycling Team, powered by Brother UK and one of the UK’s top sportswear designers. Identifying recycled fabrics for their performant qualities including breathability, wickability, stretch, support and weather protection, Presca developed a ground-breaking new range of professional cycling clothing and became the official teamwear supplier to the Team, making them, we believe, the first UCI Team to race in recycled fabrics. Pro-performance, pro-Planet.

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Umbro – Everton Football Club

Umbro are a pioneering sportswear brand, with over 90 years of experience of designing and distributing sportswear apparel and equipment, the brand is steeped in history and innovation. The partnership with the Club not only allows Umbro to showcase the best of their technical apparel and design insight, but also their authentic brand position and progressive thinking.

The 18/19 away kit launch demonstrated the partnerships desire to break new ground by delivering a launch that was fronted exclusively by the Everton Ladies Team, a football first. Closely anchored to Women in Football, the campaign leveraged a showpiece moment to drive change and create opportunity.

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Best Business Serving Sport – over £3m turnover

CSM Live

CSM Live are the branding and live experience specialists that has been serving sport in all different contexts for decades. In the last year alone, we have designed, produced, delivered and managed world-class experiences for the biggest sports events, with around half the world’s population seeing our work! We also created immersive and engaging experiences for global brands, using sport to connect with their consumers.

Highlights have included transforming Le Golf National for the biggest Ryder Cup to date and building bespoke team rooms, from nothing, for the USA and Europe. We’ve helped Paddy Power connect with fans in an emotive and immersive experience at the Champions League of Darts. We designed a new event brand for the Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup and brought it to life on site creating a festival atmosphere and giving fans an enhanced experience.

Our teams’ knowledge and experience allows us to create unrivalled world-class experiences, and our focus on sustainability is helping drive the industry towards a brighter future.

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GL events UK

GL events UK has been one of the driving forces behind the phenomenal growth of this global business; and nowhere more has this impact been felt than through the contribution of the business’ Seating and Stadia team.

From permanent structures across football, cricket and rugby, to temporary grandstand seating at The Open, Ryder Cup, and Lancashire County Cricket Club, GL events has consistently delivered bespoke quality solutions for its clients, in sometimes challenging circumstances, environments and time frames.

This is a division of GL event UK’s business that has shown agility in design, solution, and project management, whilst still following the business’ commitment to creating mutually beneficial working partnerships with its clients, and an unerring commitment to quality. They have become the grandstand seating partner of choice because of their superior product, their commitment to partnership and because their have earned the trust of those who work with them, year after year – safe in the knowledge that they won’t be let down.

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Infosys

It’s not often that you get to be a sponsor for a sporting tournament, and actually reinvent the sporting experience at the same time. As Digital Innovation Partner for the Australian Open, Infosys has been able to achieve this by creating digital platforms that enable followers and players of the sport to ‘experience the next’ – the next way to see, engage, play, train and win. And all of these platforms were not just built to make technologies more state of the digital art, but to solve real problems.

Fans never had live streaming point-by-point analysis of the sport to understand the game as it unfolds. With the Infosys MatchBeats visualisation, now they do. Highlights were restricted to 5-minute video clips produced manually. Infosys Ai Clips presents every real game-changing moment using artificial intelligence in near-real-time. The live stadium experience used to be accessible only those who had a ticket. Now anyone who dons the Infosys VR Experience headset has 360º views of every match with live VR broadcasts, and the ability to train in VR using data and shop official merchandise in a virtual store.

The Australian Open has transformed: it is a digital sport for the digital age.

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STATSports

STATSports, is an Irish based sports technology company and is at the forefront of cutting-edge sports innovation technology offering the following unique to its clients and wider consumer market: The APEX Pro and APEX Athlete Series.

APEX PRO Prestigious features and partnerships includes:
1. APEX Watch. Live data is more accessible than ever.
2. Live system. Data can be streamed live to a tablet using our fixed or portable beacons. Additionally, data can also be live streamed using our brand new wearable beacon collecting data for a full squad of players at one time. No other competitor offers this.
3. The ability to connect to multiple devices making this a Bluetooth hub.

