Blog: Sport.

While professional sports clubs and associations are utilising the free time of their stars to engage with fans while sport is on-hold (see my previous blog), many are now adapting to provide some sort of competition and whet the appetite of the action-starved sporting public before normality is restored. I’ve highlighted my favourites and will […]

Whilst sporting life as we know it cannot continue, professional sports teams and associations have been engaging with fans to help take their minds away from the current troubles, if only for a moment, and use the influence their players provide to drive home the #stayhome messaging. I’ve created a top five, from professional teams […]

I love horse racing. Specifically, I love the jumps. Why? No single motivation, but instead I’m drawn by its uniquely magnetic combination of the thrill of betting, being outside and enjoying the countryside, socialising, eating, drinking and dressing up. A major highlight of jumps each year is the Aintree Festival and its showpiece, the Grand […]

Technological advancements in sport are guaranteed just as much as death and taxes. Nike has recently found that improvements can possibly go too far and put noses seriously out of joint! While the annual F1 tech debate arises annually when a cluster of teams significantly outgun the rest, the debate in the legality of the […]

When we set up Performance, it was easy to decide our areas of specialism – Sport and Automotive – because they stirred our soul. Work was to be fun, and what better way to guarantee that than eliminate the chaff from the start. Some 17 years later we have this week added a third specialism, […]

The first race of the F1 season came and went and I’ve seen, heard and read very little about it. As a kid and lifelong car nut, I used to watch every race religiously. I’d even perch on the uncomfortable chairs in our dining room for two hours to watch races on a 12-inch black […]

Peter Ganney describes the regional communications market as “highly competitive”, but says “the deck isn’t stacked against the ‘little guys’”. “When it comes to new business pitches, we usually find ourselves in the final stages up against the big global agencies and sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t. It can be a challenge for a […]

It’s the Super Bowl LIII this weekend.  One of the most watched annual sporting events in the world, surpassed only by the UEFA Champions League final. With tickets costing between $2,500 and $3,000, fans expect to be entertained off the field as well as on the field. And they get it. Music, fireworks, million dollar […]

In 2016, our Future of the Sports Fan report identified eight key trends that would shape the next few years for fans – both the evolution of the fan experience and fan communities. Comprising interviews with rights holders, brands, academics and industry experts, the study was not designed as an exercise in future gazing but instead […]

Some call the game of football ‘the language of the world’; it connects more people together than any other spoken language. Nevertheless, the culture of the sport differs from one place to another. Fans in Europe associate it with groups of friends, beer and bars. In Egypt it’s known for Shisha and outdoor screening of […]

It’s likely you’ve been living under a rock this week if you’ve not heard about the announcement of the W Series to both backlash and backing from those in and out of the industry. What’s the fuss about? Wednesday’s announcement stated that the female-only racing championship had the aim of getting female drivers into a […]

While I’m still recovering from the drama of Alistair Cook’s final test match and a 10 hour T20 Blast finals day TV marathon, a new format of cricket is readying itself for inclusion in the English cricketing summer. Last year the ECB, in an effort to widen the appeal of cricket, went back to the […]

Rugby Union. A sport steeped in history and tradition. However it could be this tradition that has held the game back. In terms of club sizes, pay packages and TV viewing figures, it significantly lags behind other mainstream UK sports such as football, tennis or cricket. The game only turned professional in 1995 and some […]

I love golf. I’m not alone. There are loads of us – it’s the eighth most popular sport in the world, after all. That’s why it was so disappointing to see one of the game’s great events – the US PGA Championship – mired in broadcasting controversy. Some might consider it the lesser of the […]

Historically Test cricket has been the pinnacle of the sport. However in recent years the game has failed to engage younger fans in the same way white ball cricket has. Having worked at Lords myself, I’ve witnessed the sell-out T20 Blast matches in comparison to the nearly empty county championship matches. The viewership figures for […]

We regularly use a host of insight tools when planning our campaigns but this week, I wanted to use Google Trends to track the rise – and fall – of interest in the England football team. In the past 48 hours, interest in the World Cup came to an abrupt end for England fans. Meanwhile […]

So England is out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. But we came close and there are a lot of positives we can take from the tournament. There are plenty of pundits giving their opinion on England’s on-pitch performance but this article looks at how the team and the FA performed off the pitch, from […]

At Performance we have the full spectrum of F1 fans. From the full-on watch-every-weekend addicts to those who probably couldn’t name more than two drivers (and this is probably more down to Lewis Hamilton’s latest haircut or social media gaff than his driving). But what do they make of this season so far? We take […]

For decades, businesses have refreshed logos, straplines and more recently websites. Sporting teams have done it too over the years, some to greater success than others. However sport evokes a passion in people that most companies can only dream of. So from something as simple as redesigning a club badge to changing a club name, […]

8th March was International Women’s Day. Some brands saw it as a way to do something that would empower and inspire women while some saw it as an opportunity to do something to get attention, no matter what. Some, like Mattel with its Inspiring Women collection, did it to great success. Others, like Brew Dog to […]

The PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games have now finished but it’s not all over as the Paralympics kick off on 9th March. I love watching the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. I first got the bug eight years ago when I was lucky enough to go to Vancouver 2010 with my former employer and global Olympic […]