Rollercoaster Ride: FC Barcelona partner with PortAventura to design themed attractions 🎢
Rollercoaster Ride: FC Barcelona partner with PortAventura to design themed attractions 🎢
Plus Saudi Arabia launch the eSports World Cup, Overtime launch a women's basketball league, and Sports Pundit Social Club expands to New York City
Welcome to Sports Pundit, the sports business newsletter delivering industry news as fast as a Mohammed Shami yorker 🏏
In today’s email;
FC Barcelona partner with PortAventura 🎢
Saudi Arabia becomes home of esports 🎮
Overtime launch their first women’s league 🏀
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TOP STORY
Rollercoaster Ride: FC Barcelona partner with PortAventura to design themed attractions 🎢
FC Barcelona and PortAventura World, Catalonia's largest amusement park, have announced an interesting strategic alliance.
This partnership's inaugural project focuses on crafting immersive experiences at the upcoming Espai Barça, set to debut in November 2024 within the Spotify Camp Nou stadium.
This collaboration aligns seamlessly with FC Barcelona's strategic vision to diversify and expand its revenue streams within the entertainment sector.
The primary goal is to pioneer fresh, captivating entertainment experiences that harmonize with the new museum's narrative of FC Barcelona's rich history and its profound connection to the Catalan capital.
Additionally, this partnership extends its purview to international ventures.
The two entities are poised to explore the development of indoor entertainment spaces and the establishment of expansive amusement parks. These parks will encompass a wide array of attractions, dining establishments, retail outlets, museums, and live performances, all unified under the esteemed FC Barcelona brand.
Sports Pundit says
🤔 This collaboration not only reflects FC Barcelona's embrace of the multi-purpose stadium trend (see Tottenham Hotspur, Real Madrid, and Man City), but it also showcases how this intellectual property can then be thoughtfully extended into other markets.
However, the most distinctive aspect of this partnership is FC Barcelona's wise choice to collaborate with a local and already successful adventure park operator - PortAventura World, for context, drew 5.2 million visitors in 2022.
The mutual brand enhancement from this collaboration holds significant opportunity:
FC Barcelona gains association with a renowned theme park, broadening its appeal to a diverse audience whilst mitigating against operational risks (of actually having to run a theme park).
PortAventura positions itself alongside one of the world's most prestigious football clubs, enhancing its visibility and audience engagement on a global scale.
Having already partnered with Ferrari, the question is, what other IP from the world of sport and entertainment holds enough global appeal to do the same/ similar?
OPINION
How Saudi Arabia came to own esports 🤔
The World Cup is coming to Riyadh in 2024. The Esports World Cup, that is.
Aligning with Saudi Arabia's National Gaming and Esports Strategy, the competition is primed to offer the most substantial prize pool ever seen in the history of esports.
Over the past two years, the Kingdom has invested more than $8 billion in esports acquisitions and holds notable minority stakes in prominent game developers such as Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, and EA.
This latest move now makes their position within esports even more dominant, which James Torvaney (managing director, Pulse Sports) explains, is the result of both strategy and opportunity…
Video gaming has risen massively in popularity over the last few years, but competitive esports as an industry has struggled.
Money poured into the sector during the pandemic, based on lofty valuations and user growth forecasts, but nobody managed to monetise the sport, and the industry relied almost wholly on sponsorship revenues.
And when sponsors decided they weren’t seeing a good return on that investment, many of them left. [And] Investors soon followed...Since then, many esports companies have gone bankrupt, announced mass layoffs, or been forced to sell at fractions of their previous valuations (see FaZe Clan).
Most of the major events that remain are loss-making marketing tools for game developers such as Epic Games and Riot Games, who use them to drive awareness for games like Fortnite and League of Legends.
This lack of profitability and capital retreat is in large part what has allowed Saudi Arabia to swoop in.
HIGHLIGHTS
The World Rugby Council has approved a new aligned calendar, including a two-tier competition and expanded men's World Cup 🏉
Senegalese superstar Sadio Mané has completed the purchase of French club Bourges Foot 18 ⚽️
DAZN and Sky will keep the domestic rights to Serie A for the next five seasons after Italian clubs on Monday approved bids worth at least €4.5bn ($4.8bn) 📺
Apple is planning to revamp its TV app in a bid to become one of the leaders in the streaming aggregation space 🍏
Endeavor's largest shareholder, Silver Lake, says it is contemplating a bid to take the business private 👀
ICC Cricket World Cup group-stage match between India and Pakistan drew a peak concurrent viewership of 35 million on Disney Star’s OTT platform 🏏
OVER-TIME
Getting Selective: Overtime identifies Women’s Basketball as latest league endeavour 🏀
Overtime, the youth-focused digital media brand, is embarking on an exciting new venture: Overtime Select.
Announced earlier this week, the women's basketball league is scheduled to commence next year.
The move marks Overtime's latest endeavour in nurturing young sporting talent, further expanding its range of sports leagues tailored for emerging stars, which already includes OTE (men’s basketball), OT7 (seven-on-seven football), and OTX (boxing).
With a media platform boasting an impressive community of more than 85 million passionate fans and followers, Overtime intends to leverage this extensive reach to create unique opportunities for its Select players, helping these young athletes grow their personal brands before they head to college.
Building on its commitment to women's sports, Overtime previously introduced Overtime WBB, a dedicated social channel delivering engaging content for girls' and women's sports.
This latest initiative underlines Overtime's dedication to the next generation of female basketball stars and its mission to provide them with a prominent platform to showcase their talents and develop their personal brands.
Sports Pundit says
🤔 This development also aligns with the increased prominence of women's basketball in the US more broadly.
Notably, Caitlin Clark's Iowa recently drew an astonishing crowd of 55,646 spectators at Kinnick Stadium, marking a historic attendance record for a women's basketball game. Additionally, Angel Reese, another standout player within college basketball, has secured a significant NIL deal with Reebok, complementing her existing partnerships with prominent brands like Bose, Amazon, and Airbnb.
Let’s not also forget that the WNBA has achieved remarkable milestones in recent weeks, with the series-clinching Game 4 viewership reaching a peak of 1.3 million viewers. The entire series, which saw the Las Vegas Aces clinch the title, has garnered an average of over 728,000 viewers, making it the most-watched Finals in two decades.
The launch of Overtime's own female league is now set to amplify this existing momentum in women's basketball, creating fresh opportunities for female athletes as well as providing Overtime new avenues for media coverage and sponsorship. A smart move for all concerned.
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JOB BOARD
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Sporting Communications Manager - Formula E (London, UK)
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