U.S Soccer deal. In March 2018, STATSports became the “Official On-field performance monitoring device of U.S Soccer” sees all Men’s National Teams, Women’s National Teams and the development academy set up using STATSports APEX system.
Brazil FA. One of the most well renowned brands in football. Following on from the U.S Soccer deal, April 2018 saw Brazil FA sign as a client ahead of the 2018 World Cup. This partnership sees the Men’s national team, Women’s national teams and development academy set up.

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George’s Park

At St. George’s Park, innovative technology solutions underpin elite and non-elite training services. With a focus on service delivery and visitor satisfaction, the site combines world-leading facilities with the latest technologies to enhance learning, training and performance across national and international sport.

While known as the UK’s national football centre and home to England’s 28 national teams, SGP is much more than this. It is a centre of excellence for sporting talent and innovation, a community facility, a hub for global businesses and a place where the whole industry can learn and develop.

The park has hosted more than 251 elite teams, spanning FC Barcleona, Manchester City, Shanghai, Manchester United, Chelsea, England Rugby Union Team, GB Hockey, and British Basketball, and 2,937 community groups and grassroots clubs. St. George’s Performance Centre has served as training and rehabilitation hub for a variety of elite athletes, including Andy Murray, who made the Park his base for two residential camps, and Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome and the rest of the Team Sky, for their medical camp.

St. George’s Park, which celebrated its sixth anniversary in October 2018, continues to deliver high customer satisfaction scores, including 9.08 out of 10 for overall experience.

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StreamAMG

StreamAMG are in the vanguard of the OTT video revolution which is changing the face of professional sports as a whole.

The company video platform served more than 5 million hours of playback time during the 2017-18 season and delivered more than 500 live events on behalf of clubs.

StreamAMG provides OTT video solutions and live streaming to rights holders, federations and clubs including more than 25 football clubs in England and Wales. Its sports operations are overseen from MediaCity in Manchester, where the team work with the head office in London and technical operations team located in Birkirkara, Malta.

A suite of custom-built products, including MediaPlatform and the CloudPay payment system, offer unrivalled control, customisation, reliability and ease of use for clubs and rights holders.

In 2018, StreamAMG created Cloud Matrix using unique feed-based infrastructure to bring scheduling, personalisation, OTT distribution and complete syndication control to MediaPlatform unite content creation, payment and distribution in one intuitive package.

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Best Small Business or Association Serving Sport – under £3m turnover

British Martial Arts & Boxing Association

The BMABA is a multi-award winning, grass roots martial arts governing body with a twist.

Founded in 2012 with just £20 of capital, the association has gone on to achieve national success as a leading and influential organisation. The association targets the professional standards of instructors, as well as the grass roots engagement and participation in martial arts, rather than competitions and elite squads.

Self funded, self started and never having received a penny of funding, sponsorship or investment, the association now represents in excess of 10,000 people across the UK and has a number of grass roots initiatives working in local communities, such as programmes tackling knife crime, childhood poverty, violence against women, bullying and more.

The association’s ambitions is to see a country in which all children are confident and fit, empowered with self defence skills. We’re also committed to ensuring martial arts instructors maintain the best possible standards of safeguarding, insurance and regulation.

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DataPOWA

POWA index. AI Sponsorship valuation. Digital benchmarking for the sports industry.

In October 2018, after 18 months in development, London & New York based DataPOWA launched the world’s first A.I. real-time sport sponsorship valuation SaaS product, POWA index, with data from over 3,000 teams, leagues and events from around the globe.

POWA index provides a definitive market valuation by benchmarking rights-holders in relation to each-other across a wide-range of data-points incorporating traditional media, digital platforms and fan interactions.

POWA index digital benchmarking dashboard tool enables:

Rights holders to identify how to maximise their income from sponsorship properties

Brands/Sponsors to negotiate better Sponsorship deals, saving time & money

Agencies to understand which properties afford the most value for their clients; saving considerable time and existing resource costs.

DataPOWA are able to use the POWA index to value sponsorship properties & offers a competitively-priced sponsorship valuation service.

