BEST BRAND ACTIVATION INVOLVING SPORT

BT x Hope United
‘We Connect for Good’ is BT’s guiding brand & business purpose. ‘4-3-3’ is the brand’s ambitious partnership strategy with the Home Nations Football Associations; a mission to make a meaningful difference to millions of people across the UK by supporting the areas of football that most in need.

After a year’s postponement, UEFA Euro 2020 was set to unite the nation. Yet, the online abuse football players were receiving overshadowed the excitement and was an issue that could no longer be ignored.

Staying true to its purpose & the 4-3-3 mission, BT formed Hope United – a squad of footballers brought together to educate the nation on how to tackle online hate.

A starting eleven comprised of men, women, and para players from across the four Home Nations, rallied the nation to help drive change and make Hope United their second team this summer.

With its own iconic kit, team crest, famous coaches and a fan base, Hope United was an integrated ATL, digital & sponsorship campaign which reacted to both the hope & hate online throughout the tournament. Most importantly it educated the nation, with in 1 in 4 people more likely to take action & report online hate.

European Tour – Farthest Golf Shot Caught in a Moving Car, Guinness World Record

In April 2021, the European Tour and one of its major Official Partners, Callaway, staged a Guinness World Record attempt of epic proportions. Filmed on a runway in York, professional golfer Marcus Armitage had to land a golf ball into a moving car at a distance of over 273 yards to break a record previously set in 2012.

Following three previous successful Guinness World Record content pieces across 2016-2019, this was the most ambitious production that the European Tour had ever staged, incorporating 12 cameras, 2 cranes, 39 crew onsite and a car travelling at speeds of over 170mph.

All of these factors combined to create a piece of content that transcended typical golf fans and entertained and engaged a varied and far-reaching audience, helping to promote the European Tour and Callaway. It quickly became the most watched and most engaged with piece of European Tour content of all time, receiving 27m views, 3.1m engagements and 44m impressions (solely across the social media accounts that we had access to track eg. European Tour, affiliate partners/players and crossposts), with many more additional views coming via third-party posts and shares, and delivering significant media value and brand exposure for Callaway.

Everton Football Club

As the world faced the pandemic, and football was dealing with its impact on sponsorship, marketing and activation, Everton and new technical partner hummel sought to deliver a footballing first – a ground-breaking non-player led kit launch that showcased hummel’s commitment to investing in Club charity Everton in the Community, and saw players from Everton in the Community’s Disability programme – celebrating its 20th anniversary year – become the focus.

This activation was part of the wider ‘More Than Eleven’ 2020/21 kit campaign, which spotlighted the strong bond between Everton – The People’s Club – and its worldwide fan community.

hummel’s investment in funding a coaching course for 20 disabled participants to gain their FA Level One coaching qualification – in some cases opening up opportunities into employment – also ensured the kit launch left a lasting legacy.

The uniqueness of the launch and Everton and hummel’s commitment to celebrating equality and diversity gained widespread news media interest and positive engagement, with fans stating their pride at the campaign. The campaign led to a 41% increase on the previous record first day sales  for an Everton third kit, while sales for the year finished 28% on the previous 12 months.

LTA – The&Partnership

How do you change age-old perceptions and convince 300,000 new Brits to play Tennis during a nationwide lockdown, without any major events?

You re-write the rules of the sport. Give it a new look. A new voice. Celebrate the individualism of anyone who picks up a racket and plays their way.

As part of the LTA’s ongoing commitment to open tennis up to the nation, we launched Play Your Way during the midst of a global pandemic, capitalising on being one of the few sports that could return to play.

Launching with some bold and provocative OOH & Social creative, including a new vibrant visual identity, we put Tennis firmly back on the nation’s radar. This was quickly followed by our 30second brand film that went from script to shoot in just 12days, helping reach over 33million people whilst achieving average view-through rate 211% higher than industry benchmarks.

Not only did we move the dial in shifting people’s attitudes and perceptions of the sport, with a +13% increase in ‘tennis is for people like me’ statements, we helped increase in the number of people playing Tennis by 300,000, including a +24% increase YoY in people playing on a weekly basis.

Midea World Class Awards

Last Premier League Season, we set out to help new partner Midea use their partnership with Man City to grow their brand awareness. Covid had other ideas. With Stadiums closed to fans and all physical activity cancelled, all we had were digital and social tools to achieve our objectives and attempt to connect with fans in an authentic way.

And when Man City were crowned Champions, we wanted to give Midea a genuine reason to celebrate and share in the trophy lift moments. Our solution: the Midea #WorldClass Awards!

While each player contributed to the EPL win, there was only ONE trophy. Midea created a range of appliance shaped trophies, highlighting not just their product range but some of the best moments on the field. We then invited fans to vote for who deserved which trophy.

To launch the trophies and announce the nominations, we recruited ManCity Legends, Paul Dickov and Shaun Wright-Phillips to host a humorous content series. After the voting, we released a second series announcing the winners, and offering fans discounts on Midea products to drive traffic to Midea’s website, link our brand to customers in an authentic way and achieve great ROI by pushing sales effectively.

Norwich City Football Club – War Paint for Men

Norwich City Football Club and War Paint for Men are aware of the issues that men face in everyday life and want to do all they can to alleviate any stigma around these topics. In partnership, the two parties produced the “Challenging Stereotypes” content series, aimed to broach the topics that has previously been taboo. The content series, hosted by War Paint Founder, Danny Gray and former NCFC player Darren Eadie invited a broad mix of personalities who are passionate about the subject to discuss their experiences and thoughts on a wide range of topics.
Stephen Fry, Amal Fashanu, Godric Smith, Luke Chadwick and Todd Cantwell all sat down and spoke on matters that impacted them. Topics covered included homosexuality, social media abuse , bullying, racism and the general pressures associated growing up and working in a high profile industry.
The videos gained some great engagement with encouraging noises coming from those that saw the videos. The partnership will continue to make conversations on these topics commonplace with a range of activities planned for the 2021.22 season.

The Kiyan Prince Foundation – Engine MHP + Mischief

The Kiyan Prince Foundation, set up by Mark Prince in memory of his son who was stabbed and killed in 2006 is a small charity with a burning message of hope for change.

Engine devised a campaign that elevated the charity to a new level, bringing the Foundation to the attention of thousands and attracting much-needed funds.

#LongLiveThePrince used gaming to talk to a hard-to-reach audience of 16-25-year-olds about seeking the right path in life, no matter how difficult their circumstances.

Kiyan had been a talented youth football player for Queens Park Rangers. The Foundation uses life coaching and sports to empower young people to create thriving communities and a violent-free society.

