Hill & Knowlton

The fact that British consumers squeeze nine hours of media use into seven hours each day demonstrates a clear opportunity for the sports industry.

A report published by UK communications industry regulator OFCOM has highlighted the fact that the British population, especially 18 to 24 year-olds, spend two or more hours each day multi-tasking with different media and communications devices. This is particularly due to the rise of smart phones and the mobile internet.

While TV and radio remain popular, watching and listening are often combined with internet surfing. Reality shows with live voting are credited for increasing the popularity of media multi-tasking but sport also plays a significant role. Although the data comes from a UK survey, it’s likely that the pattern is replicated in many countries.

Arguably, South Africa 2010 was the first dual-screen World Cup, where spectators watched matches on TV (or live streaming) while simultaneously chatting with friends, checking statistics and commenting on Twitter. The Guardian tracked Twitter coverage of every match.

Broadcasters face a challenge to keep their audience’s attention during sports events and may need to use Facebook and other tools to do so. If they succeed, there are further opportunities for sponsors and rights-holders to reach consumers.

However, the opportunity is probably bigger for media other than broadcasters who for the first time can claim a significant audience share during live events. Activity such as live text commentary, which CricInfo and others have done well for a number of years, was previously a “second best” option for fans unable to watch live on TV. Now various extra value online services are complementary to live broadcasts.

Newspapers, online gambling and fan sites are well-placed to benefit, if they can get their offerings right. As I mentioned in a previous post, there may be new attempts to establish paid-for sports content or sports news operations may merge to create scale. Services could target TV viewers, spectators at venues, office workers and various other audience segments.

ESPN has taken the plunge and launched a paid-for iPhone App showing Premier League goals soon after they are scored. Major League Baseball provides a comprehensive video, audio and stats service for iPad users. Others are sure to follow.

Meanwhile the demand remains for match reports and highlights after the event (preferably available online at any time). However, the bigger opportunity is to find ways to reach the multi-tasking audience during live events.

The sad death of Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, who played an important role in popularising snooker in the 1970s and 80s, highlights a dilemma familiar to many sports governing bodies: how to deal with mavericks. Higgins combined outrageous talent with wildly destructive behaviour,  endearing him to fans but causing endless trouble to the authorities.

As the obituaries point out, his behaviour went well beyond the type of clowning around or tantrums that are sufficient to label an athlete a “character” in these days of robotic professionalism. The BBC describes his “violent temper, drunkenness, gambling and [recreational] drug-taking”.

However, his popularity was not in doubt. In 1982 he was runner up in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year competition. A current star of the sport, Ronnie O’Sullivan, said Higgins was one of the inspirations behind him getting into snooker as a boy.

He was charged with disciplinary breaches almost 50 times by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Among his offences were head-butting a referee and making a death threat against a fellow player.

It’s difficult to see how a sports governing body or federation can deal with such an individual. On the one hand they have to keep some kind of control over their sport; on the other, they don’t want to ban or drive away one of their most valuable assets.

Football clubs and some other professional sports are all too aware of the temptations on offer to suddenly wealthy and famous young men. Good coaches act as mentors and may have a parental-type role but at some point the athletes have to take responsibility for their own actions, particularly away from sports competition.

Governing bodies, further removed from the daily lives of the athletes, have limited options. They will probably be criticised for being too lenient, too stringent, or for exploiting players, thus exacerbating the problem. Of course, their jurisdiction is also restricted to what goes on in and around their sport.

In my view, two broad principles apply for governing bodies. Firstly, they should ensure that the demands they make of young athletes do not amount to exploitation. Secondly, there must be support to encourage rehabilitation after an offence has been committed.

Unfortunately, even fair rules and well-intentioned administrators won’t always be enough to prevent maverick individuals from self-destructing and in the end it may not be the governing body that pays the price.

The main victim of Alex Higgins’ behaviour was the man himself.

Only four teams remain in contention for the FIFA World Cup. Of the other 28 who qualified for the final tournament, a number have gone home in disgrace while others have merely disappointed.

The mathematical reality of the World Cup is that the supporters of only one team can be truly happy at the end. In most World Cup tournaments there is one team that reaches the semi-final unexpectedly and goes home as heroes. This time it could be Uruguay (not that I’m ruling them out). And then there is often a team which makes it through to the knock-out stages, exceeding expectations. Slovakia fits the bill, who defeated defending champions Italy.

Before the tournament starts it is natural for all of the teams to be optimistic because they have all had some good results in qualifying and, as we all know, it’s not always the best team that wins.

However, a quick glance at the world rankings serves as a reminder of the form.

Teams which under-performed (eliminated at least one round earlier than world ranking in April 2010 would predict):
Brazil (1)
Portugal (3)
Italy (5)
France (9)
Greece (13)

Teams which over-performed (reached at least one round further than world ranking would predict):
Uruguay (16)
Ghana (32)
Republic of Korea (47)
Japan (45)

Leaving aside the question of the reliability of the rankings themselves, that means 23 out of 32 teams performed more or less as expected.

