October of every year is a month of reflection, introspection, optimism and realism at our company. We are proud of what we have achieved in the 3 years of the company’s existence. Equally, we are aware of the jobs to be done in the pursuit of our [never-ending] mission to propel the sports industry forward.
As we put [digital] pen to [digital] paper in this year’s anniversary write-up, the sports industry has taken in a fresh and long breath of much-needed oxygen. Across the globe sports are coming back online. Still, this is not business as usual. Far from it, this is a new business. Agility, innovation & nimbleness are the defining features of even the most traditional sports organizations. Business models are being turned upside down. New processes are being adopted. Increasingly complex fans are driving media, IP & service fragmentation. To respond, sports organizations are pivoting, taking on the traits of startups.
We. Absolutely. Love. That!
It feels like 5 years of digital progress happened in 18 months. Still, it is unsustainable to operate in a constant state of crisis. Moving forward, we need to structure the sports industry so that it can proactively respond to the rapidly changing landscape around it. In 2021 and beyond, to continue being relevant, sports organizations must internalize complex trends. Collective effort & vision, built from a range of perspectives, from Lausanne, to Silicon Valley, to Paris, to Barcelona and way outside of our traditional networks, will propel us forward.
Though much is out of our control, we are the only ones capable of designing and implementing our future. What is required is perspective, imagination, and proper execution. To be able to continuously do this in the coming years, we need to create the right culture within sports. That culture must be comfortable living at the edge; where perspectives, business models and trends collide to challenge the status quo.
It’s a new era and every decision-maker, change maker or leader in sports organizations has the choice to change and progress or stall and regress. It won’t be the same as it was before. And that’s a good thing. Join us in celebrating this challenge ahead of us!
Last year, we shared some learnings with you. Sticking to tradition, we’d like to share some more reflections on the road ahead.
Reflection #1: Our infrastructure is outdated. For the sports industry to compete in the new landscape it must hit the ‘refresh’ button
As an industry, our business models have tied us to certain ways of doing things; of deciding things; of creating, managing & distributing sports; of valuing our products & services; of who to work with and how. This ‘infrastructure’ was fine for the last few decades. Now, it is not. In its current form, this infrastructure is stretched to its limits. Many things are causing this: media fragmentation, exponential technology democratization, innovation decentralization, consumer changes, etc.
To respond, we must refresh our infrastructure of people, processes, technologies, business models & governance methods. It must be flexible enough to accommodate these changes and respond to new ones. It will include new knowledge networks, novel monetization & value creation methods, different paths to market & society.
When we founded N3XT Sports three years ago, we knew it was to respond to this. To refresh the infrastructure of sports, to modernize it and future-proof it. Over that period, we had to change how we did this. Each of our clients and partners needed us to support their infrastructure refresh in different ways because of culture, budget, organizational maturity, leadership fluency. We learned to offer our knowledge, experience, network, know-how and advice in innovative & adaptive ways.
Reflection #2: Digitalization is the unifying disruptor of all industries, sports included. People & society exist in this new digitized galaxy and expect more from everyone in sports.
A new wave of stakeholders has arrived with the power of advanced connectivity, digital excellence, & data fluency. These technology companies and social media platforms are competing for attention. They have massive audiences and robust digital products that create unparalleled data-driven mobile-centric experiences. This is the new galaxy in which sports find itself competing for its own audience.
Consumer behavior and expectations have responded accordingly. Every experience is expected to be at par with those provided by these new stakeholders. The days of operating with a digital vision have quickly given way to the reality that we all live and operate in the digital economy.
Software and tech DNA must be woven into the foundational strategies of every part of the sports industry. From clubs to agencies, to federations, associations, ministries, athletes, and beyond, a digitalization transition is happening.
We are accompanying our clients in this new digitized galaxy. We help them understand that more than expensive technology, modern applications and social media, digitalization is about creating the ability to adapt to the digital economy. In this way, our work is about integrating digital technology meaningfully into all levels of our clients’ organizations from the Olympic, basketball & football industries. We take great pride in the knowledge that we are not simply advisors to this transition but implementing partners, supporting the shift of the culture and the mindset of the organizations & leaders we work with.
