🎸👘🤖 #13: Sport x Culture crossovers, 'Sport Curious' Gen Z, AI-innovation & how sport makes us happier, healthier and better connected

Welcome to Issue #13 of Innovation in Sport, your regular round-up of the latest innovations and trends in sports & esports technology, media, creativity & impact.

Has the line between sport and culture ever been more blurry?
Growing up as a football fan in England in the 1980s, football was the subculture that nobody wanted anything to do with. Football crowds were treated like cattle on matchdays and generally policed on the assumption that they would be up to no good.

This week, Labrum London made history by presenting the first-ever fashion show at London’s Emirates Stadium, showcasing a collection heavily influenced by Arsenal colours, football accessories, and even featuring Arsenal star Declan Rice on the runway.

Elsewhere on the blending football and culture front, Manchester City took to the field in the Champions League in a kit that pays homage to the 30th anniversary of Oasis’ Definitely Maybe album.

Some commentators have not been too kind about either.
Personally, I’m all for it. I’ve never really understood why people want to keep some topics neatly in one bucket, with a low tolerance for those that don’t ‘stay in their lane’. Aren’t we all multi-faceted humans with varied interests? Why can’t an athlete also have an interest in fashion, an ambition to record music, or express a political opinion?

In the above cases, Foday Dumbaya - the founding Director of fashion house Labrum London - is a lifelong Arsenal fan. Oasis’ Noel and Liam Gallagher are also lifelong City fans, and photos of the pair wearing City shirts adorned with the name of then-City-sponsors ‘Brother’ were very prominent in the media around the time of Definitely Maybe. So these collaborations make perfect sense.

But for me, where it gets really interesting is what happens next. Fashion and Music are very well-established cultural industries that have co-existed as primary subjects on the pages of our media, alongside sport, for decades. These two examples are really just going one step further on a well-trodden path that has long seen athletes as models, kit designs featuring subtle cultural references, and sports stars dabbling in music.

But what other sub-cultures and adjacent audience passions are ripe for interesting crossovers, for clubs, athletes, rightsholders, and partners?

City are also amongst the pioneers who have been exploring the Gen Z and Gen Alpha worlds of Roblox and Fortnite. In the newsletter below I highlight an interesting project in Minecraft by Tennis Australia. These online environments attract millions of daily users so really should be in the playbook of any organisation looking to engage the next generation of sports audiences who, research tells us, are less and less likely to watch full sport broadcasts.

But what should sports organisations be building and activating in those environments? Users certainly don’t need hundreds of similar ‘football experiences’ for example vying for their attention. So this is where the relationship with culture becomes even more important, and why clubs, for example, need a really strong definition of their cultural identity and the place they want to hold in the minds of the new generation.

What makes their geographical location unique? Is there something about their fans that set them apart from others? Are there unique icons, cultural symbols, or perhaps songs like ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ that are uniquely theirs? Or, as Arsenal and City have shown above, how can they build on strong connections with supporters or local talent who also have a strong cultural identity to co-create something fresh and interesting, yet authentic.

If anybody reading this has strong views on this topic, or would be open to discussing in more depth, please do get in touch.

Anyways, on to this week’s edition.

📷 CREATIVITY IN SPORT 📷

⚽ Football player signing announcement videos have become a content format where clubs’ content teams seemingly have free rein to flex their creative muscles. Nowhere more so than at Real Betis who looked to the intro to The Office for inspiration when they announced that Aitor Ruibal had signed a new contract with the club.

⚽ ‘Oliveira dos Cen Anos’ by Real Club Celta de Vigo is a love letter to Spain’s Galicia region.

Featuring the internationally-renowned artist C. Tangana, the work celebrates 100 years of the club and pays tribute to the region’s traditions and customs – resulting in an anthem and accompanying music video performed entirely in Galician.

Beyond the cultural impact of showcasing Galician culture to the world, ‘Oliveira dos Cen Anos’ racked up millions of views and listens globally, and, for the first time in a hundred years, resulted in a waiting list of thousands of new club members. Today, the song still plays before every match – giving Celta fans a boost of pride and passion before each game. 

🌍 IMPACT & SUSTAINABILITY 🌍

🇫🇷 Keeping the Olympic legacy alive, Decathlon are sponsoring the provision of free self-service sports equipment rentals in Paris parks.

😃 Sky have published a new report entitled Game Changing: How sport makes us happier, healthier and better connected, that also explores the catalysing impact sport has on economic growth in the UK.

📹 MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS 📹

⚽ Following hot on the heels or Cristiano Ronaldo, Jude Bellingham launched his own YouTube channel last week, amassing more subscribers than 7 Premier League teams after just 5 days.