Media criticism in some countries has been harsh (France – Libération, Italy - Gazzetta dello Sport, England – Daily Mail), while successful teams enjoy rather more positive coverage (Uruguay – Ovación). It’s difficult to tell whether media coverage mainly reflects public opinion or leads it when teams are eliminated but it seems intuitively probable that journalists are guilty of building up hopes to unrealistic levels in many countries ahead of the tournament.

The frustrating truth is that the supporters of about 29 out of 32 teams will feel let down, whatever happens. It may be that your team in particular lost out only because of a cross-bar or a refereeing decision but that doesn’t change the bigger picture.

Sponsors can dare to hope, along with the rest of us, but they also need to recognise that their financial and emotional investments are highly risky. Unless you’re German, of course.

On Sunday 2 May, British newspaper the News of the World published an exclusive story about 2009 World Snooker Champion John Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney seemingly accepting an offer of payments in return for deliberately losing frames in future tournaments.

The video evidence looks bad – John Higgins suggests ways that a payment could reach him without raising suspicions – and the allegations are very damaging for a professional sport that has suffered a significant decline in recent years. However, it is worth considering briefly how the alleged deal came about.

According to the news article, the undercover reporters initially lured John Higgins and his manager to Kiev to talk about the wholly legitimate World Snooker Series. Higgins and his manager, who deny the allegations, say that they felt intimidated by the situation in which they found themselves and believed the safest approach was to go along with the deal. The newspaper claims to have raised the issue of match-fixing with Pat Mooney at previous meetings and promises more revelations next week.

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association is conducting an investigation and there may be other enquiries as well so it is too early to draw full conclusions but for the moment it looks as if the undercover reporters have created a scandal, not necessarily exposed one. It will be interesting to see if the conduct of the reporters is scrutinised as thoroughly as that of Higgins and Mooney.

Gambling has been inextricably linked to sport for at least 200 years but the industry has grown enormously since the 1980s. In fact, onling betting company Betfred.com took on the title sponsorship of the World Snooker Championships last year in a four year deal.

Although betting and sport can and do co-exist without any problems, the risks posed by the industry to the integrity of sport are undeniable. According to an article in The Independent last year, industry watchdog the Gambling Commission has investigated numerous cases of alleged match-fixing and illegal betting relating to British sporting events. Around the world evidence of match-fixing has been uncovered in a number of professional sports, including football, tennis, baseball and cricket.  

Whether the News of the World investigation helps or hinders the work that governing bodies and the betting industry are doing to tackle the problem is a matter of opinion but spare a thought for Neil Robertson and Graeme Dott, whose battle to reach the final of the 2010 Betfred.com World Snooker Championships has been completely over-shadowed.

The launch of the much anticipated Apple iPad could have great significance for the future of the sports media but it remains to be seen how fast and fundamental the impacts will be.

Apple intends the device, which has received generally favourable reviews, to create a third category of mobile device between a laptop and a smart phone, moving beyond the e-book readers available from Amazon, Sony and others. While the potential benefits for some are apparent - think easy access to news and e-mail for train commuters - it is inevitably a gamble to try to create a new niche.

If the iPad and similar devices become popular, here are some potential impacts on sports media in the UK and beyond:

1) Major boost for live streaming and online video highlights of sports events. Both have been around for some years but most people prefer to watch on TV if they can. The iPad could change that.

2) Increased audiences for independently produced sports footage. Rightsholders already sometimes offer video footage of sports events to newspaper websites, particularly when mainstream broadcasters have declined to cover them. If audiences for online sports videos increase, it could be good news for minority sports because the cost of embedding existing video in online media is low. However, increased choice for consumers also means increased competition for eyeballs.  

3) Increased emphasis on live coverage (including text updates and still images) and previews rather than long post-match reviews. The change could come about because more people will be able to follow events as they happen and readers/viewers may have less interest in reviews published hours later.

4) Enhanced use of statistical analysis. Data such as that provided by CricInfo could be displayed in a more dynamic way alongside video than is currently practical with TV and print media. This could be particularly significant for the sports betting industry.

5) Merging of sports news operations. If newspaper sales continue to dwindle and more people access news online it may be practical for news providers to merge their online sports sections, even if they maintain separate identities for news and comment. All news providers and advertisers will be watching with interest to see how many paying subscribers The Times in the UK attracts when it restricts access later this year and how its content evolves. 

6) Launch of new, paid-for online sports magazines. They have been tried before and have generally struggled but if consumers start paying for online news in large numbers there are sure to be new attempts to create a specialist service. One possible strategy would be to set different levels of subscription depending on which sports or competitions are covered, which is much easier online than in print or broadcast.