In 2021, with the help of family and friends, Kiyan was brought back to life within the FIFA21 video game and commemorated on the Queens Park Rangers’ teamsheet and billboards across the country, enabling young gamers and football fans to learn about his story – and the help available to them.

The result was a campaign that united a wide range of partners, including QPR, EA SPORTS, JD Sports, Adidas, Topps and Framestore, generating billions of views, millions of engagements and generating more than £40k in public donations.

BEST SPORTS COMMUNITY SCHEME

Everton in the Community

Everton in the Community is the official charity of Everton Football Club, providing services to those living in the Liverpool City Region (LCR), tackling issues such as mental health; unemployment; crime and health; and housing and education.

Launched in 1988, the charity runs more than 40 programmes each year, held in 130 venues across the city region and offering support to all ages, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and various lockdowns over the past year, Everton in the Community managed to buck industry trends by recording it highest-ever annual revenue last year, with a 20% year-on-year increased turnover and double that of five years ago.

Thanks to the swift response of the charity’s directors, staff and volunteers, as well as the generosity of its fans, Everton in the Community has been able to continue – and even step up – its vital work throughout the pandemic, enabling the charity to provide much-needed support to more than 45,000 individuals during the last 12 months alone.

Premiership Rugby – HITZ

HITZ is Premiership Rugby’s flagship education and employability programme, working with more than 2,000 14-23 year-olds across England every year.

The aim of HITZ is to help young people classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) turn their lives around through gaining qualifications and developing their personal, employability and life skills.

The programme uses rugby’s core values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship to support young people to make positive changes in their life; improving participation in sport, physical and mental health, educational attainment, employability and community cohesion

With the Government reporting unemployment for young people increasing by 11% since the start of the pandemic, and that by the end of last year there were an estimated 800,000 16-24yr olds in the UK classified as NEET, Premiership Rugby’s commitment to supporting and developing individuals like this has only become more steadfast.

Premiership Rugby responded quickly, innovating and adapting the HITZ programme to ensure continued support, and a safe place for the more vulnerable, during lockdown.

Despite the challenges of lockdown – HITZ participants stayed focused, with attendance up 6% year on year, with functional skills (reading, writing, maths) exam results up 12%.

Rangers Charity Foundation – Ready for Employment/Ibrox Hub Initiative

The Rangers Charity Foundation’s Ready For Employment/Ibrox Hub Initiative was created to meet the employability needs of Glasgow’s most vulnerable young people. In addition to the effects of the pandemic, we focus on young people who face many barriers and challenges, such as living in areas of multiple deprivation, suffering from poor mental health, experience of the care system and the criminal justice system.

We established a unique partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – Job Centre Plus to deliver a range of employability programmes for adults facing barriers, lack of confidence and skills to progress to employment or other positive destinations. The full potential of our new initiative reached fruition this year following the launch of a Youth Hub at Ibrox – the first football club/charity in the UK to create such an initiative with the DWP (Job Centre Plus).

The outcomes and successes for young people have far exceeded our best expectations. So far this year alone, the Foundation has delivered five employability courses supporting 60 young people with a remarkable 80% moving into positive destinations, including: 27 into employment; 25 into further training; 2 into further education and three who joined the armed forces.

Rugby League World Cup – Inclusive Volunteering Programme – Community Integrated Care

One of Britain’s biggest social care charities, Community Integrated Care, has partnered with Rugby League World Cup 2021 to create the first ever volunteering and personal-development programme for people who have care and support needs at a major event Engaging more than 300 people at all stages of life, it creates unprecedented opportunities – changing lives at scale

It has achieved unprecedented societal outcomes – enabling hundreds to enjoy their dream work placements, creating new facilities and services across communities in England, achieving profound personal outcomes – like supporting people to access paid work and qualifications for the first time.

From enabling a 10-year-old aspiring rapper who has autism to create a World Cup song with a hitmaker producer for Busta Rhymes, to forming a media-training club for people who have learning disabilities that hosted the Women’s Challenge Cup Final press conference, and even engaging the creative talents of people living with dementia, this is no ordinary volunteering programme!

This sits alongside Community Integrated Care’s world-first role as the Official Social Care Partner of the tournament – supporting the RLWC2021 to achieve real inclusion and accessibility This represents a new model for social impact through sports & major events.

Southampton Football Club – Saints Foundation

Saints Foundation, the charity of Southampton Football Club, aims to inspire individuals from Southampton and the surrounding areas in their journey to fulfilling their potential. Using insights, data, and evidence from multiple stakeholders across our community, we ensure that our support focusses on those who need us most. Our workforce of over 100 members of staff work hard to deliver consistent support delivering 25,301 hours of support despite restrictions throughout 2019/20 alongside additional support in reaction to new needs.
The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing needs within our communities, as well as presenting a whole new set of additional needs. Our delivery over the past season has adapted to ensure that we can support with as many of those needs as possible.

BEST SPORTS GOVERNING BODY INITIATIVE

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – The Hundred

The Hundred’s innovation in cricket is now the yardstick by which other sporting innovations are being measured. The England and Wales Cricket Board assessed the barriers which were preventing people from getting involved in cricket and looked at ways of redesigning one format of the game for a brand new, young, diverse, online and increasingly urban audience, with each decision based on deep insight.

Every aspect of the game was reimagined, putting the audience first. In-depth research was carried out, canvassing all areas of the sport and society and with comprehensive use of focus groups to understand what the audience wanted to see from a new format of cricket.

The Hundred offered the chance to deliver a world-class combination of sport and entertainment, with an equal platform for men and women, brought through a new, digital-first approach that would excite new audiences.

Year one of The Hundred encouraged millions of new fans to watch live in stadia and on TV, as well as engaging with the competition online. This delivered significant value for the whole cricketing ecosystem, from grassroots participation through to players, venues, domestic cricket and commercial partners, providing the base of further growth of the sport in future.

England Hockey – AGM Resolution (Governance review)

In 2017, clubs put a resolution to the England Hockey Board to address the challenges that the current structure presented; consistency of policies, rules and regulations, efficiency, governance transparency, accountability, and modernisation i.e., digital/electronic administration.

Over a three-year period, a board led working group undertook consultation, researched, engaged stakeholders and developed a proposal to overhaul the outdated domestic hockey system.

At the 2020 AGM 86% members voted in favour of the resolution. At the 2021 AGM 97% voted through the changes to the Articles, regulations and new rules.

A massive amount of work has subsequently been undertaken by staff and volunteers to establish the eight areas that replace the previous five regions. The areas are constituted, limited companies and have been set up with responsibility for hockey delivery in their geographical remit including adult leagues, masters, junior centralised calendars, officiating and discipline.Recruitment was open and transparent, resulting in the appointment of more diverse, high-quality candidates.

