FEVO SPORT INDUSTRY AWARDS 2023: THE WINNERS

Gareth Bale won the Outstanding Contribution to Sport Award at the FEVO Sports Industry Awards 2023.

The Welshman, who recently announced his retirement from professional football, was recognised for his incredible achievements during a truly special career within the male professional game, which has seen him lift five Champions League trophies with Real Madrid, and help Wales to reach semi finals of UEFA Euro 2016 and to qualify for the FIFA World Cup for the first time since since 1958.

Baroness Sue Campbell, Head of Women’s Football at the FA, was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Olympian Dame Denise Lewis and Lioness Jill Scott for a 50-year career that has seen her work tirelessly to develop sports in the United Kingdom and to break down barriers and increase opportunities for female athletes at all levels of the game.

John Amaechi OBE received the Integrity & Impact Award in association with InsightX as recognition of his impact in educating the sport industry about discrimination in society and for his efforts to encourage athletes to use their voice for good.

STUDIO YOU

Credit: Hopscotch, Pebble Studios, CHILDWISE, OnToast

Sport England’s award winning This Girl Can campaign joined forces with education and social impact experts Hopscotch to change this with Studio You, a first of its kind digital PE resource.

The innovative platform featured over 140 video PE lessons designed to appeal to the least active girls with non-traditional disciplines, enabling time-poor teachers to inspire the most reluctant girls to get active.

Studio You is empowering teachers to create positive PE experiences for all girls, regardless of their background or ability, and to inspire the next generation of women to be active in a way that works for them.

In 2022, M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment set out to prove creativity could transform the sports industry.

They used it to break ticket records for UEFA Women’s Euros, creating a legacy and changing the women’s game forever.

For Barclays, it helped provide girls with equal access to football through the ‘It All Starts With a Chance’ campaign.

Other highlights included its Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign for O2, and with Dettol, it inspired the nation to support the Lionesses.

The agency also launched a women’s sport exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery setting a blueprint for the visualisation of women’s sport.

It won 13 pitches, profit doubled and it grew from 60 to 95 quicker than you could say, well… “It’s Home”.

GIVING TRIATHLETES A VOICE

Professional triathletes are the ultimate endurance athletes but beyond the Olympic spotlight their exploits have been under-valued, under-commercialised and un-told.

United by a desire for change, professional triathletes formed the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and in 2022 launched their own global race series – the PTO Tour.

During a ground-breaking inaugural season, the PTO social handles represented the athletes’ unified voice and were the most engaged channels in triathlon; delivering 125 million impressions, 2.4 million engagements and 29.1 million video views in the process.

URC.TV

Credit: RTE, StreamAMG, GAAGO

URC.TV was formed as part of a hybrid linear and OTT partnership between the URC and RTÉ. It created a fan focused and personalised OTT service that acts as a complement or substitute to linear broadcast deals in non-dark markets and an option to global fans in dark markets.

Through daily collaboration with RTÉ, the platform benefits from the strengths of both parties across product development, production, technical support, marketing, finance, and strategy.

It’s single-feed approach to technology delivery allows deployment of a more environmentally friendly option which also results in greater operational efficiencies.

SEVEN

The dynasty of the mythical number 7 shirt at Manchester United is iconic within football.

Homeground saw an opportunity for adidas to create a touchstone cultural moment in their partnership with the club; a story told through the essential item adidas creates for players and fans… the home shirt. We

Homeground united the club’s greatest number 7s, spanning sixty years of football history, all coming together at Old Trafford to create a timeless image and a short film.

The output created a reminder of the Manchester United’s history and its place within the sport as one of the biggest most historied club on the planet.

GAME STATE PROBABILITIES

Credit: British Curling Team, EIS Performance Data Team

The English Institute of Sport Performance Data team have developed a sophisticated predictive model called ‘Game State Probabilities’ for British Curling.

The model utilises a results database, which efficiently stores tens of thousands of data points from competitions, to calculate the probability of winning from different game states.

The Game State Probabilities tool was used at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics to support in-game decision-making, which played a crucial part in the British Curling team achieving Women’s Gold and Men’s Silver at the Games.

SEASON 2

SailGP’s ambition is to be the most purpose-driven & sustainable global sports platform. This ambition makes environmental & social sustainability central to everything it does, meaning a multitude of initiatives have been introduced, generating tangible environmental and social change:

– The Impact League – ground-breaking second leaderboard rewarding teams for positive environmental actions.

– SailGP was the first league, including its teams, to sign the UN Sports For Climate Action Framework, achieve Carbon Neutral International Standard and 3 gold medals in the U.N. Climate Neutral Now initiative.

