Jed Moore: 54 Ready To Embrace Fast-changing Sports Landscape

54 Group CEO, Jed Moore

Sport has always been an illustration of the times we live in. It simultaneously creates and reflects culture. It exists at the edge of societal and technological advancement, and often stretches what we believe human capability to be. In some instances, it stretches the nature of possibility itself.

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In a world saturated by content, sport remains distinct in its ability to generate instant, raw emotion, and as a catalyst for affinity, love, despair and belonging. Your team is your tribe, your first real love and central to your sense of self.

It is no surprise, then, that private equity has long doubled down at the periphery of sport and in the functions that support it; media companies, OEMs and sports betting have enjoyed the attention of PE for some time.

What has changed, however, is direct investment into the players at the heart of sport. Franchises and federations. Rights holders and competitions. Sustained by sport’s consistent ability to capture and connect with audiences, investors are now realising the safe harbour provided by docking at sport’s epicentre.

Under the influence of growing private equity involvement, ambition and capability, a rapidly evolving technological landscape, the arrival into adulthood of digital natives and ever-more-avid worship at the altar of data, the sector is positioned to capture value in unprecedented ways. But this doesn’t mean success for all its players.  We all play by Darwin’s rules.

Agencies, then, have a greater opportunity than ever to show value. Tapped in at more junctures across the value chain than most, it is our responsibility to see around corners, to predict what’s coming, to avoid pitfalls and to move more nimbly than our clients may be able to.

No longer is it good enough to be able to stage a great event, produce branded content or develop wide-reaching comms. Agencies are, by necessity, becoming more involved in upstream advisory because of the diversifying commercial landscape and the need for positive impact. More tech means more revenue potential and more DIY monetisation for rights holders, but it also means that more specialist skillsets are required in more chairs of decision making.

The best agencies are gaining a more agile understanding of existing and prospective fanbases, a bespoke knowledge of sports commerce and are able to demonstrate how sustainable full value capture can be; more than big consultancy has traditionally offered, with its rapid project turnover and execution at a pan-industrial level.  

We’ve been fortunate enough, in collaboration with many of our clients who number among the most ambitious innovators in sport, to see these new requirements being obliged of industry actors for quite some time. Sport can do more, and so it has to do more, by taking a more sophisticated stance on the meaning of ROI, which must transcend mere finances.

In our previous incarnation, as Performance54, golf was one of our main domains, and so it came to be that we helped reimagine the golfing landscape in the form of LIV Golf, unsealing value in the sport by taking a clean sheet of paper and asking: ‘What if it could work better for more parties, fans included? What if we followed the PE lead and pushed at the edges of this sport?’

The concept has robustly navigated political brickbats to produce a seismic shift in a game right now enjoying its healthiest period at a grassroots level in decades.  

Having come through this process enlightened, emboldened and inspired by the power that sport can yield when leveraged correctly, we have now rebranded as simply, ‘54’. It’s a number that, in some language groups, means ‘never-say-die’ and, in respect of the company’s origins and a so-called ‘perfect round of golf’, is a metaphor for our pursuit of perfection.

Emboldened by increasing desire from rights holders, governing bodies, brands and investors with a shared belief in the need to adapt and unlock the power of sport, we’ve experienced significant growth to meet these demands. With this mandate, we now present 54 as proudly delivering for clients across the value chain in Strategic Advisory, Asset Optimisation, plus Activation and Engagement.

Beyond this growth, for us, our rebrand as 54 is a reminder to never stop pushing at the edges of what, by convention, we may think to be true in search of more impact for more people. It’s a reminder that this gift of sport has, itself, got a lot more giving to do if wielded properly.

If we were not in the business of sport, you might think that nothing more than lip-service to a vague idea of progress.

But, as occupants within the house of sport, we’re surrounded by proof of the old adage: it always seems impossible until it’s done. And, given the potential rewards tantalized by boundary-pushing within our industry, use of the ‘I’-word in these times seems increasingly unwise.

Exciting times lie ahead.