The three sport business trends you need to watch in 2025 Sport Business Every other prediction piece you’ll read, across any industry, will attempt to explain what the impact of AI will be on that sector over the coming year. Most answers will be variations on Hemingway’s theme. AI will end up taking over. Gradually and then suddenly. So, to avoid giving the likes of Chat GPT too [...]
Why sponsors won’t sweat another desert World Cup – even a dry one Opinion What will a Saudi World Cup mean for football's many commercial partners?
The NFL can overtake endemic UK sports – it’s a change 40 years in the making Opinion The NFL is back in London for its annual games and has ambitious plans for the UK.
Why football clubs are like tomatoes – and these are salad days for the likes of Manchester United’s owners February 28, 2023 The salad shortage and the appeal of elite football clubs such as Manchester United are both being driven by the same thing, writes Neil Hopkins. Early 2023 seems destined to be remembered for shortages. For most of us, a shortage of tomatoes and other salad produce. For cash-rich investors from the Middle East, a shortage [...]
Sponsors departing the England crease opens up chance for a new wave of commercial interest while the Test team are on a high January 26, 2023 They say bad news comes in threes. For the England and Wales Cricket Board, the announcement last week that three of its major sponsors would not be renewing their deals looked on the surface like a significant challenge for its commercial team. Yet, for the nation’s second most popular sport, there are plenty of reasons [...]
Ad build-up to Qatar World Cup is ‘oh so quiet’ October 26, 2022 The World Cup is a little over three weeks away but it’s oh so quiet. At least when Björk sung those words, the accompanying music video by Spike Jonze showed people spontaneously spilling into the street in a Busby Berkeley-style choreographed celebration. But it’s increasingly hard to shake the feeling that there isn’t quite that [...]
The Commonwealths are the ‘Local Global Games’ July 24, 2022 The Commonwealth Games begin in Birmingham this week. It’s the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, so where better than England’s second city? They should, however, be taking place in Durban, which would have become the first African city to host the Games. The opening day would have been last week – on 18 July, Nelson Mandela’s birthday [...]
Tales from the Crypto: Will digital assets save sport sponsorship or prove a horror story? March 21, 2022 When you think of US cable TV giant HBO, blockbuster drama series like Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and The Wire immediately spring to mind. One of the first major triumphs for the network, though, was Tales from the Crypt, a horror anthology inspired by a cult 1950 comic book series. The series was successful [...]
Neil Hopkins: Why TikTok is big news for the Six Nations February 4, 2022 Kids, eh? On one hand, Alan Hansen reckoned you couldn’t win anything with them, on the other, The Who figured they’re alright. The dilemma facing almost every sport that isn’t football is how to attract younger audiences without alienating what the European Super League disparagingly labelled “legacy fans”. As the Six Nations looms, rugby union’s [...]
Sport sponsorship: Forecasting the impact of the big events in 2022 January 2, 2022 Six months on from wading through the smashed bottles and broken dreams that littered Wembley Way after the calamitous Euro 2020 final, sports fans and sponsors can look forward to an abundance of major global events in 2022. As it happens, this year has been designated the United Nations International Year of Glass, so it’s [...]