The team has been delighted at the market’s initial reaction and sales to global sports brands and sponsors. POWA index is poised to become a disruptor in a very lucrative global sponsorship market, and so offers exciting organic growth opportunities, as well as industry consolidation potential.

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Goalball UK

Goalball UK continually demonstrates it’s an ambitious NGB delivering many different projects each working towards its overall objectives.

It’s determination to build greater resilience within the organisation has accelerated the diversification of activity that has developed the profile of the sport and ensured its sustainability. By successfully exceeding its drives for further growth, both regarding participation and securing and establishing new funding streams, the organisation has secured foundations that are essential for the international success of elite players, which will inspire future generations.

Goalball UK’s approach to important research (with Leeds Beckett University) and seeking relevant partners (Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers) reinforces their aptitude to deliver against its core values.

The constant focus on the circumstances of the people involved informs their work and has created lifelong goalball ambassadors and a legacy way beyond that initiated by London 2012.

The blind and visually impaired community is a population that is currently under represented in terms of engagement with sport and physical activity. As Goalball UK continues its upward trajectory and sustains the innovative developments across the landscape of the sport, from grassroots to elite, it will be transformational for many more people.

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Imagineear

Imagineear is the leading producer of multimedia content and technology for self-guided and group guided tours at major sports clubs, stadia, related museums and sports heritage attractions worldwide. We turn empty stadia into leading visitor attractions, using our content and technology to create visitor experiences that bring venues to life and take fans behind the scenes on non-event days.

Our work helps manage visitor flow, optimise visitor spend and provide real-time data insights. We provide our sports clients with everything they need from the technology, including the operational planning, to the interactive immersive multilingual experiences that deepen the sport, venue or club’s connection with their visitors from all over the world.

With our ground-breaking Multimedia GroupGuide™ technology, group leaders can now intersperse live commentary with dynamic multimedia content, including 360º videos and VR/AR image recognition, all personalised in the visitor’s own language.

Sports clients we work in close partnership with include Arsenal Emirates Stadium Experience, the London Stadium and West Ham United FC, Chelsea FC, Wembley Stadium, Liverpool FC, Croke Park, Legia Warsaw, the National Horseracing Museum, plus new projects currently in development with Tottenham Hotspur FC, Manchester United FC and Manchester City FC.

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Jockey Club Services

Jockey Club Services (JCS) has developed a world class platform of services which is now available to the professional sports market. Marked improvements have been experienced by JCS’s clients in the performance of their clubs and they have achieved savings across many facets of their businesses; allowing profits to be re-invested back into their sport.

With expertise in Procurement, Ticketing, Finance & Accounting, Payroll, Public Wi-fi, IT Services, Events, Live Music and Catering, JCS has provided procurement services to five county cricket teams, ticketing to three county cricket teams and the Badminton Horse Trials, live music to The Ageas Bowl and Kingsholm, has created the Rewards4Cricket Loyalty programme being run by Hampshire, Glamorgan, Durham, Lancashire and Worcestershire County Cricket Clubs. JCS’s fastest growing service is finance and accounting where partners include Table Tennis England, England Squash, Badminton England, British Fencing and UK Athletics. JCS has many other NGB’s in the pipeline.

JCS can deliver significant economies of scale to other professional sports organisations, saving them money and providing insights based on experiences which prove a real benefit. These economies of scale will only increase as new partners come on board.

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SportsPro Media

Founded in 2008, SportsPro serves executives in the international sports business with industry-leading content, ideas and networking opportunities. Over the past 11 years the industry has seen unprecedented change and innovation in the way it’s consumed and provides value to the consumer. The same can be said of SportsPro, which was founded as a magazine only, and has developed into a leading media business spanning print, digital and events.

To address the changing needs and demands of the evolving sports business globally, we identified a need to overhaul our content strategy to ensure our output is tailored to specific audiences. This included implementing a strategic, company-wide focus on the over-the-top (OTT) ecosystem that continues to disrupt and reshape the intimately interconnected landscapes of sport, media and entertainment.