In summary, the transition from print, TV and radio coverage of sport to multi-media online coverage has been happening for years and will continue. The arrival of Apple’s iPad and its rivals could speed up that transition but the outcome is far from certain and there are likely to be casualties along the way.

Now, the important question: when can I get one?

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games are over but the winter sport season goes on. Athletes, officials and fans could be forgiven for feeling a degree of event fatigue at this point in the season.

The first athletes to return to work were the ice hockey professionals of the NHL, who barely had time to pause for breath before resuming competition about 48 hours after the climactic gold medal match between Canada and the USA. Events to take place in the coming weeks include the World Figure Skating Championships, the World Allround Speed Skating Championships and numerous World Cups in such sports as biathlon and cross-country skiing.

For those athletes who have enjoyed success and are still hungry to compete, there is an opportunity to bask in adulation for a few more weeks. Some of those who missed out narrowly in Vancouver will be seeking revenge but others will struggle for motivation or perhaps even withdraw. Meanwhile, event organisers and rightsholders may find it difficult to attract media and public attention unless they have Olympic stars involved.

International sport is generally based around four year Olympic cycles partly because the profile of the Games is significantly higher than any of the individual World Championships. Several of the winter sports reduce their schedule in an Olympic season but they face a dilemma because they also want to maintain visibility and showcase their new heroes straight after the Games. Event bidders have learned that a championship held soon after the Olympic Games is likely to be missing some of the biggest names. In contrast, a major championship a year earlier is particularly appealing because all the leading contenders will want to show their best form and the event may count towards Olympic qualification. It may also be held as a test event in the Oympic venue.

In short, the post-Olympic anti-climax is an inevitable consequence of the four year cycle. There is no easy answer for athletes, federations and event organisers: if there are no more events after the Games then the sport is virtually forgotten until the next season; however, any events that do take place will seem lacking in one way or another. 

Homecoming parades and media attention will distract the most successful athletes, at least for a while. Those whose dreams did not come true will have more time to consider their return to the international competition circuit. Such is the harsh reality of international sport.

One of the intriguing stories of this year’s Australian Open tennis, which is getting underway in Melbourne, is the comeback of Belgian stars Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

The 26 year-old Clijsters retired from tennis for two years, during which time she had a baby, before returning in spectacular form last summer to win the US Open. Henin, a year older, played her first competitive tournament for 18 months in Brisbane in the first week of January. Fittingly, Henin made it through to the final before losing a close match against Clijsters. Both women are former world number ones and Henin won the Australian Open in 2004. Few would bet against either of them winning more Grand Slams. 

The comeback is one of the classic narratives of sport, familiar particularly in individual sports such as boxing (Muhammad Ali is the most famous of many), but also sometimes in team sports (for example, Michael Jordan in basketball). Cyclist Lance Armstrong was a high profile returnee in 2009.

Motivations for returning to top-class sport vary: hunger for competition and the limelight; a sense of unfulfilled potential; recovery from injury; desire to prove the doubters wrong; a need for money. Success on comeback often seems to depend on age and fitness. Clijsters and Henin both have age on their side and their respective retirements were linked more to mental tiredness than creaking bodies. Justine Henin was surely influenced by the instant success her former rival enjoyed on her return to a women’s game that, apart from Caroline Wozniacki, is still dominated by the same players as it was five years ago. 

Some unfortunate athletes are deluded or return as a result of manipulation but for others comebacks can bring many benefits. Returning athletes sometimes gain sentimental support from fans who were less enthusiastic in their earlier career and players often talk about being more relaxed or level-headed after time away from the sport. For media, comebacks of course provide a great story. If either Kim Clijsters or Justine Henin reaches the semi-finals of this year’s Australian Open it will be much bigger news than it would have been five years ago.

For other significant comebacks this week, look out for 2006 Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko and former World Champion Stéphane Lambiel at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships in Estonia. Neither could resist the challenge of another Olympic campaign. Win or lose it will be a great story: the comeback is here to stay.

The terrifying attack on the Togo football team in Angola yesterday has been the lead item on the BBC News for some hours. Their bus driver was killed and several players were injured among the squad, which is in Angola for the African Cup of Nations. 

Inevitably there have been calls for teams to withdraw following the attack by the heavily armed rebel group and it remains to be seen to what extent the tournament will be affected. Terrorist attacks on sports events (such as the recent suicide bombing at a volleyball match in Pakistan and an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team), provoke particular outrage because we expect sport to be a fun diversion from the troubles of the world but also because the athletes are familiar to us.

Togo’s captain and star, Emmanuel Adebayor, who plays for Manchester City, is well-known to football fans around the world and gave a dignified interview in the aftermath of the attack. His involvement has undoubtedly raised the profile of the incident, which might otherwise have been a minor news item. 