🇺🇸 U.S. agency Horizon Media has released a new report entitled ‘Sport-Curious’, that explores Gen Z’s relationship with sport.

Key findings include:

• 76% of Gen Zers interact with sports-related content on social, and 49% have discovered a new sport that way.

• Among Gen Z and Millennials, 40% find women's sports more exciting to watch than men's, compared to about 25% of Gen X and Baby Boomers.

• Six in 10 Zoomers are very interested in content creators on Twitch or YouTube chatting about sports on live streams (AKA ‘Altcasts’), and 70% discovered or deepened an interest in sports through fan communities on social.

• 57% of Gen Zers say they are more interested in the cultural moments of sports events than who actually wins or loses.

⚾ Major League Baseball have teamed up with Improbable to host interactive 'virtual ballpark' watch parties every Wednesday in September.

🎮 EA Sports have revealed Travis Hunter, Alyssa Thompson, Bianca Bustamante and Endrick as the first athletes who will feature on their new Gen / EA Sports platform. Together they will co-create content, partner on initiatives, and engage sports fans in and around EA games.

📱 Ziggo Sport have launched a new Ziggo Sport WhatsApp Channel, providing followers with the latest sports news, promotions, exclusive content and the complete Ziggo Sport programming directly into the messaging app.

🤾‍♀️ WOMEN'S SPORT ⛹️‍♀️

⚽ Fifa are reportedly ‘in talks’ to expand the Women’s World Cup to 48 teams. The 2023 edition of the soccer showpiece was the first to feature an expanded format of 32 teams, up from the previous 24. But after the 2023 edition set new attendance and viewership records, and was generally regarded as a watershed moment for female soccer, calls have increased to expand the tournament further.

🇦🇺 The Australian Federal Government have ordered that National and state-level sporting organisations across Australia must have an equal split of men and women on their boards from 2027, or risk having their funding withheld.

⛹️‍♀️ New findings from a Women’s Sport Trust report reveal that the gender awareness gap in rugby reduced by 10% in the last year. However, while audiences for the women’s game are at an all-time high, the gap still sits at 15%.

⚽ The European Broadcasting Union will stream a weekly roundup from top women’s soccer leagues, including highlights from the NWSL, WSL, Italy’s Serie A Femminile, Germany’s Frauen Bundesliga, and France’s D1.

🏀 The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has announced Portland as the league’s 15th franchise. The team will begin play in the 2026 season and will host home games at Moda Center in downtown Portland

⛳ Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has launched a redesigned website with enhanced stats, personalisation features and athlete-centric content.

⚽ Chelsea have appointed Aki Mandhar as the first CEO of their women’s team. Mandhar has been headhunted to run the Women’s Super League champions from her position as general manager of the Athletic, the sports website owned by the New York Times.

BE FEATURED IN INNOVATION IN SPORT!

Do you have a project, product, or story you think is of interest to the IIS audience of sports & esports industry professionals, brand partners, agencies and well-informed sports fans?

Please get in touch to discuss options such as brief mentions, featured stories, profiles, or sponsorships.

🤖 AI x SPORTS 🤖

🤖 Amazon Prime is introducing a new set of AI-powered production innovations, called ‘Prime Insights’ to enhance the NFL viewing experience for fans of its Thursday Night Football show. Powered by AWS, the advancements highlight key players, illuminate hidden aspects of the game, and forecast pivotal moments before they happen.

🏀 ESPN recently went viral with a video of AI generated Basketball Players designed as Dark Fantasy characters.

📰 Controversy is also swelling around ESPN’s decision to use AI to write some game stories. ESPN says it helps cover ‘under-served sports.’ Journalists argue the network should just hire more journalists.

🇵🇹 Eurovision Sport is using AI language solutions for dubbing live sports commentary from French to Portuguese.

📹 YouTube is debuting tech to help creators detect AI deepfakes of themselves. By adopting similar technologies, sports organisations can better protect their athletes' intellectual property, and maintain the integrity of brand and sponsorship deals.

⚽ Companies such as Soccerment and Sentient Sports are using Generative AI to help bridge complex statistical analysis into simple football language. Like a kind of ChatGPT for player scouting.

💡 INNOVATION x SPORTS 🦾

🎾 From electronic line calling to data-powered sports betting, The Verge recently published an excellent deep dive into how technology and large sinternational investment is reshaping the future of the sport. This is an excellent and highly-recommended long read.

🎮 ESPORTS 🎮

🎾 Tennis Australia have launched the ‘AO Schools Block Buster Tennis Challenge’, on Minecraft Education, designed to inspire creativity and teamwork by inviting students across Australia to reimagine the Australian Open precinct for the next generation.

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See you next time,

Adam Reed
Innovation in Sport