Improved monetisation and cost savings through smart stadiums, heightened use of generative AI by rights-holders and harnessing women’s sports properties’ underlying engagement are three of the main trends to headline the latest edition of the ‘Digital Trends Report’ released by IMG.
The annual report published today (Monday) also ranks TikTok as the most important third-party media platform for the global sports industry.
It is the first Digital Trends Report to be released since Seven League fully rebranded under IMG. The digital agency published its first report in January 2019. IMG owner Endeavor completed a takeover of Seven League (and the wider Mailman Group) in 2021.
High-tech venues such as the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium are held up as prime examples of smart venues driving digital engagement.
The report finds that the value of smart stadia will come in many forms, including reduced overhead costs, improved revenue, and deeper fan connections.
It states: “Not only will smart solutions help control the stadium’s infrastructure more effectively, regulating lighting, heating and cooling, but it will also help rights-holders unpackage their sponsorship proposition, enabling the creation of more targeted advertising for brands.”
‘The Sphere’ in Las Vegas, recently used as a fan engagement and activation tool during the Formula 1 Grand Prix, is hailed as a “trailblazer” for at-venue technology.
“Stadia no longer have fixed addresses”, reads the report. “They are institutions and edifices experienced across broadcast, social media, gaming and in-person. Technological advancements are now enabling rights-holders to better reflect fan passion and partner needs, generating a better experience and more revenue. In 2024, your stadium will get smarter than ever.”
AI’s commercial potential and threat
The report predicts that rights-holders will next year develop a clearer idea of how to best harness AI to “unlock efficiencies in their processes, develop new and innovative content formats and marketing campaigns, and identify new commercial opportunities in large data sets”.
Specific examples include rights-holders using AI to improve ticketing and retail conversion, or reducing churn and optimising pricing for streaming services by deeper predictive analysis.
The threat of AI is also addressed in the report with athletes and their representatives encouraged to be increasingly watchful of which AI versions of themselves are circulating online.
“AI will become a defensive play as much as offensive, as media teams at sports rights holders are forced to be constantly vigilant for faked AI versions of their athletes appearing,” reads the report.
“In 2024, AI’s impact on image and likeness will continue pivoting from reputational threat to commercial opportunity: while some issues will remain, we’ll start to see certain standards emerging for athletes to grant the rights to AI usage of their likeness in exchange for a licence fee.”
Speaking to SportBusiness, Lewis Wiltshire, IMG’s senior vice-president and managing director of digital, noted that rarely – if ever – has any digital trend accelerated as quickly and as meaningfully as AI, even if rights-holders still remain in the preliminary stages of feeling any impact to their bottom line.
He said: “We’re at the very earliest stages of AI and you can compare it to the start of the Web2 area where the dominant players from 2002 to 2005 did not end up being the dominant winners of the Web2 area. I think it will be the same for Web3.”
TikTok is followed by YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp in the top 10 rankings of the digital media behemoths.
The rankings have been decided after analysis of their respective audience profiles and growth, commercial potential and the functionality they offer rights-holders and users.
The ByteDance-owned platform is, however, not presented as a one-size-fits-all solution for all rights-holders.
“You will want a mix of platforms and must always make sure that the platforms you’re using are tailored to your business objectives”, Wiltshire said. “If you were targeting young audiences in the Middle East or the US, Snapchat would absolutely be part of your toolkit. If you’re targeting users in China, then there’s a whole other toolkit.”
“Women’s sport’s engaged, digital-savvy and highly-engaged audience will over-index on support of brands that commit to it.”
IMG Digital Trends Report 2024
Monetisation of women’s sports and its “hyper-engaged” fanbase via digital means is another of the main trends identified in the report.
IMG said: “We’ve seen for some time that women’s sport has a very engaged, digital-savvy audience and highly-engaged pockets of online communities.
“There is already data to suggest these communities will over-index on support of the brands that commit to it – for example, Michelob Ultra found that fans of women’s sport are 30-per-cent more likely to engage with its brand. 2024 is the moment that rights-holders can translate digital engagement to effective commercial partnerships.”
Wiltshire added: “Just at the very moment that the increased reach of women’s sport is starting to attract sponsors, more commercial partners and investors, we also believe that the underlying engagement that women’s sport has built up over the last 20 years has led to a hyper-engaged fanbase. And that’s what you need to commercialise digital.
“Our theory is that women’s sport will go through that cycle of reach-engagement-commercialisation faster than most men’s sports [properties] did because of where it has had to come from. It didn’t have the saturation of mainstream media coverage so because of that you built an audience hyper-dedicated and used to going out of their way to finding information.”
For IMG and Wiltshire, the term Web3 – oft thrown around with varying connotations – represents a third age of the internet.
Wiltshire observed: “The Web1 era was mostly about accessing the internet and big media organisations producing one-to-many broadcast content. The Web2 area brought in interaction and personalisation where people were – to an extent – control their consumption and participate.”
The report predicts that some technologies under the Web3 banner will fall away as a “shakedown” leaves the three main components of: certain technologies underpinned by blockchain; immersive experiences (including VR and virtual worlds); and machine learning.
Other predictions include the critical nature of personalisation and the rise of the mega influencer also feature prominently.