This has clearly made an impression on our social audience. Our official LinkedIn account has seen a 45% increase in followers since January 2018, growing to more than 3,500 in the space of a year. On Twitter, meanwhile, our reach now stands at close to 32,000 followers, with nearly 7.5 million impressions and an engagement rate of 0.9% – far exceeding the industry standard of between 0.09% and 0.3%.

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StatsBomb

StatsBomb are an analytics and data provider in football that apply data science to inform a deeper understanding of the game. We created our proprietary data operation as existing data was not sufficiently granular to answer the questions that we, and our customers had.

From October 2017, we designed our data spec, custom-built collection and validation software, and hired and trained data collection and quality teams. We integrated StatsBomb Data into our statistical algorithms and analytics software and launched May, 2018.

Scaling at speed whilst ensuring quality and accuracy has required continuously innovating solutions in technology and process. We collect data for 26 leagues across Europe and the Americas, and have secured customers in the big 5 European leagues, the US MLS and in Media and gaming. StatsBomb analytics are widely applied across the industry in performance analysis, opposition analysis, recruitment, fan engagement and customer retention.

We are educating the analyst and data science community of the future by providing Women’s data for free and running training courses in Analytics for Professional Football.

Our unique data facilitates research and development that enables StatsBomb to stand out from the herd in Football Analytics and provide insight that captivates audiences worldwide.

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Best Sports Club / Sports Event Hospitality

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Paddock Club

No sport excites the senses quite like Formula 1. A world where big business collides with intense sporting competition and high-tech innovation meets high-end glamour. Nowhere brings these elements together in a more alluring and exciting way than our spectacular Aston Martin Red Bull Racing Experience.

All guests of the Team get to feel the energy of a grand prix race weekend first-hand by following each and every key moment of action and gain fascinating insights into how the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car is fine-tuned by our team of engineers. They are also given exclusive access to a wealth of data and live team radio transmissions, as well as receive deep-dive inserts into the inner workings of the world’s fastest sport from key Aston Martin Red Bull Racing personalities.

No other team gets guests this close to the world of Formula 1. We take them beyond the grandstands and put them at the centre of one of the world’s most enthralling sports. All of our guests become part of our team and enjoy what is truly an unforgettable experience.

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Dial Square – Arsenal Football Club

The refurbishment of Dial Square at the end of last season has been a huge success for Arsenal Football Club.

At the end of the 2017/18 Season, Dial Square underwent a major refurbishment, turning it into an informal space with an industrial spirit. Dial Square now centres around a social courtyard area, inviting fans to arrive early on a matchday and immerse themselves with the pre-match build up, whilst tucking into culinary favourites, including home-made pizzas fresh from a specialist pizza oven, as well as succulent marinated chicken from the Rotisserie.

The refurbishment has introduced a cobble floor which acknowledges the original Dial Square courtyard in Woolwich. Silver Birch trees stand tall at 4.5m high, allowing fans to feel the essence of nature within the space. The original Dial Square sundial has also been replicated in a 4mx4m mosaic tile at the entrance.

The fans enjoyment of the upgraded facility and offering has been echoed by the increase of sales by approx. 108% on previous years. The refurbishment has also allowed Arsenal to evolve its hospitality areas on Club Level, adding more choice and value for fans every matchday.

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England Rugby Hospitality – Twickenham Experience Limited

To create a consistently outstanding hospitality experience and to increase the funds available to invest in the game of rugby, the RFU developed Twickenham’s East Stand and brought all official hospitality within the stadium in November 2018. With this change came a new business, England Rugby Hospitality, to provide hospitality clients with an in-house team who have an in depth knowledge of rugby and the on-site facilities and can act as a single point of contact from initial enquiry through to the match day experience.

We had two key goals in bringing all official hospitality within the stadium. Firstly, the Good For Rugby initiative which sought to maximise the income from hospitality that could be channelled by the RFU back into the sport. The RFU invests all profits into the game of rugby at all levels. Secondly, to provide an elevated and seamless customer experience both on game day and through the process of purchasing hospitality.

The East Stand facilities opened with great successes in November 2018 and has since welcomed thousands of guests over the course of five international matches. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to welcoming people back over the years to come.