Governance and adoption of policies is consistent and whilst each area has the delegated authority to make local decisions, the overarching principles that govern the sport, are safeguarded by anArea Standing Committee which leads the game collaboratively, cascades good governance and reports to the EH Board.

English Football League – Football’s Response to Covid-19

In March 2020 the global pandemic hit shutting down all aspects of society, including forcing football to stop en masse for the first time since the Second World War. During these unprecedented and challenging circumstances, all 72 EFL Clubs came together as a force for good, being among the first to respond to the needs of local communities across England and Wales. And despite having no income, EFL clubs adapted to help front line services, showing that football ‘never went away’ in the early months of lockdown.
Existing community programmes delivered by EFL Clubs and their CCOs were adapted to ensure the safe continuation of this good work which has provided a lifeline for so many in helping to keep people healthy, active and connected.
The support delivered by EFL Clubs has been pivotal in helping to address the serious issues facing communities as a consequence of COVID-19, including mental health, unemployment and food poverty.
The EFL’s community response to COVID-19 was rapid, vital and continues to make a huge impact on people’s lives.

LTA – LTA Youth

LTA Youth is a new and innovative junior tennis programme, created to connect all tennis activity for juniors, building on the success of previous tennis initiatives, to provide an offer that looks and feels the same, regardless of whether a child is playing in a school, park or club.

Aimed at kids aged 4-18, LTA Youth aims to help more children enjoy the benefits of playing and staying in tennis, whatever their age, gender, ability, disability or background.

At its heart is an innovative coaching curriculum for LTA Accredited Coaches and schools. The first national curriculum for tennis ever written, this is based on world leading expertise, research and science, and draws on insight from parents and kids.

With the pandemic restricting delivery of our coach and teacher training and delaying the launch of sessions, we pivoted our LTA Youth Schools programme, quickly making our educational content, available to help teachers and parents support children’s education whilst at home during lockdown.

We transitioned our LTA Youth content to launch an ‘At Home’ series, providing free online fitness content and virtual live inclusive coaching sessions to support families with fun ways to keep active, healthy and entertained whilst at home.

Premiership Rugby – Response to Lockdown

Premiership Rugby is an organisation which cares about the communities in which it operates. It believes that rugby has the power to change lives and has created, and delivers with its partner clubs, players, sponsors, and third sector partners, a range of community programmes which impact positively on society; improving sports participation, physical and mental health, educational attainment, employability and community cohesion.

With a focus on working with, engaging and inspiring people from diverse backgrounds, and with varying support needs, consistency of delivery and contact with participants is vital for successful outcomes. This consistency has been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Premiership Rugby responded quickly, innovating and adapting its programmes to ensure continued support to young people and disadvantaged groups during the pandemic.

We are proud to have supported those in need, inspiring participants to help themselves and others, and instil in everyone a sense of community. #rugbychanginglives

World Netball – Campaign to Launch World Netball Strategic Plan & Brand

Netball has a huge participation base of over 20 million women and girls (and increasingly men and boys) but with limited commercial income World Netball (formerly known as the International Netball Federation) has to be innovative in its approach to increase its share of voice.

To launch the new name for the Federation and its new brand, World Netball devised a creative campaign to capture the essence of its new positioning and strategic plan ‘to Grow, to Play, to Inspire’ and underscore the World Netball purpose of creating a better world through netball.

The campaign maximised its impact by amplifying the message through the membership structure. The launch was particularly challenging as the Covid-19 pandemic meant that World Netball did not have the opportunity to launch at a face-to-face Congress or major netball event.

Core elements of the #YourNetballWorld campaign were World Netball Virtual Mosaic and Search for a Courage Ambassador. The campaign utilised and extended World Netball’s existing first party databases and social media followers.

World Netball is thrilled with the support for the campaign and the endorsements received from key stakeholders and see this is a strong foundation from which to Grow, to Play and Inspire.”

MOST INNOVATIVE BUSINESS RESPONSE TO COVID 19 – UK

British Martial Arts & Boxing Association (BMABA)

BMABA worked relentlessly throughout the pandemic undertaking a number of industry-firsts to secure the long term survival of more than 30,000 grassroots martial artists. From funding membership and insurance continuity for clubs and issuing grants to help instructors restart teaching, through to the set up and launch of 6 industry-specific companies to support the financial future of the Fighting Chance Foundation, BMABA have enabled more than 6,500 clubs and more than 30,000 participants to remain engaged with martial arts training at a grassroots level during the worst crisis the industry has seen since World War II. We supported our instructors from day one with the industry’s first COVID Aware Qualification for martial arts. Our online toolkits and information centres provided the latest technology for live online teaching, and the latest interpretation of Government rules. We also campaigned for more representation of independent martial arts clubs in the easing of lockdown rules and successfully authorised an interim Return to Play policy that facilitated the safe return of thousands of unrepresented styles and disciplines without NGB support. All of our clubs are self-funded, as is the association who provided all financial support to our members entirely at our own cost.

Professional Darts Corporation

With competitive sport brought to a halt by lockdown in March 2020, the PDC utilised its unique position to create the PDC Home Tour as an innovative, flexible and valuable tournament at a time when there was no other live sport being broadcast.

Staged across 43 nights from April-June, over 100 PDC Tour Card Holders competed in the Home Tour from their living rooms, kitchens and purpose-built practice areas across the globe, initially in 32 groups before the winners progressed to a second phase to challenge for the title.

Free live streaming for registered users to the PDCTV service attracted a record audience for a streamed event on the platform with more than 1.9 million users tuning in, and the product was also sold to broadcasters and bookmakers worldwide and sponsored by Unibet and Low6.

The influx of registered users to PDCTV during that period grew the PDC’s database by 72%, bringing a significant potential new audience to the sport upon its resumption in live arenas.

St George’s Park

With the country in lockdown and no international football taking place between November 2019 and September 2020, the National Football Centre at St George’s Park – home to all England teams and elite sport training camps – came grinding to a halt with all high-performance training camps, corporate events and leisure business ceasing During this period of uncertainty – before the mass vaccination roll-out had commenced – and ahead of international football’s return in November 2020 after a 10-month hiatus, the venue had to quickly redefine its operating procedures and create a bio-secure environment that mitigated the risk of Covid-19 transmission during training, match play and camp life The implementation of a Covid Advisory Group England (CAGE), reimagined external visitor protocols, the establishment of a dedicated testing centre on site and the introduction of leading hygiene programme at it’s on site accommodation where amongst the preventative measures taken that delivered a transformative impact and enabled the venue to flourish, despite the pandemic Due to the best-in-class guidance and infrastructure that was initiated SGP successfully hosted 80 elite sport training camps between September 2020 and June 2021, in addition to hosting the England men’s senior team for the duration of EURO

Trivandi

A team of 24 Trivandi staff spent 10 months working with NHS Test and Trace, leading and designing a programme to enable spectators to get back into venues during the Covid-19 pandemic. The objective was to pilot the use rapid LFD testing as a passport for entry, along with a number of Covid safe measures, to reduce the risk of spread of the virus at events.
Trivandi worked alongside DCMS to deliver the testing programme for events, the Event Research Programme, which provided the evidence that built confidence in Government to allow increased spectator capacity at sport events.

