1) What other scribbles did I find in my New York notebook?
a) Is everyone talking about volleyball when discussing sports on the rise because they’ve heard everyone else saying it, or is volleyball just having a really great run? The sport – LOVB and Major League Volleyball in particular – was the quiet talk of the networking halls at SBJ's Tech Week last week.
b) An enjoyable chat with Mark Neifeld, Commissioner and CEO at the Sport Fishing Championship on the fringes of our Attention Seekers workshop. Founded five years ago, the SFC might have the best destination calendar in sport – Neifeld was fresh from an event in the Bahamas and this weekend is taking SFC to Charleston, where competition will take place aboard the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier as part of Carrier Weekend, marking America’s 250th anniversary.
c) A bullish Scott O’Neil on great form working the room during the Sports Business Awards preamble, as LIV Golf’s fundraising roadshow gets underway.
d) The Brooklyn Nets have strong links to China through ownership, but even so, team insiders have been surprised by the remarkable success of CheerNets, the talent TV show it ran in the country at the back end of last year in partnership with Tencent to find the first eight members of its new Brooklynettes China Team cheer squad. The viewership and engagement numbers are apparently eye-watering, and plans are afoot to repeat and potentially expand the concept.
2) Who do you know who’s top class?
Thinking caps on. You’ve got the rest of this week and next to submit an entry for this year’s Leaders Under 40 Class of 2026, our annual celebration and recognition of the industry’s rising stars. It’s a chance to join a remarkable alumni and, we know from the past 11 years, can play a real part in altering career paths. Here’s where to nominate someone, or indeed put yourself in contention - and here’s last year’s class, in case you’re looking for some inspiration (or want a first glance at your future boss). We’ll be announcing this year’s class over the summer and, as always, celebrating them – you? - during Leaders Week in October.
3) Who’ll be defying gravity this summer?
The final countdown to the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup is on in the UK, with the England & Wales Cricket Board, the International Cricket Council and domestic broadcast partner Sky Sports engaging in some admirably lateral thinking about how to attract and engage people to a tournament which will coincide with the men’s Fifa World Cup. The most eye-catching plan, hatched by outgoing ECB Tournament Director Beth Barrett-Wild and Sky Sports' Head of Commercial Partnerships Helen Foster, is for the cast of West End spectacular Wicked to perform hits from the show at Edgbaston, before England’s first game against Sri Lanka on 12th June, a tie-up which coincides with Wicked’s 20th anniversary in London. Meanwhile, the BBC is also throwing all its promotional muscle around its radio coverage of the tournament. In addition to the ball by ball coverage, there are plans for women’s cricket to be integrated across its programming and across genres through the likes of CBeebies Bedtime Stories, The One Show, Blue Peter, the BBC Bitesize education platform, Bargain Hunt, EastEnders, Women’s Hour and even a special episode of long-running radio soap opera The Archers. All demographics covered. If the tournament doesn’t capture the public’s imagination, it won’t be through lack of effort.
4) What does thoughtful, empathetic leadership look like?
I don’t know Steve O’Donnell, Nascar’s CEO. I’m certain he wouldn’t want any credit in such circumstances, but I was really struck by his human, transparent and thoughtful leadership when he addressed the media last Friday, in the hours after the shocking death of two-time Nascar Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, and again when he led an emotional pre-race commemoration at Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte.
5) Are commentary cams the next broadcast sponsorship opportunity?
There was a time, in the dim and distant past, where most sports commentators could go about their lives without being recognised. Those days are gone, and the trend for training cameras on commentators as they do their work, to generate clippable, sharable social content in the aftermath of the biggest, most dramatic moments, is here, it seems, to stay - Will Buxton and Townsend Bell’s goosebump-inducing call of the final lap of Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 is just the latest of many examples across all sorts of sports. As a sports broadcast geek, I’m all for it. If I was in charge of a commercial department at a sports broadcaster, I’d be eyeing it up as fertile sponsorship inventory.
6) What’s the collective term for a group of creators?
A gaggle? A school? A stream? It doesn’t really matter, but gathering a group of them to do what they do is now de rigueur for any self-regarding event organiser. The gang at World Sevens Football have 65 of them on the ground at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium, as the 7-a-side women’s football tournament lands in London this week. It’s part of the entertainment-infused mission for women’s football, described with gusto on the Worth Knowing podcast this week by Co-Founder and Investor Jennifer Mackesy and Angel City FC Founder Julie Uhrman, who is making her public debut this week as a Co-Founder of World Sevens.
7) How long does it take to make fundamental changes to a sport?
In 2021, seeking ways to modernise, the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) called on the Fantastic Four-style squad of sports industry superbrains - Peter Hutton, Michael Payne, Terrence Burns and David Hill. The mission was to solidify and try and futureproof modern pentathlon’s place as an Olympic sport. Such is the pace of change in governing bodies bound by firm and established structures and layered governance, it’s taken five years or so but this week that future may have been proofed with the UIPM agreeing a deal with Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, creator of the Sasuke/Ninja Warrior programme, which will see obstacle racing become a modern pentathlon discipline in time for LA 28.