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Lord’s Hospitality – Marylebone Cricket Club

Lord’s offers a range of premium seating match day hospitality packages and private box hire, for guests to enjoy world-class cuisine, exceptional customer service and an unforgettable experience.

At Lord’s, our ethos is to always exceed customer expectations. The hospitality team work constantly to ensure a memorable and smooth experience for every visitor, from the initial booking enquiry to when they leave the ground at the end of the match day.

The high quality of staff at Lord’s is an integral element of the excellent customer service, with in-house training provided to deliver a knowledgeable and motivated workforce.

The exceptional menus are created on-site by award winning chefs and are made from fresh and seasonal produce. Exquisite wines are chosen to compliment the menus, creating an outstanding dining experience for the guests and a truly memorable day at the Home of Cricket.

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Newmarket – The Moët & Chandon Dining Experience

Please see: https://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/newmarket/hospitality/experiences/moet-chandon-dining-experience/

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The Cheltenham Club – Cheltenham Racecourse

The height of hospitality and fine dining mixed with all the action from the world-renowned home of jump racing, The Cheltenham Club was a concept not seen before at Cheltenham Racecourse before its inception in 2015. But now, after just over three years in existence, The Cheltenham Club has not only gone from strength to strength, but has exceeded expectations year on year. The magnificent room of The Cheltenham Club stretches the whole way across the top of the grandstand and features a stunning glass rotunda overlooking the famous Cheltenham paddock and Winner’s Enclosure. Members of The Cheltenham Club enjoy stunning viewing areas, looking out at both the course, with the beautiful Cleeve Hill as the backdrop, and the paddock. The Cheltenham Club is exclusive, a concept not seen before at Cheltenham, and the aim was to create something which rivalled other hospitality facilities not just in racing but also British sport.

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Sports Tech of the Year –  for Sport and in Sport

CloudMatrix – StreamAMG

Cloud Matrix allows content teams to manage their video assets more effectively, saving editors time and presenting users with a more dynamic experience. Its rich feature set – from metadata and scheduling to feed creation – makes it the premier video management product on the market today.

StreamAMG created Cloud Matrix to bring scheduling, personalisation, OTT distribution and complete syndication control to MediaPlatform content by integrating third party data feeds and allowing up to 100,000 database queries per second.

A rights-driven channel management tool that pushes content anytime, anywhere, this one-stop-shop lets users upload, edit, schedule and share content through custom feeds based on custom rules and restrictions. This enables effective distribution of content to other media outlets, opening up new revenue streams for club-produced content.

Rather than constantly churn out new videos, it enables content teams to increase their output by quickly and easily querying their archives to bring existing, older content to life.

Ultimately, Cloud Matrix’s unique capabilities to help content managers get more fans watching their video, and for longer.

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DataPOWA

POWA index. AI Sponsorship valuation. Digital benchmarking for the sports industry.

In October 2018, after 18 months in development, London & New York based DataPOWA launched the world’s first A.I. real-time sport sponsorship valuation SaaS product, POWA index, with data from over 3,000 teams, leagues and events from around the globe.

POWA index provides a definitive market valuation by benchmarking rights-holders in relation to each-other across a wide-range of data-points incorporating traditional media, digital platforms and fan interactions.

POWA index digital benchmarking dashboard tool enables:

Rights holders to identify how to maximise their income from sponsorship properties
Brands/Sponsors to negotiate better Sponsorship deals, saving time & money
Agencies to understand which properties afford the most value for their clients; saving considerable time and existing resource costs.

DataPOWA are able to use the POWA index to value sponsorship properties & offers a competitively-priced sponsorship valuation service.

The team has been delighted at the market’s initial reaction and sales to global sports brands and sponsors. POWA index is poised to become a disruptor in a very lucrative global sponsorship market, and so offers exciting organic growth opportunities, as well as industry consolidation potential.

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NTT DATA & The Open – Driving Data Intelligence

NTT DATA is a global IT and future technologies innovator.

