AGENCY OF THE YEAR
50 Sport
50 Sport, formerly Fifty Digital, is a creative sports agency that helps brands earn the right to entertain fans, to tell stories, build connections and drive growth through sponsorship activation, creative and content.
We help rights holders think smarter, to be more commercial, to create opportunities and be leaders in sport through strategic storytelling and creating connections.
We believe in reimagining possibilities in sport. This means never standing still, creating and shaping the team that can deliver the stories that feed fandom from the touchlines, tunnels and tracks around the world. We create opportunities for our partners through storytelling; because we don’t think you can talk to fans any other way.
We make sure that while doing this, our work contributes to levelling the playing field and making progress for all, through our focus on fairness, sustainability, diversity and supporting women in sport.
ITW Consulting
ITW Consulting: The Swiss Knife of Sports Consulting, is India’s Largest Full stack agency giving clients an opportunity to explore the full gamut of sports marketing through a Single window solution. Over the last 15 years in the business we have diversified from purely an on ground advertising reseller to an organization that has expertise in new media, OTT, Digital as well as crossing over to the entertainment and tech space where we take our experience in crafting branding solutions on-ground and are able to transfer that on to other arenas both offline and virtual, we also are rights holders for various properties across the globe. ITW has pivoted to a digital first strategy recognizing the trends early on and are proud to have surpassed over $100 MILLION in revenue. With digital offerings leading the way, and our new age ready solutions in sports and media arenas both virtual and real, the future of sports business starts with us!
Little Dot Sport
Little Dot Sport (Little Dot Studios’ sport specialist label) is an award-winning digital content and audience development agency, working with over 30 retained clients including the biggest teams, leagues, governing bodies and brands in global sport.
Over the past year, across all of the channels that Little Dot Studios operates, we’ve delivered in excess of 6 billion organic video views and ran accounts with a combined following of nearly 90 million. And we’ve been at the heart of telling some of the biggest stories in global sport.
On the Lionesses’ road to Euro’s glory we brought more fans closer to the team than ever before. We achieved record-breaking engagements for Formula E’s 8th season promoting sustainable vehicle technologies. We cemented The FA WSL’s position as the most socially followed women’s football league in the world… and we did plenty more besides.
We are strategic partners, industry leaders of innovation, progress and change, and a creative force for our clients.
Little Dot Studios has been verified carbon neutral to Future Net Zero Standard since inception and is an All3Media company.
MatchFit
We are MatchFit, an independent sports PR agency on a mission to make everyone love sport as much as we do. We know the potential sport has to make history, inspire, change lives, entertain, educate and build communities.
Our deep specialism means no PR agency is as indelibly linked to the sport, or in as constant dialogue with the media. Headlined by Manchester City, The FA, Sportsbreaks.com, Marks & Spencer, LiveScore and The EFL, our clients truly embody what it is to be MatchFit. Each has a unique relationship with sport, from entertainment and performance to grassroots and community.
We followed our transformative and breakthrough 2021-22 with another record year in 2022-23. Amidst a difficult economic climate, we recorded 16% YOY revenue growth and grew our world-class client roster, with more than one-third of our work coming in women’s and girls’ sport.
Overall, it has been another huge step forward in further establishing MatchFit as the most exciting sports PR agency in the industry.
MATTA
In 2022/23 MATTA invested in creating a happy and healthy team that is driven to create the best possible work for our clients. Retaining 95% of our existing clients and adding an additional 40%, shows that the investment is paying off.
We’ve grown our brand identity offering to represent half of the business, introduced Clinique into Women’s Rugby (the first Estee Lauder Company sports activation); created record-breaking campaigns for England Cricket’s Ashes summer and the Red Roses’ World-Cup and Six Nations campaigns.
Our clients say: “MATTA’s evolution of the Red Roses brand has helped grow the visibility of women’s rugby and allowed fans to engage with the team on a deeper level. As a result we’ve seen a huge uplift in awareness, social media engagement and match attendance.”
Our staff: “This is hands down the best culture I have ever worked in. The team are so supportive of each other, and we all believe 100% in the value of our mission to improve the world through sport, fitness and wellbeing. We are so proud of the work that we do, and the impact that it has on others.”
