The 9 Biggest Takeaways for British Basketball from the Leaders Sport Business Summit

On the 8th & 9th October, some of the brightest minds in the sport industry gathered at Stamford Bridge in South London to share insights on the business of sport at the Leaders Sport Business Summit.

Over 60 international speakers take to the stage covering 24 sessions and 5 themes; the leader, the business, the fan, the brand and the technology.

Everyone, ranging from NBA franchise owners, football team presidents and chairmen, Facebook representatives and BBC Directors were present, involved in a variety of fascinating panels on the current state of their domains and where they are going in the future.

I took pages and pages of notes over the two days, and what follows are the 8 biggest takeaways for British basketball (both teams, organisations and federations…).

1) Forward Thinking is Key to Any Successful Sports Business

A recurring theme throughout the two days, whether it was a franchise owner, or a VP of marketing, is that they look to the future in everything they do.

Sir David Brailsford, current general manager of Team Sky cycling team and former performance director of British Cycling (overseeing their monumental climb to the top) said “what a does a world class team look like in twenty years?” is a question he asks himself when approaching any situation. BBC looks two years ahead on any projects, and for research & development, they’re looking 5-10 years ahead.

How much is any organisation or team in British basketball looking to the future? Who’s taking a long term view to things?

Short-term thinking has harmed the game for a long time.

2) Storytelling is a Major part of any Business

“A master storyteller makes a photograph doesn’t take a photograph,” said Ajaz Ahmed, the founder of AKQA, one of the biggest ad agencies in the world, most famous for their contract with Nike.

Telling your stories about the sport to get fans to engage with it, was another regular talking point.

Michael Leavey, the Media, Marketing and CRM Director at Arsenal FC said one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced is getting access to the players – it’s not as easy as you’d think. However, in the UK, because of the lack of media coverage/requests, access is a *lot* easier.  We should be using this to our advantage to tell players’ stories, going beyond what just happens on the court.

3) Digital is Becoming Everything

There are three main revenue streams in sport; TV, commercial and gate (tickets). It is now becoming a legitimate question whether digital is becoming the fourth.

With the widespread growth and proliferation of social and digital, 80% of Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment’s audience now have a second device while watching their games, and despite live sport taking up just 1% of TV programming, it takes up 41% of TV related tweets worldwide.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s vision is “to bring courtside worldwide through digital”. Digital channels open up the opportunity to reach far more people than an arena (or a sports hall!), and the more people you can reach the higher the potential for revenue, according to David Görges, the Head of New Media and CRM at Borussia Dortmund.

Digital should be intertwined with everything you do.

“Engaging new generations of fans means leveraging social media,” Claire Williams, the Deputy Team Principal of Williams F1 team said.

Leavey added: “Digital has an impact on every single area of the business, we take a holistic view to it across the club, not just confined to marketing department.”

76ers owner Josh Harris summed it up nicely by saying:

“If you’re not creating an edge with digital, you’re doing a disservice to your fans and potentially leaving money on the table.”

How active/prevalent are the BBL’s franchises on social, how much do we hear from the federations via digital? Not as much as we’d like, that’s for sure.

4) Transparency is a Must for Any Type of Buy in

James Pallotta, told the story of how, after recently acquiring a 100% stake in Italian Serie A football club AS Roma, one of the key things for him was to be transparent with the fans; telling them up front what he was planning to do.

Brailsford also spoke about how important transparency is during the selection process for his cycling teams, adding “the clearer you are about it, the better the process will be.

One of the biggest criticisms of both Basketball England and British Basketball for years upon years is their total lack of transparency. I’ve spoken to various people in senior positions who have also pointed to this as a problem, yet still it seems we are no closer to having the openness people want from their National Governing Body.

This causes huge disjointedness between the member base (we, the people!) and the administration, and does not help their cause.

5) Professional Sports Teams Are Becoming Content Businesses

Teams are going from the live entertainment business to the media business.

This was perhaps the biggest revelation of the two days for me; everything is changing so much for professional sports franchises (and the rest of the world, for the matter).

Josh Harris, the 76ers owner said professional franchises are becoming content businesses, revealing 75% of all their revenues are now coming from content.

It creates an interesting dilemma, one that Todd Leiweke, the CEO of Tampa Bay Sports and Entertainment, admitted was worrying him.

“41 home games is a lot to ask from consumer, why drive out when you sit at home on your couch and watch the game on TV from 14 different angles,” he asked.

The media/content side of everything has improved so much that there is less and less incentive to attend a game in the flesh.

“We can never lose sight of the gate, a full house makes everything else compelling,” concluded Tod.

Content is something that is severely lacking from basketball teams and organisations across the UK. Who’s writing interesting stories about their team, or pushing video?

6) Measure & Track Everything – Use the Data to Your Advantage

If you are not tracking/measuring/testing everything you are doing, you’re missing out on valuable data that could help your team/organisation grow and improve.

Harris was a big proponent of this, and said he uses it across all 40 businesses to ensure they are doing everything they can.

“Ignore it (data/statistics) at your peril, it will happen over time whether you like it or not,” he said.

Melissa Rosenthal-Brenner, the NBA’s Senior Vice President of Digital Media said “We (the NBA) are so hungry for data at all levels…Harness the data to glean insights, to make actionable effective campaigns.”

7) Get the Right People in the Right Positions to Succeed

The keys to building a successful franchise? Great owners and great management according to Tod Leiweke.

People are everything.

Melissa Rosentha-Brenner said the only reason the NBA has been able to be so prevalent on social media is because of leadership. David Stern embraced it, and Adam Silver has continued. Without leadership from the top, nothing can move forward.

Basketball across the UK, whether it be the federations, or national league sides, are still missing a lot of the right people to really succeed.

8) Engagement Over Numbers

It’s all good having those big social media followings, but now brands and sponsors are looking at something more than that – engagement (studies have been done to show that up to 36% of all ‘likes’ on major Facebook pages are fake).

Sponsors want engagement – it was repeated over and over again, by the likes of global brands such as NISSAN, Allianz, and Major League Gaming (go look into the story of MLG to find a huge business you probably had no idea about), as well as all of the representatives from sports franchises/leagues who spoke about working with sponsors.

On the positive, sports is responsible for some of the most engaging content on Facebook, according to Glenn Miller, Facebook’s Head of Sport & Entertainment Media Partnerships, so there is no excuse to not have some success there.

How many people are engaging with your content? Commenting on that photo, liking that status update or re-tweeting that tweet.

9) Mobile Matters

More and more website traffic is coming from mobile. 80% of all of Bleacher Report’s traffic is mobile and they think ‘mobile first’ in all they do (their Team Stream app is one of the most popular in the world).

The NBA is working on their Game Time app to cater for this.

The panel on the ‘Globalisation of Sports Ownership’ said “the life we live today is vastly different from 5 years ago…smart phones matter. A lot.”

‘Going offline’ is near impossible with the rise of smart phones and tablets. People are always online. We should be catering to this.

Who’s site is responsive (we’re working on a new design for Hoopsfix!)? Which British basketball organisation has an app? (none?). Must be thinking mobile first.

To Conclude…

That’s just a snippet of insights gained from the two days – do let me know if you’re interested in seeing my full notes, just drop me an email (sam(@)hoopsfix.com).

I’d like to finish with words from Tim Leiweke, the President of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, as they resonated.

“Dream big, think outside the box,” he emphasised. “Why not test the boundaries, why not believe you can do things that others only dream of. Don’t be afraid to fail.”