Reflection #3: The words we use to describe the change happening around us are important. A common lexicon can be a compass for everyone to push in the same direction.
The World Economic Forum estimates that 70% of the jobs in 2030 don’t exist today. We expect sports to experience a similar, if not exact, trajectory. We will collectively need new skills, expertise, frameworks, tools, methodologies, technologies, algorithms, economic, social & environmental models to operate in the future sports industry. Decision makers will have to upskill, commercial teams retrained, coaches recertified. From Day 1 we have been proponents of sharing knowledge, educating the community, and bringing about systemic change over the medium- and long-term.
That is why we are increasingly using our voice and our insights to advocate for rapid & radical transformation in sports. In the past 12 months specifically, we invested heavily into content. Going forward, as a member of our community you can expect even more to come your way.
Beyond content itself, we have been experimenting in the continuous education & professional learning space. We are happy to say that these initial steps have been met with interest & enthusiasm from clients & partners. We have developed & delivered educational capsules for professionals in the sports industry looking towards continuous learning opportunities. These were around macro industry topics such as digital transformation, innovation, entrepreneurship, and investment, as well as niche areas such as NFTs, blockchain, athlete investing, social media management. We delivered them alongside partners such as universities, academic centers, institutes, and sports entities.
Going forward, you can expect more…
Reflection #4: Strategic topics often collide & intersect. To propel the industry forward, we cannot work alone. New partnerships, alliances & knowledge networks will grow.
Before COVID-19, few organizations recognized the long-term risk of depending on their existing business & operating models. The last 18 months accelerated this process and has pushed many sports organizations to rethink their value proposition. This process has led to conversations that include all internal & external stakeholders around sports organizations. This holistic approach is beneficial for many reasons, and is fraught with risks and complexity.
To move the needle fast enough in the changing landscape, it is mission-critical to develop forward-thinking groups of people & companies that are capable of solving challenges. This new conversation is more difficult to moderate, but more fruitful to all stakeholders and the longevity of organizations.
We have delivered over 40 projects on behalf of our clients. In over 60% of them, we partnered with experts, advisors, technology firms, financiers, startups, freelancers to deliver results. Increasingly, our clients, partners & the 6500+ strong CRM is co-creating with us to deliver value on different initiatives. This notion of managing & massaging the ecosystem has been key to our ability to rapidly and efficiently deliver value.
Reflection #5: Responding to signals from your ecosystem, you will not stand still. The key is to have the right people, structure and processes for change management.
Since starting the company, we knew that the space of digital & innovation was growing in the sports industry. This area manifests in different ways, and we have been able to respond to the evolution of the sports industry.
We have seen ourselves expanding our horizons and thanks to our expertise, team, and partners we are working with our clients on end-to-end projects– from the assessment, strategy and roadmap phases to the implementation & growth phase.
With the growth of the company, we realized that having quality control of all of our processes and projects was a must so we developed the project management office to set, maintain and ensure standards for project management across the whole organization. We, as a company, have reached a point where developing a process to capture, validate & work on opportunities was necessary in order to optimize time and efficiency.
Being able to respond to the ever-changing landscape is a must to propel forward, and by having a flexible and agile team allows us to do this. With the rise of women’s football and the opportunities that lie ahead, this summer, we found the perfect opportunity to add women’s football services to our offering. Following the opportunities that lie ahead, we partnered with academic institutions and sports organizations to educate, teach and prepare their students and employees for the jobs of the future by developing digital transformation and innovation courses. Last but not least, we were able to put in motion our data and digital labs by working with sports organizations on implementing data hubs and digital dashboards as part of the implementation phase of their digital transformation process.
Moving forward, we want to expand our platform for diverse opinions, backgrounds, thoughts, ideas, and passions to come into the sports industry. Do reach out to us at careers@n3xtsports.com to share your profile or info@n3xtsports.com to share your opinions and feedback on the changing landscape of sports.
We are extremely proud of what we have achieved in the past three years, but we are only just getting started, so make sure to follow us, reach out, and let’s propel the sports industry together.
A special thank you to all of the people who crossed our path in the past three years, to our employees, advisors, collaborators, contractors, interns, clients, partners, providers, friends, and family who have helped us tremendously throughout this journey. We could not have done this without you.