Champions League-chasing Chelsea – and women’s football more generally – on the cusp of something extraordinary May 13, 2021 As the strangest football season on record hurtles to a climax, blue is most certainly the colour. While the sky blues of Manchester City contemplate a treble almost on par with their neighbours’ efforts in 1999, Chelsea can claim a double of their own if they beat City in the Champions League final and defeat [...]
Cazoo, Dettol and Tik Tok: How the pandemic has changed the sport sponsorship landscape March 3, 2021 The pandemic may have halted the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but in the world of sport sponsorship it has sparked some dramatic moves. New entrants are making major investments while more established sponsors have moved aside to make way. A combination of enforced changes of habit and the uneven nature of Covid-19’s [...]
Three things to expect from the business of sport in 2021 December 30, 2020 What does next year hold for sport in a commercial sense? Here, Neil Hopkins, global head of strategy at M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, gazes into his crystal ball. Grounds for optimism Fans are back. Not many of them, but they are back. With vaccination under way, at some point in 2021 the tentative trickle of [...]
Return of fans to sport will encourage brands to lift the handbrake on big campaigns November 30, 2020 When The Beatles walked off-stage at Candlestick Park, San Francisco in August 1966 it would be another two and a half years until they played live. When they walked out onto the roof of Apple Records HQ on Savile Row a small matter of 885 days later, they launched straight into a brand-new track: Get [...]
Here’s why sport is still a good bet in a recession October 19, 2020 There has been a re-awakening. Have you felt it? If you haven’t quite felt it, you’ll have certainly seen the force with which live sport returned to our screens as professional leagues worked hard to piece together a schedule to meet fans’ desire for relative normality. And boy was the audience growing impatient for it. [...]
European Championship revamp keeps football open to all October 13, 2019 Every time Indiana Jones takes a plane, his journey is illustrated by a red line moving gradually towards its destination, the aircraft pivoting now and again to refuel as it traverses continents. For those still recovering from trying to understand the Uefa Nations League, the Raiders of the Lost Ark motif helps explain what will [...]
MLB London Series: Baseball sending big-hitters Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees to woo UK audience June 23, 2019 Almost 70 years after Glasgow-born Bobby Thomson hit baseball’s Shot Heard ‘Round the World, the echo has finally reached London. This weekend, Major League Baseball will join its cousins from the NFL and NBA in offering British fans the opportunity to see regular season games live on their own turf. Given the New York Giants [...]
From the World Cup to Ashes series and The Hundred: English cricket’s battle for hearts and minds May 21, 2019 With the biggest ever summer of international cricket about to start, featuring a men’s World Cup as well as men’s and women’s Ashes series, the sport faces perhaps its greatest challenge. But will such riches put cricket back in the public consciousness for the first time since 2005? That year’s Ashes series marked the end [...]