Whilst working for NHS Test and Trace, Trivandi pivoted to support the operations and logistical roll out of testing at Universities, Schools and essential workers. Team Trivandi delivered 250,000 test kits to elite sport, enabling athletes to return to training, leagues to continue and sport staff to be tested.

Trivandi developed a Guidebook and distributed it for free to the sports industry, drawing on their knowledge gained whilst working on the Events Research Programme as well as their experience as lead advisors to the organisers of the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup on Covid-safe planning for their test events in 2020/21.

Youth Sport Trust

In a year for children and young people like no other, The Youth Sport Trust has worked tirelessly to ensure it is serving the needs of young people and a teaching workforce which needs it most. When schools were forced to close, sports days and clubs cancelled, and teachers became frontline workers, the Youth Sport Trust worked hard to adapt so it could respond to the crisis in a meaningful way.

The charity operates throughout the UK and in the 2019/20 academic year, it supported 20,650 teachers, coaches and practitioners to lead good quality inclusive sport and Physical Education. It helped 309,115 young people to access its programmes and interventions and its sister charity YST international worked in 20 countries.

The Youth Sport Trust wants to ensure that every child — regardless of age, gender, background or ability — has the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of an active lifestyle and has access to high quality PE and school sport for a brighter future.

MOST INNOVATIVE BUSINESS RESPONSE TO COVID 19 – INTERNATIONAL

Hawk-Eye Innovations – Hawk-Eye Live at the US Open 2020
Due to the impact of Covid-19, the suspension of the tennis tours in March 2020 led to the cancellation of over 80 elite tennis tournaments over 6 months.

Amongst all sports, Tennis in particular faced a specific challenge with regards to officiating, being one of the most intensively officiated sports, in terms of number of officials on court compared to athletes.

The US Open 2020 was the first Grand Slam scheduled to restart the tour and so the USTA had to lead the way in defining solutions to reduce their operational footprints to ensure that their tournaments could safely return.

With this, Hawk-Eye developed and deployed Hawk-Eye Live, a real-time electronic line calling system which has the ability to determine whether a shot has landed in or out immediately after the ball has landed.

The real-time and automated nature of Hawk-Eye Live allowed the USTA to conform with strict restrictions on staff numbers on-site and on the court, whilst also greatly increasing the quality and consistency of officiating across the entire tournament, simultaneously.

OnePlan – Venue Twin

Venue Twin is the hyper-realistic, fully interactive 3D digital twin of stadiums and arenas. It’s a ground-breaking way for venues to create new value with fans, sponsors and broadcasters. For Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, it’s a ‘game-changer’, allowing them to plan events in the stadium remotely and see how their venue will look as a potential FIFA 2026 World Cup venue.

Venue Twin has been created by OnePlan, the event planning technology used by over 2,000 events in 50 countries including Arsenal, Chelsea, Wolves, Brooklyn Nets, World Triathlon and many more sports organisations. It enables fly-throughs from any angle and virtual site visits, significantly reducing the time and cost associated with planning events – as well as providing substantial sustainability benefits.

Fast-tracked in response to the pandemic, Venue Twin provides operational and commercial benefit to venue owners. With the most advanced 3D SeatView and SuiteView available, Venue Twin is used by sales and ticketing teams to enhance a stadium’s commercial offer. Other features include the ability to easily change signage and branding to showcase the venue to potential advertisers, plus collaborating with broadcasters on TV views.

Venue Twin enables sports events to be planned virtually, delivering cost reductions and sustainability benefits.

Sportdigital – Predictions Eredivisie – Who will be Champion?

The 2019/20 football season in the Dutch Eredivisie was terminated prematurely due to the COVID 19 pandemic. There was no champion and no relegation.

Not for the German licensee Sportdigital Fussball. The Hamburg-based pay-TV operator developed an innovative broadcasting format using a mix of match data, virtual reality and real archive match images and simply continued to play the cancelled season. How did it work?

For this innovative “Predictions Eredivisie” format, Sportdigital Fussball cooperated with 2 specialist companies. The sports simulation company AccuScore provided the exact match data to realistically simulate the further results of the Eredivisie up to the last match day. The video game manufacturer Konami supplied the virtual match images for the highlight summaries of the remaining match days via the football simulation “Pro Evolution Soccer”. These virtual clips were skilfully mixed in post-production with the real archive match images from the Eredivisie and absolutely new and unique highlight summaries were created of the outstanding matches at the time – which had never actually existed in this form.

Who was champion in the Eredivisie 2019/20? The answer was only available in the innovative studio broadcast format “Predictions Eredivisie” on Sportdigital Fussball!

Super League Triathlon – SLT Arena Games

Super League Triathlon (SLT) is the world’s premier swim-bike-run Series, pitching the very best athletes against each other in quick and exciting race formats in fantastic destinations The regular Championship Series takes place from August-November with the best triathletes on the planet doing battle over game-changing formats which are redefining the sport for a modern audience.

With COVID-19 wiping out the vast majority of the triathlon race calendar, Super League came up with an innovative new concept to get athletes back racing again in a COVID secure environment while bringing a new audience to the sport by harnessing technology to produce a unique format.

The debut event of the SLT Arena Games was held in Rotterdam in August 2020 and blended in real life and virtual racing to deliver a new level of immersive viewing experience. It was developed by Super League Triathlon in partnership with eSports platform Zwift to add an exciting and fresh element to the sport, with live data and in your face cameras bringing viewers closer to the athletes than ever before.

It’s huge success meant it expanded further in 2021 including an event at the London Aquatics Centre and the addition of para-triathlon racing.

USA Weightlifting

USA Weightlifting CEO Phil Andrews has utilised his key change management and turnaround skills to great effect over the past six months, helping to ensure the long-term future of USAW and its staff.
The first key decision Andrews made was to take a 100% pay cut at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure USAW’s employees all retained their jobs. He was also at the forefront of the Covid-19 relief fund that the organisation created to help protect the weightlifting community and fund members whose livelihoods were endangered by the pandemic.
Another highlight of Andrews’ work this year has been his role in supporting his athletes. The Hawaii training camp has helped competitors not only with their physically health but also mental health, of which support has increased by more than 200% during his tenure at USA Weightlifting.
Andrews also successfully launched a scholarship fund for African American coaches which has so far seen 20 new coaches receive their Level 2 weightlifting qualification, as well as working to ensure that any existing bias is eliminated from USAW’s selection and recruitment procedures.

