The conversation around sport’s digital transformation often talks exclusively to the growth of the professional games that fans watch and only the elites participate in. Traditionally, this includes how technology integration helps top-tier sports organizations and competitions widen their audience engagement and, in doing so, increases their market share and commercial appeal.
This shift is happening beyond elite sports. It is happening in mass sports and the grassroots sector, too.
The digitalization of local infrastructure and urban settings can help governments and city councils make sporting activities more accessible to mass audiences in a manner which increases the health and wellbeing of the local population, regenerates the city’s infrastructure, and, in turn, helps national sports bodies to identify untapped and future sporting talent.
If we take Copenhagen for example, Denmark’s capital is proving itself to be one of the world’s leading cities for generating participation in physical activity through urban planning. At the center of the city’s attraction is the diversity of urban and natural settings that advocate sports and fitness activities; from the introduction of swimming lanes in the city’s harbor; to the development of a public skatepark at a disused windmill factory. As a result, sports competitions are partnering with the city to increase visibility for their product at a hyper-local level.
For example, Copenhagen is set to host the 2023 Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships in August, while other sporting events such as the annual Ironman triathlon and road marathon also take place in the city. This highlights an opportunity for cities to broaden their appeal to residents and visitors alike by increasing levels of physical activity through urban development and enabling a vibrant ecosystem of sporting events for the masses.
Elsewhere, other cities are exploring mass participation programs to increase the health and wellness of their population. By way of example, in December, the Abu Dhabi Sports Council unveiled its Abu Dhabi 360 mobile app, designed to help increase physical activity across the United Arab Emirates’ capital city.
“Our objective for Abu Dhabi 360 is to spark a movement towards improving wellness for individuals, their families, and the community,” explains Aref Hamad Al Awani, General Secretary of the Abu Dhabi Sports Council. “It is an inclusive program that will inspire everyone, regardless of size, shape, age, or skill level, to pursue personal wellness and balance, whatever that looks like for them. This is just the beginning, and we are excited to reveal more in the coming months. The future is ours to transform.”
It’s here where cities can leverage the public’s appetite for sports participation to deliver digitally-driven legacy events. For example, Singapore’s government sports body, Sport Singapore (SportSG), is also collaborating with rights holders to host events in the city-state, including a strong emphasis on digital technology for introducing professional and mass participation sports to the population.
With the support of International Federations (IF) and major sporting events, major cities can build their identity as an international sporting destination, an attractive tourist destination and place to live by making sports and physical activities more accessible through a novel digital ecosystem.
NETFLIX SUBSCRIPTION MODEL HAS PRIMED USERS FOR ‘SUGGESTIBLE’ SPORTS
The distribution model standardized by the US-based streaming giant Netflix demonstrates how the personalization of direct-to-consumer (D2C) media makes content more “discoverable” and, in turn, the consumer more “suggestible”. This is relevant since it also highlights the opportunities for media companies to introduce new audiences to new content that may have otherwise bypassed them without the proliferation of digital media.
When we translate this to the sports industry – and, in particular, grassroots sports – the democratization of digital adoption and data-led operations does not stop with content production. On the contrary, more and more IFs are working with local governments and D2C platforms to leverage mass-participation events to personalize the grassroots sports experience in a similar way – both virtually and in the real world – and help to boost the digital and physical literacy levels within their respective markets.
For example, governing bodies such as World Athletes, World Aquatics, and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) are among the IFs that have adopted a greater focus on the role of mass participation to promote their respective sports to the general public, and have also teamed up with virtual fitness platforms to invite professional and non-professional athletes to take part in remotely held race events and public challenges.
According to Eric Min, the CEO and co-founder of the virtual cycling platform Zwift, participation in virtual sports “is at an all-time high” while also citing the company’s “mission to engage people” and “to connect global audiences” via the Olympic Virtual Series (OVS).
This is an example of how the Olympic Movement, with the support of IFs, leverages its D2C partnerships to promote “mass participation events focused on inclusion”, explains UCI President David Lappartient, and just how important technology adoption is for the personalization of the grassroots sports experience, whether that is at-home, in urban settings, or at a semi-professional level.
In an effort to increase physical activity globally, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched a program last November in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), as part of its Oympism365 strategy, which provides health and sports organizations with guidance, training, and toolkits to promote participation in community sports. For example, the Paris Organising Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (Paris 2024) runs Generation 2024, an education program created in partnership with the French Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports to encourage young people to lead more active lifestyles.