Due to the global nature of modern sport, fans get to watch and admire athletes from countries that rarely feature in international news stories. For example, 800m runner Maria Mutola is the most famous person from Mozambique and sprinter Kim Collins raised awareness of St Kitts and Nevis. 

The familiarity of successful athletes makes their homelands seem less distant and obscure. A violent attack on a football team from a country which few people from outside Africa could place on a map therefore shocks us because we feel as if we know one of the people involved personally.   

This power of sport to make far off lands and peoples more familiar is very significant and can have the positive effect of increasing tolerance and understanding. Unfortunately, in this case the increased profile that Emmanuel Adebayor brings to the Togo team has had a different result: it has made them targets for terrorists seeking publicity.

With the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games just a few weeks away, athletes in several winter sports are facing selection trials. After training and competing hard for many years, athletes have to overcome one last barrier to achieve the ambition of a lifetime.

The Olympic qualification process is necessarily complicated. The number of participants is generally capped for each discipline (for example, 12 men’s ice hockey teams, each with a squad of 23) to enable the international federations to schedule the competitions and the organising committee to plan accommodation and transport. Each international federation seeks to give the leading contenders a fair chance but they also allocate places to athletes from countries and regions where their sport is less developed. As a result, the fifth fastest skier from a leading country will often lose out to a lesser-ranked skier from another part of the world, who benefits from the qualification rules.

As sports and disciplines evolve, international federations try to adjust their quotas but, due to competing demands, there are sure to be some who are disappointed. Ahead of the Vancouver Games there has been a long and ultimately unsuccessful campaign by women ski jumpers to gain entry to Olympic competition for the first time. However, the campaign has not been in vain as there may well be a women’s ski jump competition in Sochi in 2014.  

For many of the sports and disciplines, including ice hockey, figure skating and short track, it is the national teams that secure qualifying places rather than individuals. Individual athletes may therefore  compete in national trials to claim one of the spots on the team. A few outstanding competitors have only to produce their regular form to qualify while many others chase that one last place in the squad, hoping for their best ever performance which will get them on the plane to Vancouver.

In a few cases these are high profile, televised events such as the AT&T US Figure Skating Championships which start on 14 January. More often, however, athletes’ dreams are fulfilled or broken at national championships or World Cup events in front of a sparse crowd, where only family, friends and fellow competitors realise what is at stake. “News in brief” entries in the sports media record the successful names but say little about those who missed out.

Even for those who qualify, there is a risk of injury in the tense final days and weeks of preparation: travelling at high speed over snow and ice involves inevitable dangers. A handful of athletes on the reserve list will ultimately benefit from the misfortune of others.

When you see athletes on the start line in Vancouver, remember the trials they have been through to get that far. And do spare a thought for those left behind.

Gareth Thomas, the most-capped player in Welsh rugby union history, talked openly about his homosexuality in an interview with the Daily Mail on Saturday. He is the first famous rugby union player to do so, joining a handful of athletes from other sports in recent years.

Thomas, one of the legends of modern rugby, is close to the end of his playing career and says that he believes the time is right to be open because attitudes have changed. One of his objectives is to provide reassurance for young people who are going through the same emotional trauma that he did as a teenager. He has suffered a broken marriage and apparently contemplated suicide in his attempt to live a double life.

Following the publication of the interview, Thomas has received immediate backing from many in the rugby world and the media response has been universally sympathetic. Sir Clive Woodward, who appointed Gareth Thomas as captain during the British and Irish Lions Tour in 2005, told the BBC that the player’s sexuality was irrelevant to his achievements in rugby. Thomas himself reports that coaches and team-mates in whom he had confided were very supportive.

Like several other male team sports, including football and American football, rugby union has always had a macho, heterosexual reputation reinforced by a predominantly male fan base. In contrast to say entertainers and politicians, it has been completely taboo for players to talk openly about being gay. In fact there have been more sportswomen than men known publicly to be homosexual. One reason for this may be that the best known female athletes tend to come from individual rather than team sports, which have a very different audience.

Commentators in the Independent on Sunday suggest that it is the potential backlash from fans which prevents any gay footballers from speaking publicly rather than the response from their employers or team-mates. It seems more likely that a retired player or somebody close to the end of his career would go public than a younger player who is still making his way in the sport. Justin Fashanu, the only openly gay professional footballer, tragically committed suicide in 1998, eight years after making the revelation in a newspaper interview. 

Other athletes may now have the confidence to take the lead from Gareth Thomas having seen the positive public response, although it will of course depend on their personal circumstances. There will be a major news story when the first big name footballer says that he is gay but the media interest will surely diminish once a small number have spoken publicly.

Without wanting to trivialise what could be a very difficult emotional dilemma, there is a real opportunity in the next few days for a footballer to make headlines.