– Clean energy initiatives & programmes that include Inspire & Women’s Pathway programmes, & key innovations and partnerships in the marine & global power industries.

UEFA WOMEN’S EURO 2022

Credit: UEFA, Brighton & Hove (Brighton & Hove Community Stadium), London (Brentford Community Stadium & Wembley Stadium), Manchester (Manchester City Academy Stadium), Milton Keynes (Stadium MK), Rotherham (New York Stadium), Sheffield (Bramall Lane), Southampton (St Mary’s Stadium), Trafford (Old Trafford), Wigan & Leigh (Leigh Sports Village)

The aim was to deliver the biggest women’s sporting event in European history and to inspire a legacy that guaranteed the growth of the women’s game.

The tournament saw 8 attendance records broken with a total attendance of 574,875 (more than double the previous record).

A global viewership of 365 million. 453m social media interactions with new audiences reached – 80% of purchases in week 1 of general sale were new to The FA and UEFA with over 100,000 children attending. Legacy wise, over 416,000 new opportunities already created for women and girls.

More seats were filled at the final than any European Championship Final, men’s or women’s.

A defining moment in the growth of women’s sport.

A STAY ON THE GREEN

Credit: Right Formula, WeAre3Fold, DP World Tour, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Hilton Dubai Palm Jumeirah

A Stay on the Green is a fully functioning, replica hotel room of the Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik. Bespoke for the DP World Tour Championship, the room was built on the 15th Green at Jumeirah Golf Estate’s Earth Course.

The Room was complete with all touchpoints you’d find at the Hilton Dubrovnik; from bedding to tea and coffee facilities to the same taps with running water and the marble finish in the bathroom. The only build differences were external; a large window and a balcony offering incredible views of the course, the outer shell was mirrored dibond, creating a striking camouflage effect as the room blended into the scenic surroundings.

CONNECTING WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Credit: Rewired – Birmingham, Hatch – Leeds, MC2 – Manchester, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, Lancashire Country Cricket Club and Lancashire Cricket Foundation, Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, Warwickshire County Cricket Club, Glamorgan County Cricket Club and Cricket Wales, MCC and MCC Foundation, Surrey County Cricket Club, Surrey Cricket Foundation, Hampshire County Cricket Club, Ace Programme

Launched in 2021, The Hundred is a new blockbuster cricket competition that fuses world-class sport with spectacular entertainment, created with the purpose of throwing cricket’s doors open to everyone. Since launch, the tournament has sold and issued over 1m tickets and reached nearly 20m viewers through broadcast (BBC and Sky). The Hundred’s aim is to broaden the audience for cricket and it has started to build new, diverse fanbases for the eight teams that play in competition.

In 2022 the focus was to continue to increase its impact with these target audiences by driving deeper and more localised engagement through eight local community plans. These plans leveraged the power of The Hundred, as well as the eight distinctive team identities, through a combination of community activations, player engagements and brand partnerships, to create meaningful connections with local audiences.

CHEERS TO ALL FANS

Credit: M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, Publicis, Edelman

This season marked a new era for Heineken, building on its long-standing relationship with UEFA, to take its sponsorship strategy to the next level by adding the Women’s Champions League and Women’s EUROs to our portfolio.

Heineken decided to celebrate female fans and challenge gender bias in football with a global campaign that would sit across all of our football properties; Cheers to all fans, men included.

This was a campaign generated 570 pieces of earned coverage, partnering with trailblazers in the game and positioning Heineken in the centre of the cultural shift that occurred in football during 2022.

WHEN FINLAY MET JACK

Credit: Premier League, Premier League Productions, Finlay Fisher, Jack Grealish, Manchester City Football Club and City in the Community

“Dear Finlay….”

What started with a handwritten response to a fan’s letter became one of the year’s most heartwarming stories.

“Meeting Jack was the best day of my life,” said 11-year old Finlay Fisher, after meeting Jack Grealish, whose sister Hollie – like Finlay – has Cerebral Palsy. “But what happened next blew my mind!”

Audiences worldwide reacted to watching ‘When Finlay Met Jack’, but this content success also contributed lasting business impact to the Premier League and its stakeholders.

‘When Finlay Met Jack’ has hit 56 million views across official channels, delivering reputational uplift for all stakeholders. And in a disrupted season, it kept audiences engaged with the Premier League story throughout the FIFA World Cup.

But most importantly, it created a new role model for the millions of football fans and players with disabilities, and an 11-year-old star who proved that football is truly a game for everyone.

