The PMY Pulse – PMY’S ‘INNOVATION BEHIND THE GAME’ SUMMIT IN NYC

Celebrating the Technologies Transforming Sports & Entertainment Globally

On Thursday June 13th, 2024, PMY Group, in collaboration the Australian Consulate General in NY, brought together our clients and industry connections in New York City for the inaugural Innovation Behind the Game Summit.

The aim of the summit is to celebrate technologies and innovation transforming sports and entertainment globally. Whether it’s trying to better engage fans, make a venue or event safer and more secure, optimize work efforts to be more operationally efficient, or to increase revenue and decrease costs: technology has a vital role to play.

Opening the proceedings were Australian Consul General Heather Ridout AO and PMY’s EGM, Sport, Venues & Major Events, John De Carvalho. De Carvalho shared insights from his work with tier-one venues and sports organizations as well as organizers and operators of major events including multi-venue/multi-sport Games, major grand slams, , LIV Golf, and various World Cups and Championships, including the recent ICC T20 Men’s World Cup.

De Carvalho outlined how the success of sports teams, venues, and events across the globe are underpinned by technology, with ongoing innovation a key factor to keep ahead of this rapidly evolving sector.

Recent examples of groundbreaking technology referred to included:

• Frictionless experiences spanning biometric-based venue access and payment systems.
• AI and Machine Learning technologies to enhance personalized fan experiences.
• Crowd intelligence, in-seat ordering, virtual concierge, digital mapping.
• Sophisticated data analytics and insights spanning everything from athlete performance, ticketing sales, F&B consumption, and queue times.
• Advanced telecommunications technology, including 5G, contributing to optimized delivery models, technical and financial efficiencies, as well as bringing the fan closer to the athletes.

Guests then had the opportunity to learn from two engaging speaker sessions as well as networking with fellow team, league, venue, and major event leaders in a collaborative and collegial environment.

Session 1: Technology as a Growth Engine – How technology investment fuels revenue growth and business success

• Catherine Carlson (EVP, Global Partnerships @ BSE Global)
• Keia Cole (Chief Digital Officer @ BSE Global)

Session 2: Broadcast Innovations Enhancing the Fan Experience

• James Watson (SVP, Production @ LIV Golf)
• Tim Tubito (Head of Global Event Programming & Entertainment @ NFL)
• Anna Lockwood (VP, International @ Telstra Broadcast Services)

Key insights from these sessions can be broadly grouped into three focus areas:

1.      Strategy Led Innovation

“Innovation” is often a hard to define, amorphous term. So speakers shared how they personally view it within their organizations. A common theme was that innovating for the sake of innovation is not the best of use of time and money.  Instead, innovation must always be a practical implementation anchored to a meaningful, strategic outcome or improvement.

Organizations that are innovating best have paused and taken the time, focus, and energy to define dedicated technology, digital, and data strategies. These strategies align to the overall business vision and outline aspirational, yet achievable, technology-driven goals. These goals are then implemented via a phased, prioritized, and budgeted roadmap of works.

2.    The Importance of Partnerships

Another key insight was the vital importance of partnerships to successful technology deployments. More than other industries, the sport and entertainment industry often involves partnerships and sponsorships in the purchase and deployment of technology. Fundamentally, technology vendors need to deliver on the technical requirements of the team, venue, or event. In addition to meeting this standard, the potential sponsorship revenue (or other in-kind upside) offered by a vendor or partner must also be included when considering the right choice for that organization.

Rather than seeing technology / digital teams and partnerships teams at odds with each, successful organizations break down the internal siloes between the two. This requires a high degree of trust, understanding, and alignment on the overall business strategy and goals.

If partnership teams understand the technology and digital strategic roadmap, they can seek out partners that fit those needs. Conversely if technology and digital teams understand the focus areas of the partnerships team, they can identify potential vendors/sponsors to underwrite technology investments, especially ones that may not already have been considered.

As with developing technology and digital strategy, the best practice for selecting partnerships is to take the time and energy to define the partner assessment criteria via constant reference to the overall business vision.

3.    Sports as a Global Industry

Sports is a global industry and fandom is the global language. As highlighted by the recent success of the ICC T20 Men’s World Cup in bringing international cricket to the US, and specifically New York with the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium[A1] . In the short span of five months, this temporary 34,000 seat stadium went from open parkland to hosting sold-out matches viewed by millions across the globe. However, it’s not just international events that should think globally. Domestic US teams and leagues are looking overseas for new growth opportunities and untapped pools of fandom. Technology and digital innovation unlock the ability to serve these global fans no matter where they are.

Examples from our speakers include:

• LIV Golf: LIV Golf’s global tour delivers world class golf to passionate yet underserved markets. But for the fans that can’t physically attend an event they can still get closer to the action through the Any Shot, Any Time feature on LIV Golf+. Rather than being anchored to a broadcast that only focusses on a few select players, fans can choose exactly which golfers, teams, or groups they want to watch at any given time and offers searchable and customizable on-demand highlight reels from any round of any LIV tournament. This is especially important for international fans following golfers from their own country. “Any Shot, Any Time” is built upon Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform in partnership with PMY.
  
• BSE Global: The Brooklyn Net’s 2024 Paris Game leveraged existing team sponsors for activations that resonated with local Parisian fans including a pop-up Brooklyn themed pizzeria and an orchestral tribute to Brooklyn’s Notorious B.I.G. at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Beyond connecting with fans in-person, these activations helped to build their digital footprint in the region. Similar digital engagement has led the Nets to be the most followed NBA team in China with over seven million followers on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
  
• NFL: The League is prioritizing global growth with an expanded schedule of International Games. In 2023, NFL clubs voted to increase league-operated international game inventory from four to up to eight games a season beginning in 2025. This includes hosting games in Madrid, Spain; São Paulo, Brazil; Munich, Germany; and London, UK. Technology plays an integral role in delivering the exacting quality standards for an NFL game experience, from in-venue to the fan viewing at home, especially at venues not designed for American football. For example, Augmented Reality (AR) in broadcast is providing resource efficiencies over using physical assets and sets whilst still delivering exceptional experiences for fans viewing at home.
  
• Telstra Broadcast Services: Supporting their AR partner Supponor to deliver localized ads and create new dynamic ad inventory for leagues. For example, the NHL’s Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards (DED) system integrates into the live broadcast feed to enable the real-time replacement of camera-visible physical arena advertising boards with dynamic digital overlays customized to the broadcast’s region or country.

Final Thanks

The entire PMY team would like to extend a sincere thank you to our event partners at the Australian Consulate General New York for their support; our speakers for sharing their expertise and insights, and of course all our attendees. There’s never been a more exciting time to be at the intersection of sports and technolgy. At PMY we’re energized for the challenges and opportunities ahead. If you would like to explore how PMY can help your event, venue, team, or organization set and reach your technology goals then please reach out to Thomas Alomes or John De Carvalho.