Headquartered in Tokyo, with business operations in more than 50 countries, NTT DATA provides world-class end-to-end IT and technology solutions to its clients.

In 2013 NTT DATA became an ‘Official Patron’ and the ‘Official IT Provider’ to The Open Championship.

‘The Open’ is the world’s oldest and most prestigious golf tournament, providing a stage for the world’s best players to challenge for one of sport’s most iconic trophies. With 175,000 spectators lining the fairways and ½ billion more following on TV, there’s so much analysis of every shot, highlighting the importance data plays in the world of sport.

As an Official Patron, NTT DATA wanted to demonstrate to spectators how they could use analytics, data and digital technology to transform the spectator experience (and simultaneously showcase cutting-edge future technology to B2B guests at the event).

By identifying, interpreting and visualising raw data we were able to bring fans and corporate guests unprecedented insight into the action, ensuring The Open and NTT DATA remained at the forefront of Sports innovation.

Our entry demonstrates we are data-driven experts, brand champions and storytellers, and able to impact commercial objectives for our client.

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PlayerMaker

For football academies that need to stay ahead of the competition, PlayerMaker is next-generation player development and coaching enhancement solutions. Unlike existing video and GPS-based solutions, PlayerMaker uniquely provides technical, tactical and physical performance insights leveraging its innovative footwear sensor. Completely replacing GPS systems and featuring advanced video integration capabilities, PlayerMaker is a plug-n-play and user-friendly solution that delivers immediate and highly accurate actionable insights.

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STATSports Apex

STATSports, is an Irish based sports technology company and is at the forefront of cutting-edge sports innovation technology offering the following unique to its clients and wider consumer market: The APEX Pro and APEX Athlete Series.

APEX PRO Prestigious features and partnerships includes:
1. APEX Watch. Live data is more accessible than ever.
2. Live system. Data can be streamed live to a tablet using our fixed or portable beacons. Additionally, data can also be live streamed using our brand new wearable beacon collecting data for a full squad of players at one time. No other competitor offers this.
3. The ability to connect to multiple devices making this a Bluetooth hub.

U.S Soccer deal. In March 2018, STATSports became the “Official On-field performance monitoring device of U.S Soccer” sees all Men’s National Teams, Women’s National Teams and the development academy set up using STATSports APEX system.
Brazil FA. One of the most well renowned brands in football. Following on from the U.S Soccer deal, April 2018 saw Brazil FA sign as a client ahead of the 2018 World Cup. This partnership sees the Men’s national team, Women’s national teams and development academy set up.

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#UnitedByHCL

The Digital Transformation approach for Manchester United has resulted in the creation of the unique Ecosystem-based Platform Business Model. The Platform draws in the 659 Million global fans on one side, through Real-time interaction, recommendations and personalisation, and connects them to the club and the sponsors on the other side.

The process creates a 2-sided network effect which results in increased value on one side due to increased participation on the other side – “every new Fan engagement results in increased brand reach for sponsors while every new Content or deals from Sponsors provided increased opportunity for the fans”.

The platform generates a huge amount of data from ecosystem interaction, which when analysed results in unique insights and opens new opportunities for e-Commerce, Brand Engagement, Product Introduction targeted for specific demography and geography.

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Agency of the Year

BCD Sports

The client brief involved assisting the Belgian Sports press who wanted to shadow the journey of Belgium’s national Football team This meant finding lodging close to the BE ‘base camp’ of the National Team The challenge was that they had limited funds and wanted normal market rates Another issue was the late confirmation of the fact that the BE team chose the northwest of Moscow as their basecamp close to the training center of the Belgian national team “The Red Devils”

The BE Press group were delighted with the personalized service and after spending a month away from home and being under the stress and pressure of covering the footballing world’s biggest event, it was fantastic to hear that everybody was happy.

BCD Sports also received the same feedback from all of the main sponsors and partners of the Belgian FA and several FIT-groups.

This level of service led to more business from the client who have already asked BCD Sports to deal with their National League games as well as the UEFA European Championships in 2020.

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Bright Partnerships

Bright is a London based independent agency offering integrated partnership solutions to global brands across the sport and lifestyle sectors.