Credit: TikTok, RFU, SRU, IRFU, FFR, WRU, Fed Rugby (Italy)

Entertainment platform TikTok believes in creating a community #WhereAllFansPlay; a vision that led to a landmark partnership in women’s sport when the social media giant became the first-ever Title-Partner of the TikTok Women’s Six Nations (TikTokW6N).

As the “Official Fans of Six Nations” the aim for TikTok was to build an inclusive rugby ecosystem, while Six Nations wanted to challenge perceptions and grow audiences. This innovative partnership smashed KPI’s by leveraging key assets to change fan behaviour to grow the game.

The partnership was activated across commercial and marketing channels, spearheaded by a TikTok Creator programme to create ‘unmissable’ content using matchday moments to share with their audiences.

The results were unprecedented, breaking records across all touchpoints, including: 108.7m video views, 1.3m likes, +1,705% followers. #SixNationsRugby achieved 5.6bn impressions in three months.

The impact of the partnership was hugely positive, proving that women’s rugby is growing in popularity and reach.

NO MORE RED

Credit: Iris London, Homeground, Hill & Knowlton

No More Red launched in January 2022 to highlight growing youth violence in London. It provides greater access to safe spaces, and greater opportunities for young people in the capital. It broke the mould for how brands and clubs can engage a social issue, becoming one of the most talked about moments in Global football culture.

Adidas partnered with Arsenal in the Community(8) to create limited all white versions of Arsenal’s iconic red home kit, to be exclusively awarded to select London youth striving to achieve their dreams in the city’s knife crime hotspots. Arsenal wore it against Nottingham Forest in the 21/22 FA Cup to drive desirability and credibility in the unique shirt.

Never for sale, it stands as a symbol of the campaign which has also pledged paid opportunities to young people, enhanced mentorship with adidas top talent and investment in safe spaces to play football throughout London.

2022 was the year we put Wales on the World Stage and mobilised football as a vehicle to progress and elevate our nation.

Our Cymru men’s national team qualified for their first World Cup in 64 years and we capitalised on the platform of the tournament to promote the FAW and Cymru’s values, identity, culture and language.

Our women’s national team reached their first ever playoffs to the World Cup and broke our attendance record x3 times in the last 12 months.

Off the pitch we’ve established our first youth council, launched a female mentoring programme and progressed our PAWB strategy for EDI which has received international recognition across UEFA.

We also launched our biggest ever grassroots facilities grant programme to support our ambitious participation growth targets and doubled our investment into our women’s national team programme to provide equity across our men’s and women’s national team support services.

GEN3 RACE CAR

Credit: CSM

Formula E’s generation three (Gen3) car is an example of where cutting-edge EV technology and sustainability powerfully co-exist, creating an icon for future mobility.

Formula E is a test bed for automakers and race teams to develop world-leading technology. Gen3 is an iteration of the most up to date, pioneering technology at the forefront in EV development. It not only allows technical engine and powertrain development, but proves it can be made sustainably and circular. Gen3 tackles the biggest battleground of consumer EVs, with energy efficiency, power regeneration and fast-charging capabilities.

#LETGIRLSPLAY

Credit: Little Thief, NOMAD – WEURO22, MatchFit, Threepipe, Bex Grimble, Nadia Akingbule, Rosa Kusabbi

The FA has an ambition for girls to have equal access to football in schools and at local clubs by 2024. #LetGirlsPlay was created to support this and to create a movement for change. A movement that could bring together a growing community of people from different genders, ages and backgrounds who want to champion equal access for girls. Led by a cohort of resilient girls, they used the power of their voice and passion for an equal world to influence key decision makers.

Using voices at key moments was crucial to increase campaign awareness. Voices were heard on national platforms during International Day of the Girl, International Women’s Day and the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. The support of England Women since their historic win this summer has seen the campaign grow even further with an additional 55,704 girls now given the opportunity to take part in football at school.

ASHES, TWO ASHES

Credit: Two Circles, MATTA, Threepipe

Ashes, Two Ashes has made history as the ECB’s first joint ticket sales campaign for an England Men’s and Women’s Ashes series.

For the first time, the men’s and women’s international scheduling for 2023 was conducted at the same time, allowing England women’s fixtures to be prioritised alongside England men’s to drive parity at the elite level and to allow optimisation of the women’s schedule for high attendance growth, including some of the most iconic grounds.

This created the opportunity to synchronise the on-sale process so that, for the first time, a joint campaign could be created, driving parity in one of sport’s greatest rivalries and responding to the rapidly increasing appetite for women’s elite sport.