MOST SUCCESSFUL SPORTS EVENT BROADCAST

America’s Cup Event – 36th America’s Cup

First sailed in 1851, the America’s Cup is the oldest international sporting competition and has only been won by four countries.

It features the world’s best sailors representing their nations in the fastest and most spectacular yachts, the Cup is a sailing event that transcends sailing.

The 36th America’s Cup presented by PRADA was sailed in Auckland New Zealand from December2020-March2021 in an entirely new class of foiling monohull, the AC75.

Benefitting from significant technological innovation, the production set new standards in terms of the scope of coverage, graphics, audio and camera systems.

Distribution focused on free-to-air networks and major channels whilst reserving digital rights to allow the Cup to live stream on its own website and social media channels with unrestricted digital highlights across all platforms.

The 36th America’s Cup is the most watched Cup ever. Its dedicated audience of 68.2m is 3.2x that of the 35th America’s Cup in Bermuda. The event reached a total global TV and streaming audience of 941m.

Social media delivered 715m over the campaign at an engagement rate of 7%. Live streaming grew the record TV audience by 19%.

 

beIN MEDIA GROUP – UEFA EURO 2020

beIN MEDIA GROUP (beIN) is a global sports and entertainment broadcaster operating in 43 countries across five continents – passionately striving to provide unforgettable moments. In Middle East & North Africa (MENA), beIN broadcast the long-awaited UEFA EURO 2020 – the second biggest football competition after the FIFA World Cup – live and exclusively to its millions of viewers and subscribers across 24 countries. This was the first major live sporting event since March 2020 and beIN had a tremendous responsibility to reignite the passion for sports in the region.

In summary, beIN’s MENA channels saw a match average of 18.8 million views with a high of 64.4 million for the final and a cumulative total of almost 1 billion views over the competition. France, Italy, Germany, and Portugal all saw an average 30 million+ views for their matches. Other successes included specially curated TV studios with state-of-the-art facilities and technological advancements; exclusive and bespoke programming; 15-hours of live daily studio coverage; expert commentary and analysis from world-class international and Arab talent; positioning 18 on-the-ground reporters in 11 European countries; and much more – all while simultaneously broadcasting the rest of beIN’s substantial summer of sports portfolio and entertainment offering.

 

Chilli Pepper TV – Rotterdam Hickstead Grand Prix Challenge

Chilli Pepper TV, a small independent production company initiated and produced The Rotterdam Hickstead Grand Prix Challenge: A Covid safe International equestrian sporting event featuring Olympic and five-star riders and horses. Filmed in UK and the Netherlands, live graphics and scoring was processed in Germany with live expert commentary from Holland and the UK, it was then streamed over two days from the UK. The audience were able to participate in the competition by scoring each dressage test via an app safely from their homes. A truly international effort to keep this sport where men and women compete on an equal footing alive during the depths of the global pandemic. The program drew international audiences of over 44,000 viewers.

ITTF Foundation – World Table Tennis Day

24 hours full of World Table Tennis Day on April 6, 2021; Together with hundreds of groups celebrating their passion for table tennis individually in various places all over the world (where physically possible), a 24 hour online stream was set up to demonstrate how the sport can be enjoyed and celebrated even with physical distance, whenever you are, wherever you are.The online stream was designed with our table tennis community at heart. Historical matches that kept the blood of hardcore table tennis fans boiling, meet and greet session with raising Ping-Pong heroes, athlete home workouts for lightweight players… The 24 hour online stream had something for everyone, regardless of their level and involvement with the sport. For this year’s World Table Tennis Day, the ITTF Foundation drew special attention to gender equality with our FEMpowerment campaign. The 24 hour online stream featured workshops and seminars focusing on female empowerment, as well as celebrity coaches sharing their experience in increasing female participation in table tennis and engaging female athletes.

 

LiveScore – The new home of free-to-air football

In the past year, LiveScore successfully revolutionised their popular app by launching and integrating a free-to-air football live streaming service that is forcing the industry to sit up and take notice.
Capitalising on its standing as one of the world’s leading real-time sports updates and results providers, LiveScore identified a gap in the market to provide accessible, safe, trusted, reliable and legal live streaming for football fans in the UK and Ireland.

Within two months of launching in June 2020, over 600,000 unique users (60% of UK and Ireland mobile app users) visited the LiveScore app to view a match, with individual audiences peaking at 147,000 unique viewers. By the end of the 2020/21 season, over 1.4 million unique users had watched a match.

LiveScore streamed nearly 1,250 matches throughout the 2020-21 season, underpinned by 306 matches from Italy’s Serie A campaign. LiveScore also carried live streams from the English Premier League, after acquiring rights to simulcast 31 Saturday 3pm kick off fixtures exclusively for LiveScore app users in Nigeria.
The next step of development will see LiveScore acquire new rights and continue to deliver content globally, unlocking their engaged and active audience across 200 territories worldwide.

SPORTS DIVERSITY AWARD

BT – #DiscoverDisabilityFootball

Para and disability football is a key focus within BT’s transformational 4-3-3 sponsorship strategy as lead partner of the England, Wales, Scotland & Irish Football Associations.

With over 14 million disabled people in the UK, disability football receives little or no exposure and has been overlooked or ignored by audiences and sponsors, until now.

To really make a difference to this community, BT developed four campaigns, with #DiscoverDisabilityFootball created as an overarching activation platform and call-to-action:
– Reach Media Partnership
– FA Disability Cup broadcast
– Para Football Adventures content series
– Internal Disability Panel Event

Key objectives: Increase awareness & profile of disability football, educate fans & UK public, drive conversation, inspire participation.

Highlights:

Reach Media partnership created exposure across multiple channels, nationally and regionally, reaching 3.67 million adults

#DiscoverDisabilityFootball delivered 30.2 million impressions driving an increase of 218% in conversation around disability football compared to the previous 7 days and 118% vs 2019

FA Disability Cup broadcast live for the first time ever, the most accessible live broadcast of a football match in the UK to date, viewed live by 260k people with further content seen by over 2M

Para Football Adventures content series viewed over 500k times

England Hockey
England Hockey have historically undertaken activity in the area of equality, diversity and inclusion across the sport of hockey. Eighteen months ago, the senior leadership team brought together an internal working group to critically assess the progress to date in this area.

This group, along with colleagues and our wider membership, have made important steps forward in this area during that period in an effort to embed meaningful and sustainable change to the way hockey approaches, understands and enables best practice E, D+I.