Bright’s core propositions are Partnerships, Live Experiences and Communications and we deliver these services through a core Client Services team that includes strategy and account management, supported by specialist teams in Ideation & Creative, Operations & Systems, Communications, and Finance.

Our mission is to be the world’s most innovative partnerships agency, and to this end we challenge ourselves to offer clients groundbreaking work year after year.

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Goodform

Established in 2002, Goodform partners with Sports organisations to help them to Understand, Engage, and Grow their audience. We provide our clients with key business insights derived from data, audience engagement and research that enable them to fundamentally improve how they engage their current audience and drive new audience and commercial growth.

Our integrated in-house services focusing on Data, CRM, Research, Digital, and Contact Centre enable us to improve our clients’ relationship with their audience across multiple channels and platforms, making us unique in the market.

2018 represents a flagship year for Goodform, with a record level of both client retention and new client growth, and the development and launch of a client facing data platform that is positively changing how we service our clients.

Our highlights of the year include the launch of the F1 Fan Voice platform which currently boasts over 60,000 members; helping Tottenham Hotspur FC manage the transition of Season Ticket Holders and Members to their new stadium, driving interest, engagement, new audience and ticket sales for the Athletics World Cup, and delivering research on Safe Standing for the EFL that reached parliamentary debate, receiving over 33,000 responses.

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MATTA

MATTA believes that through sport, leisure, and healthy lifestyles, a more positive world is possible, whether that’s by encouraging people to play, support or challenge themselves to embrace a more active and fun life.

So we choose to work solely with clients and projects that have a positive impact on people’s lives. We consistently grow and develop audiences and consumer markets outside of the client’s core market, whether that is geographical, demographical, or behavioural, for brands, apparel, fans or participants.

And we achieve this by applying a blend of FMCG and client-side experience (both from our directors and throughout the agency staff), with our unique four-stage brand and communications positioning formula. This has also ensured that the campaigns we’ve produced have solid foundations and are therefore enduring.

We haven’t lost a single client or a single employee since MATTA first began in 2015. #makeitmatta

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WePlay

WePlay was started with a single mission in mind – to disrupt an archaic sports marketing landscape and to help their partners to effectively engage sports fans and generate measured, incremental revenues from their marketing activity.

Based in Shoreditch, the heart of London’s marketing district, WePlay bolsters a staff count of 28 people with the average age of their staff only 26. After only six years in business, WePlay currently partner with over 40 clients. In 2018, WePlay went from strength to strength, growing their client base by 150%, with new client acquisitions including Paris Saint-Germain, LaLiga, Ligue de Football Professionnel, PRO14 Rugby, PGA European Tour and the 2018 Ryder Cup. Most importantly it also saw the agency deliver over £40m in incremental revenues for their clients through performance-driven sports marketing.

With a specialist service that blends data analysis, strategy & consultancy, creative production and performance marketing, WePlay is the solution to sports organisations and brands looking to win in the digital age.

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Best Match (or Game) Day Experience

Cardiff City FC

At Cardiff City FC, we are constantly looking at ways to develop the match day experience had by our fans at Cardiff City Stadium. Through many different measure and qualitative feedback, we believe we provide our supporters a top quality experience that lasts beyond the remit of a 90 minute football match, with entertainment and incentives to visit the ground earlier, enabling families and friends to truly enjoy their day at Cardiff City Stadium.

Whilst the enjoyment of all our fans is paramount at Cardiff City FC, we very much recognize the importance of nurturing the youngest members of our fan base towards becoming the future of the Club. To that end, a great deal of time and commitment has been directed towards the Family Stand specifically this season, with plenty of pre-match activities available to ensure a great family day out.

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England Hockey Event’s Team

Staging the Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup was a huge undertaking for England Hockey, but one which delivered with impact and success. The decision to plan and deliver the event through our existing England Hockey staff team without the establishment of a special purpose vehicle meant that we could both stimulate and prioritise the event opportunities for the benefit of our sport and our members. After 4 years in the planning over 4,000 contractors, 650 Hockey Makers, 80 LVHTC staff and 60 England Hockey staff came together to deliver a fantastic event under the #oneteam mantra.