Publicis Sport & Entertainment
Publicis Sport & Entertainment in the UK has had many wonderful years but 2022 was without doubt, our best. And this has continued into 2023. Never have we done more work, better work, for more clients, nor grown so much as a team.
Looking at fee income, we have maintained our double-digit annual growth trajectory. This was made possible through client retention and new business wins, such that we have worked with nearly forty clients in 2022 and 2023.
This work has taken us into many areas, as we have delivered strategies, negotiations, activation and research projects in football, athletics, cricket, music, fashion, culture, charity, motorsport and gaming.
To service our clients, we have also significantly enhanced our proposition, moving deeper into licensing, brand collaborations, talent and creative services.
Delivering this would not have been possible without the dedication of our team. Extra assignments have necessitated growth and as a result, our staff numbers are now materially higher. And looking after our staff is paramount. Support initiatives now offered are noteworthy and constantly adapt to meet changing societal as well as employee needs. In addition, our training programme is market leading.
Redtorch
After two difficult years due to Covid 19’s disruption to sport, Redtorch recorded its best-ever financial and growth results in 2022. The London-based Sports Marketing Agency focuses on international Olympic sports and associated organisations to drive global impact.
Having successfully retained 78% of clients, it won seven new ones including World Athletics (Digital, Creative, Research) and the International Gymnastics Federation (Research, Consultancy).
It has now secured the three top tier Olympic sports as clients – Athletics, Aquatics, and Gymnastics – and its team was involved in nearly 30 sporting events globally.
A new learning and development budget has allowed 13 of them to complete courses including Mini MBAs in Marketing and in Brand Management.
Huge success with engagement, social media following, and email clicks was achieved with client campaigns, alongside the introduction of creative and content tools to deliver invaluable insights for rights holders and brands.
Pro-bono research for World Athletics challenged an imbalance in media/social media and search results for female athletes, while a range of reports produced drove client coverage.
Redtorch achieved the status of a carbon neutral agency – audited by a renowned sustainability technology business aligned with the UN – and won two major campaign awards.
Soapbox London
Since 2015, Soapbox London has been at the forefront of personal communications for elite athletes and sporting organisations – growing, protecting and managing media profile in an age where there’s never been more press scrutiny and it’s never been harder to cut through the noise.
Through a bespoke combination of pro-active PR, social media management and creative content production, Soapbox builds authentic personal brands, connects sport and popular culture and aims to turn their clients into household names.
2022 was Soapbox London’s most successful year yet, posting record revenues, growing the client base with a focus on it’s brand and organisation representation arm and expanding the team. Client wins in this period included Meta, Professional Darts Corporation, Under Armour, World Snooker, Barnsley FC and World Pool. Adding to a roster which includes; Anthony Joshua, Maro Itoje, Billy Monger, Troy Deeney, Eddie Hearn, Jamie Chadwick, Joe Joyce, Karen Carney, Naomi Schiff and many more.
Soapbox was also this year included in PR Week’s annual UK PR industry rankings across all sectors – PR Week 150 2023 – coming Top 40 in their Bubbling Up and Outside London categories.
Stadion
Formed in 2014, Stadion is a digital products and technology company working with 12 leading professional football organisations, including almost 50% of the Premier League. We are 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 rights holders 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 content on any platform.
Our clients include top Premier League and Champions League football clubs, leading rugby clubs, national and international governing bodies and Olympic federations
The Space Between
In under three years The Space Between has gone from a start-up to an established agency working with big brands and rightsholders to deliver sports marketing and sponsorship campaigns. Independently owned and founded by Tom Gladstone, Adam Raincock and Lisa Parfitt the agency brings the experience and expertise of large networks with the nimble and reactive nature of a younger agency.
We operate a hybrid system of 15 full time staff members and as many consultants working on projects at any given time. Utilising our invite only TSB Collective we build teams specifically for clients – giving clients the team they need not just the people we have. This approach has seen us grow significantly each year and by 65% in 2023 as we have won an impressive roster of challenger brands including Under Armour, OVO Energy and Xero Accountancy Software.