A full range of activities and initiatives have been delivered and are being developed to continue this journey, including (not limited to), hosting external focus groups, a More Inclusive Sport Survey, new dedicated webpages, staff and board E,D+I training, diversifying the make-up of England Hockey Board, implementation of the AGM Resolution (Governance Review), introduction of a new more accessible Talent System, International squad’s Stick it to Racism’ campaign, online Coaching and Umpiring training, recruitment of skilled and diverse representatives to an E, D+I advisory group and the recruitment of a Change Manager.

EH will now create a sport wide strategy that has E,D+I embedded at its heart, and the responsibility of everyone, not just the few.

Everton Football Club

As the world faced the pandemic, and football was dealing with its impact on sponsorship, marketing and activation, Everton and new technical partner hummel sought to deliver a footballing first – a ground-breaking non-player led kit launch that showcased hummel’s commitment to investing in Club charity Everton in the Community, and saw players from Everton in the Community’s Disability programme – celebrating its 20th anniversary year – become the focus.
This activation was part of the wider ‘More Than Eleven’ 2020/21 kit campaign, which spotlighted the strong bond between Everton – The People’s Club – and its worldwide fan community.

hummel’s investment in funding a coaching course for 20 disabled participants to gain their FA Level One coaching qualification – in some cases opening up opportunities into employment – also ensured the kit launch left a lasting legacy.

The uniqueness of the launch and Everton and hummel’s commitment to celebrating equality and diversity gained widespread news media interest and positive engagement, with fans stating their pride at the campaign. The campaign led to a 41% increase on the previous record first day sales  for an Everton third kit, while sales for the year finished 28% on the previous 12 months.

ITTF Foundation

The ITTF Foundation uses table tennis as a tool for development and peace. We believe table tennis is a sport for everyone. It shows no preference to gender and people of age can enjoy the benefit of the sport. Having diversity and inclusion of disadvantaged groups at the core of our programmes and projects, the ITTF Foundation initiates and supports projects that introduce table tennis to a wide range of target audience across gender, age, social-economic statues, and fitness level.
Under the tagline ‘Solidarity through Table Tennis’ the ITTF Foundation aims to engage people worldwide, initiate or support projects to empower individuals, foster positive social change and to make table tennis popular, universal and inclusive.
Some of our target audience includes misplaced children, refugees, underprivileged families, patients of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and female population in general. By bring table tennis to them, we are hoping to empower, inspire and eventually helping them to achieve solidarity through the sport.

LTA – Inclusion Strategy

Our vision of ‘Tennis Opened Up’ has inclusion at its core, putting it at the heart of our strategic plans to grow the sport.

From our ground-breaking LTA SERVES programme taking tennis to new communities, LTA Open Court getting a record number of disabled people playing, and LTA She Rallies empowering and expanding the number of women and girls coaching and playing, we’ve made progress and have a strong platform to build on.

Part of the journey, though, is knowing how far you still have to go – and we need to do more. To help us go further, faster, we’ve published an Inclusion Strategy for tennis in Britain, to embed long term cultural change so people playing, working and volunteering in, and watching our sport reflect the diversity of our communities.

Developed from a starting point of listening to lived experiences, it sets out five key areas of work with 25 commitments to drive change, underpinned by 46 priority actions to make the ambition of the strategy a reality.

To help us do that, our IDEA Group and new LTA Council and Board appointments will contribute to the diversity of thoughts and approaches to delivering tennis opened up.

The Walking Football Association

The WFA, an unfunded 100% volunteer organisation, has been very successful in helping to make the sport of Walking Football as inclusive as possible – developing Women only and mixed gender teams and matches, sessions for Parkinsons Disease (PD) and other health conditions and recognising the enormous contribution our sport makes to health and well-being, and developing this in England and globally.

The WFA recently held ‘Inter-gender Internationals’ at St Georges Park with its own women’s national teams playing against the men’s teams – a unique experience which was supported by the Kick It Out charity.

The WFA is the driving force behind setting up sessions for PwP (People with Parkinsons). It has currently set up 3 sessions in England and aims to establish many more as we have seen, first hand, the power that a football can have over people with long term health conditions, such as Parkinson’s – with the walking and the non-contact elements, Walking Football is the ideal sport to encourage such people to get up and get active and have fun in a safe environment. The WFA is currently working on developing a national club competition for women only teams and teams for PwP.
Walking Football is available to all – from any background and the rules that the WFA have introduced help people of all ages and abilities to be able to play together in an inclusive, safe and fun environment.

We are currently working with the Teen Girls initiative as well – there are very few opportunities for teens to start football because teams are usually well established and are attaining a good level, Girls entering at this level are under a huge amount of pressure and the experience ends up being counterproductive. Girls can also play Walking Football without having to get changed and it could also help as an introduction to sports for teens with obesity especially with the Euros in England next year. In Malaysia, The WFA trained Doctors so that they could take the game into schools to help them to deal with the childhood obesity problem they have in their country.

The ‘Guide to Walking Football’, aimed at potential players has been very well received as has the ‘Toolkit’, both written by the WFA to help new clubs and sessions set up. Encouraging participation, raising the profile of the sport and encouraging inclusivity and diversity has been the driving force of the WFA.

AGENCY OF THE YEAR

Aurora Media Worldwide

Aurora Media Worldwide is a fully integrated content agency, specialising in the development and production of live, premium global sports events, as well as original and innovative post-produced content.

Fifty Digital

Fifty Digital is a multi-award winning digital and social media agency in sponsorship and sport.

Working with brands, teams, rights holders and governing bodies, Fifty Digital uses best-in-class social media, content, AI and data-driven insight to reach, engage and monetise audiences whilst delivering value and return for clients.

Started by two ex-Mercedes Formula One Team executives in a Soho coffee shop five years ago, Fifty Digital now has 65 employees working with the likes of: FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, The FA, Qatar Airways, The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, Chelsea FC, The British & Irish Lions, Ferrari Formula One Team and World Athletics.

Fifty Digital has helped shape the sporting social media landscape during the global pandemic and what sport and social looks like in a post-COVID world.

InCrowd

InCrowd is a fan marketing company working in sport exclusively. Operating since November 2015 InCrowd works with major rights holders in football, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, basketball, snooker and motorsport.

Over the last year, InCrowd has experienced rapid growth as sports organisations really kicked their digital transformations into high gear. 2020 was a challenging year for everyone; but many in the industry decided to batten down the hatches. We did the opposite and focussed on investing in our products and services. We knew the industry was going to need digital tools to survive and thrive throughout and beyond the pandemic. We researched, analysed and developed our product offering across website, app and data whilst also expanding our professional services, growing as a business due to the appetite for the truly end-to-end solution we offer the sports industry.