“The Games present us with a unique opportunity to place sport truly at the heart of the lives of young people,” says Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguest. “Sport serves as [a] central pillar to our community and hosting the Games in 2024 will further embed its values in everyday life in Paris, creating a strong social legacy for the youth population.”
SPORTS PERFORMANCE HELPING STRENGTHEN UNDERSERVED PHYSICAL-ACTIVITY POLICY
The subject of innovation and how it serves to increase levels of participation in national sports was outlined in this piece with N3XT Sports co-founder Jordi Ferré, who discusses the challenges for National Olympic Committees (NOC) to “structure their innovation initiative within the context of their sports landscape”. He explains the importance for NOCs to “understand how to manage their resources and expectations set by key stakeholders” once they have built their innovation framework and highlights the importance for “presenting a clear innovation strategy for meeting demand”.
In October last year, WHO published its Global status report on physical activity 2022, which identifies that only 50 percent of countries have a physical-activity policy, according to data drawn from 194 countries, and of which less than two in five are operational. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s Director-General, outlines the need for more countries “to scale up implementation of policies” to increase physical activity across the global population. As IFs and other sporting bodies seek to digitize their operations to broaden their audience reach, sport can play a pivotal role for increasing participation at a national level.
By embracing virtual sports within the Olympic Movement, as cited in the Olympic Agenda 2020-5, the vision for many IFs is to create platforms and events where athletes and fans can rub shoulders, share in the sporting experience, and widen the base of their respective “participation pyramids” – the foundation of any sport. Mass participation events act as the springboard for federations to build new partnerships with governments. In an environment where governments are increasingly under pressure to evolve their services and value proposition to residents, programs that align with public health policy, urban regeneration and long-term athlete development pathways will be important for IFs and sports organizations to offer.
For some nations, this requires adaptations to their digital strategy, with major sporting events such as the Olympics and Paralympics providing a unique platform for municipalities and city councils to make local sport and physical activities more discoverable. For example, Paris 2024 has opened the Olympic Marathon to the general public for the first time in the event’s history, highlighting another initiative for merging the elite and non-elite sporting landscapes.
While the race is free to enter and will allocate places for 20,024 runners, entry will not be granted via a traditional ballot. In order to maximize the opportunity to engage hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of runners worldwide, Paris 2024 is inviting entrants to complete running challenges via its various digital platforms, including the ClubParis2024 and the Mass Participations Marathon mobile apps, as well as the @tramorange_running Instagram account.
This represents a smart, proactive campaign which encourages fans to pull on their running shoes and demonstrate everything they’ve got to the organizers of the biggest multi-sports event on Earth. Furthermore, it also invites entrants to subscribe to the event’s digital and social channels; building upon Paris 2024’s wider fan-engagement strategy and the evolution of its customer relationship management (CRM) capability in the build-up to next year’s highly anticipated Olympic and Paralympic Games.
WHAT’S N3XT?
The success for any digital transformation depends on the company or organization’s ability to manage the collection, storage, and extraction of large consumer datasets. By helping sports federations adopt a technology stack and content-distribution strategy that increases physical activity across the general population, sports federations will not only widen their talent pool and strengthen their performance pathways at a regional level, but they can also establish valuable relationships with governments and public-service providers to generate and implement physical-activity policies that heighten exposure and visibility of their respective sports.
Those executives who follow our journey will know that N3XT Sports announced a three-year partnership with the European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation (ENGSO) last November to support the non-profit’s CHANGE Project, which aims to contribute to the promotion of good governance through sport’s digitalization. The project sees N3XT Sports, among ten partners from nine countries, make up a consortium focused on addressing the challenges of innovation and change management within the grassroots sports movement, with the capacity to reach ENGSO’s far-reaching federation network in Europe.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we are at a critical juncture for the sport industry’s digital transformation and, by expanding our expertise to meet grassroots sport’s need to innovate, sports governing bodies have an opportunity to remain relevant in the changing landscape. Sport’s ongoing transformation cannot leave the bottom of the pyramid behind; democratization of the industry’s digital resources through collaboration and joint ventures (JV) is critical to making sport accessible to everyone.
If you would like to learn more about our work, please fill out the form below. Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement digital frameworks and solutions across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. We want to expand the industry’s influence and global reach through bespoke digital transformation strategies.