The scale of the event almost trebled, the facility was pushed to it’s absolute limits, we ran not one but two connected sites, our partners contributions were maximised and we delivered an amazing spectator overall experience score of 9 out of 10. All our other clients reported excellent experiences and the event was brought in on budget. We don’t believe that these results, or the positive impact on the wider business and sport, could have been achieved if it hadn’t been for the approach taken and absolute passion and dedication of the England Hockey Events/Operations Team, #oneteam.

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Lancashire Lightning v Yorkshire Vikings – Vitality Blast

Lancashire’s rivalry with Yorkshire is one of the biggest in cricket and dates back over 150 years which started during the famous War of the Roses.

The Club’s Vitality Blast fixture against Yorkshire has become one of the most highly anticipated games in the domestic cricketing calendar. Attendances and match day revenues have increased significantly over the past five years with Lancashire Cricket aligning with the Aspire ticketing model so the right fans are sitting in the right stand, enjoying the right experience, whether that be in the Party or Family Stand.

Last year’s fixture, the second most watched domestic game on Sky Sports Cricket this decade with nearly 900,000 viewers, welcomed the biggest ever attendance in domestic T20 cricket (excluding Finals Day) outside of London of 22,515.

The Club wanted to provide an experience that encompassed a number of appropriate and relevant partners and sponsors as part of the event, in this instance Emirates, who continued their previously successful ‘Catch a 6’ competition whereby an Emirates cap was placed on 4,000 seats in the stadium and they were then offered a free holiday for the first person to catch a six wearing an Emirates cap.

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Manchester City Football Club

CHALLENGE:
We want to offer our fans something that no other club offers their fans. At City, we do things differently! We want to lead the way in match day experience globally.

SOLUTION:
Build the best match day fan experience possible. We give the fans what they want. Player access, amazing money can’t buy prizes, laughter and music. We also strive to include the wider Manchester City family by linking up globally with supporter groups from around the world!!

We go beyond the stadium and beyond 90 minutes. We strive to provide a full day out. We do this every match day and every 6 hours live show is different.

By having a deep understanding of our supporters, their wants and needs – we tailor the match day show to ensure we cater for our core supporters whilst at the same time welcoming our newer fans and our global Cityzens.

Newcastle Fans TV – “This is something #NUFC lack massively, engaging their own community. City lead the way with a fan zone, a band, ex players, their media team filming, getting fans on stage, games for kids, beer and food served”

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Wolves v Liverpool – December 2018 – Wolverhampton Wanderers

As a Premier League Football Club, Wolverhampton Wanderers are constantly striving to be a progressive, forward thinking organisation that thinks and acts differently to our peers. Throughout the season Wolves have prided themselves on providing a totally unique pre-match show but in December, during a live broadcast on Sky Sports against Liverpool, we pushed the boundaries of pre match entertainment to a level never seen before.

A world class DJ – Kiss FM’s Justin Wilkes – mixed a LIVE music set to strobe lighting, dancing floodlights and a full pyrotechnic show.
The result was a 7 minute pre-match show that wowed 31,500 people in the stadium and millions of fans tuning in around the world

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World Darts Championship – Professional Darts Corporation

The Professional Darts Corporation is the world’s leading promoter of professional darts events, staging over 120 events per year around the world, selling over 500,000 tickets and paying out in excess of £15m prize money.

The pinnacle of the sport is the World Darts Championship, played annually at Alexandra Palace in north London over 28 sold-out sessions throughout the Christmas period.

With fans travelling from over 60 countries to attend the event (a third of the total crowd fly in from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands) to create one of the most unique atmospheres in sport, it has to provide a welcoming, fun environment which services their needs and gives them a memorable experience.

The Great Hall at Alexandra Palace is converted in to a Fans Village with bars, food outlets, merchandise, games and experiences to occupy the time before the darts gets underway. A live DJ builds the atmosphere and a Facebook streaming studio for a daily preview show gives fans the opportunity to engage with presenters and celebrity guests to discuss the matches ahead.

 

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