Little Dot Studios

Specialising in creating meaningful connections between premium content and digital audiences, Little Dot Studios are dedicated to realising potential in every sporting moment. Our specialist sports agency collaborates with the world’s biggest sports federations, clubs, and broadcasters, to create, distribute and amplify content. Our partners include Formula E, The FA, ECB and Juventus.

We use audience and algorithmic behaviours to inform content strategies for cross-channel distribution. Our specialisms include the production of original, digital-first content, supported with paid amplification, and the continual gathering of data-informed insights to refine and iterate our approach.

One recent success involved working with Formula E during one of the most challenging times for events. In lieu of real-world motorsport, we directed drivers to self-shoot content and were integral to launching a 6-week eSports series, Race at Home.

When racing returned, our client staged over half a season’s racing in just nine days, during which we created 8,000 pieces of social content and produced 12 short documentaries, each turned around overnight and recut for TV. Despite a reduced race calendar, video views increased from 867m to 875m with engagements rising by 10% season-on-season. By the end, social followers stood at 3.1m – 13% up YoY.

Soapbox London

Soapbox London are reinventing personal communications for elite athletes, offering a specialised communications mix to develop, protect and manage profile in an age where there’s never been more media scrutiny and it’s never been harder to cut through the noise.

Through a bespoke combination of pro-active traditional PR, social media management and creative content production, Soapbox London aims to build authentic personal brands, connect sport and popular culture and create household names, helping their clients meet their professional and commercial objectives.

Stadion

Stadion is a team of creators – Designers, strategists and engineers, passionate about creating beautiful digital experiences for clients in the world of sport.

We create digital products and use them as the foundation for shaping bespoke, cutting-edge experiences for global sports entities – powering everything from websites and apps to voice interactions and beyond.

Our focus is on helping clubs grow through the use of digital media – Commercial growth through sponsor and fan revenue, International growth through multi-language and geo-targeted experiences, and Content growth by creating tools to publish any type of contnet on any platform.

Our client partners include Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Rangers FC, Harlequins, FIFA and Team GB.

WePlay
WePlay was founded as the first performance-based sports marketing agency for the digital age. Our approach is entirely focused on delivering outcomes over outputs. Our team of 40 “Players” from across the UK, Europe and the USA combine capabilities in strategic and commercially-focused consultancy, content marketing, digital content production, and performance media buying – to grow brands, their audiences, and their revenue streams.

We are a multi-award winning agency of sports specialists and digital experts, partnering with sporting organisations looking to achieve high-growth performance.

Despite the significant disruption to the sports industry in 2020, we focused on finding opportunity within the adversity. After being heavily impacted by the pandemic, we developed a new model, focusing on five core pillars of sustainable business growth for our clients. This approach transformed our business and our value proposition for sports organisations.

We went from losing 40% of our revenue and having to furlough members of staff, to pivoting our business model, reporting a year of record financial performance, and achieving 100% annual workforce growth.

2020 marked our best year yet on record, with the foundations laid for even further growth in 2021.

BEST FAN ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMME DURING COVID-19

Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) – #HorseOClock with Longines

With the COVID-19 pandemic, activities around the world came to a sudden halt, including the vast majority of sports events.

For the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), this meant far fewer opportunities for our partners to develop relationships with equestrian fans in a controlled, in-venue environment.

Swiss watchmaking brand, our long-time Top Partner, Longines, was particularly receptive to trying a different approach to brand engagement activities to stay close with watch and equestrian enthusiasts.

The result was #HorseOClock with Longines, an eight-question, equestrian-themed online quiz designed to match FEI fans with the Longines watch most suited to their personality in a fun and accessible way.

The community was kept engaged at every step of the six-week campaign through short, fun and interchangeable content.

Through owned and paid media on new and traditional FEI channels, we employed everything from press releases to CTA pop-ups and advertising on social media.

The campaign struck just the right chord with our fans. By pushing creative and technical boundaries, #HorseOClock reached 1.4 million equestrian fans. Page views on the quiz website climbed to 35,225 and resulted in almost 20,000 completions, opening the door to larger-scale campaigns that incorporate interactive tools such as quizzes, into future activations.
Aston Martin Cognizant F1™ – Team Car Launch
In 2021, Aston Martin returned to Formula 1 after an absence of 61-years. The launch presented a unique opportunity to celebrate the brand’s iconic status while demonstrating a new set of fan-first values. The team’s objective was to grow and engage its share of the F1 audience, bring fans into the heart of the story through the I / AM movement, and punch outside of the traditional F1 space to reach a new lifestyle community.

The launch of the team centred around the reveal of its 2021 challenger, the AMR21. The team activated several marketing promotions to drive social engagement and first party database growth across each of its newly established fan profiles through content, influencers and tailored experiences.

AMCF1’s social media community grew by 26% (vs 2.4% average), with growth twice as fast in absolute terms compared to the next nearest competitor. From a standing start, the team also accelerated to 150k database records.

The launch generated 230m social media impressions and reached a maximum potential broadcast audience of 780m, generating more than 5 hours of broadcast time across 101 global TV channels.

Everton Football Club

In response to COVID-19, Everton immediately put in place a multi-channel communications campaign for fans, staff, Everton in the Community (EitC) participants and community stakeholders, sharing public health messaging (in partnership with NHS, Public Health England and Liverpool City Council), health and wellbeing tips, educational and feel-good content, truly living up to its name as The People’s Club During the initial months of the pandemic, the Club adapted its digital strategy to provide tailored educational resources, entertainment and public health information, reaching more than 24 5 million people in the first four weeks (mid-March – mid-April 2020) Engagement was also at the heart of all communications, with the Club and its official charity (EitC) listening to fans’ needs to curate content and inform the wider Club response Members of the community in need were encouraged to request support from the Club’s Blue Family campaign, the first targeted campaign set up by a football club to support its community through the crisis Supported by Club and charity staff, Everton’s men and women’s players joined Ambassadors, the Club’s Chairman and CEO, and other staff to make more than 28,950 check-in phone calls to those in social isolation, and fans around the world.

FIFA X WePlay – #WorldCupAtHome

FIFA had not planned to stage a FIFA World Cup in 2020. Neither had it expected the year to bring a global pandemic that would confine billions of people to their homes.

The #WorldCupAtHome was a digital content campaign like no other.

Agile and ambitious, FIFA opened up the World Cup archive for a new generation, bringing full-match replays to life in unprecedented ways.

32 full match classic World Cup replays were live-streamed in the first phase of the #WorldCupAtHome which were presented as a premiere event on YouTube, offering audiences both on-demand and live viewing options.

It evolved into a celebration of two iconic World Cup editions – Mexico 70 and Italy 90 – and a lesson in the untapped value of archive to drive attention and engagement among a younger football audience.

The biggest impact, however, was the one FIFA sought: reaching over 300m fans in more than 120 countries, with a message that has proven to save lives – “stay home” – and an incentive to follow.

The achievements of the #WorldCupAtHome are built on the twin pillars of “Purpose” and “Performance.” FIFA believes they will be the foundation of future sports industry success.

Formula TX

Fan’s Day during the semifinal and final of St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy 2021
Entertainment program for the Fan’s Day was innovative and rich and included such activities and actions:

1. Single and double semifinal and final matches.
2. Unique presentation of players on the tennis court with the use of high-tech solutions.
3. Ceremony of awarding the winners and finalists of the tournament.
4. Prize drawing for fans from the partner Porsche.
5. Possibility to view the match from the own auto in the event-space outdoor cinema “Kinoparking”.
6. Open after-match conference with Daria Kasatkina.
7. Unofficial talk-show “TENNIS TALK” for the spectators with Aslan Karatsev.
8. Virtual autograph signing sessions with the players.
9. Entertainment area “NORM OF LIFE” from the official partner Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation.
10. Press-conference in the spectator area with headliners of the closing show and participants of the project “Ladette: Katya Vanysheva and Natasha Goncharova.
11. Awarding the winners of the contest among the painters “Tennis and Saint Petersburg”.
12. Ceremony of awarding the winners of the professional contests.
13. Closing show “THE WHOLE WORLD ON THE COURT” after the ending of the final match.

Harlequins

Eighteen months ago rugby – and the world – ground to a halt. The Premiership was postponed and players stopped training. The women’s season was cancelled.

Our core offering – and means of connecting with supporters – was stopped almost overnight.

We moved quickly and our extensive efforts to engage supporters laid the foundations for record-breaking digital results.

Since March 2020 our social media following has increased by 23 per cent.

From July 2020, when training resumed, to June 2021, when the season ended, we added more followers and generated more engagements than any other team in the league.

In the same period our social media video views and impressions increased by 67 per cent and 36 per cent respectively compared to the previous 12 months.

Season Ticket renewals have increased 29 per cent and look set to hit a record high.

Our digital efforts returned tens of thousands of net sponsorship value that was undeliverable due to Covid.

Harlequins Live, our new matchday show, has been viewed 1.6m times and is now our most valuable digital asset.

Said one fan: “You really have been on fire since the first lock down. Loving your work.”

Midea World Class Awards

We wanted to help Midea use their partnership with Man City, to grow their brand awareness and build a real engagement with football fans.
But because of the pandemic, all we had were digital and social tools to connect with fans in a natural way.
And when Man City were crowned Champions, we wanted to give Midea a genuine reason to celebrate and share in the trophy lift moments Our solution: the Midea #WorldClass Awards! While every player had contributed to the win, there was only ONE PL trophy. So Midea created a range of appliance shaped trophies, highlighting some of the best moments on the field and invited fans to vote for who deserved which trophy, making them an integral part of the process.

To launch the trophies and announce the nominations, we got Man City Legends, Paul Dickov and Shaun Wright-Phillips to host a humorous content series. After the voting, a second series announced the winners and offered these loyal fans discounts on Midea products, helping us link our brand to customers in an authentic way as well as use sport to connect to the hearts and minds of fans and customers, increasing engagement and interaction with them.

West Ham United Football Club

Whilst coronavirus has changed the way we live and work in so many ways, West Ham’s focus has been to support our fans during this uniquely challenging and unprecedented time.

The club’s Marketing and Comms team has delivered a fan-centric strategy since the start of the pandemic. Digital activation, user-generated digital activations and personalised contact from club staff has been at the forefront of adapting our fan initiatives. This was part of an effort to connect directly with our fans, create a community feel across the club’s channels and remind fans that they were not alone whilst supporting from home.

The Club has engaged, supported and championed our supporters from across the Claret and Blue fanbase. Whether that’s been vulnerable people, our elderly season ticket holders, young, local or international Hammers fans, the club have made every effort to reach out and offer support.

SUSTAINABILITY IN SPORT AWARD

Birmingham County Football Association

On June 8, 2021, Birmingham County FA launched its ‘Save Today, Play Tomorrow’ programme, its over-arching strategy for the next four years to create and support lower-carbon football in the West Midlands.

Save Today, Play Tomorrow is a series of planned initiatives, strategic partnerships and infrastructure investment that fall under four key themes – health and wellbeing, positive education, climate action and reconnecting football with nature

The programme is to engender grassroots football clubs across the regions to take action now to ensure the beautiful game significantly reduces its environmental impact, whilst helping to educate those involved in football at all levels to make informed decisions that will shape how much future generations will be able to enjoy the game
Extreme E
Extreme E is the first sport built out of concern for the climate crisis. The series’ goal is to use electric racing to highlight remote environments under threat of climate change issues, and to encourage us all to take positive action to protect our planet’s future.

Norwich City Football Club – Kotkamills

Norwich City Football Club have worked alongside our Sustainability Partner, Kotkamills to make changes throughout the Club to ensure we are able to operate in a more environmentally responsible manner and educate our fans to do so as well.

Practically, this has led to swapping out tens of thousands of items that previously contained plastic to plastic-free alternatives that use the finest materials from Finland.

As a business it has led us to write sustainable practices into contracts and pledges have been made by individuals and departments throughout the Club to adopt more responsible business practises. Externally, the Club formed Sustainability in Sport Summit held with Kotkamills and the British Embassy in Finland to open discussions on the matter and talk through the responsibilities we have and challenges we face on the topic.

Beyond this, for our fans it has led to the creation of a sustainability website for adults and juniors and is a place to showcase all of the other work that the Club has done to become more sustainable and to give ideas on how they can make changes to their everyday lives in a similar manner.

The Ocean Race

Nature is at the heart of The Ocean Race. Through our Racing with Purpose sustainability programme we are using the power of our sport to drive change for the planet. Focusing on reducing race-related greenhouse gas emissions, alongside a programme of activity designed to create a positive impact, the sustainability highlights of the inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Europe this summer include:

Creating a climate positive event (we drew down more carbon than was produced)

Working closely with teams to reduce their impact and to join the UN Sports for Climate Action initiative.

Our science programme, in which teams captured data about microplastics and climate change indicators as they raced, in an innovative collaboration between sailors and ocean research organisations.
Hosting The Ocean Race Summit Europe, in which speakers, including the President of the European Commission, shone a spotlight on major threats to the ocean and highlighted inspiring examples of nature-based solutions.
Releasing our Champions for the Sea learning programme in four more languages and creating new resources that introduce children to the important role that the ocean plays in our climate.
Establishing new Partnerships with Purpose to drive impact and change, including TIME and Ulysse Nardin.