Industry Shorts: Bolton, Euro 2020, Eurosport
Bolton Wanderers have appointed former Burnley CEO Neil Hart (pictured above) as their new CEO.
Hart left the Premier League side following the club’s takeover last year, but spent seven years at the club, including a spell in charge of its charitable arm Burnley in the Community.
He previously spent eight years at Watford, where he also ran the club’s community outreach programme, securing a single government grant of £4.2 million to build a state of the art community facility, as well as broadening the club’s community partnerships.
Ahead of the semi-finals and final of UEFA EURO 2020, adidas has revealed the UNIFORIA FINALE, which will be the Official Match Ball for the latter stages of the competition.
The ball includes new extra details which have been added in order to celebrate the location and the importance of the final three matches in the tournament, including a watermark of Wembley Stadium – which will play host to all three games – as well as an extra white print for a light appearance, helping the ball to stand out on the field of play.
These features are contrasted with signal green, red, cyan and pink brushstrokes, inspired by ‘iconic London symbols’ as well as traditional colours that sit against a dark background which represents the ‘London sky at night’, according to adidas.
Ahead of its Olympic Games coverage, Eurosport has announced record digital growth for the first half of 2021.
The broadcaster says its Eurosport.com site attracted more than 50 million unique visitors in June 2021, a figure which almost doubles the peak monthly users seen in 2020 and represents a 75% rise on its 2019 peak.
The milestone is also 19% higher than the peak in visitor numbers during 2018, despite the fact that the 2018 period featured an Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, as well as the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The growth in visitors was seen across the media outlet’s local sites, with France (+43%), Germany (+124%), Italy (+52%), and Spain (+25%) all seeing growth. However, Eurosport says the UK its best performing region, with a 232% increase in traffic from January to June 2021.
Sportswear brand Ellesse and streetwear brand Patta have teamed up to create a new community-based tennis tournament, ‘City Slam’, which aims to promote accessibility and inclusivity in the sport.
The tournament – which is part of a three-year partnership between the two brands – will showcase home-grown talent from a ‘diverse array of social backgrounds and inner-city areas’, and will take place on 18th July, a week after The Championships, Wimbledon.
The brands say they want to ‘change the perception of the game’ as well as provide young players a platform.
The two-part tournament, run by sporting charity Performance Plus Sport, will see 16 aspiring tennis players take part in a series of ‘Hot Shot’ games played in 10-minute intervals. The winning players will be awarded a one-year scholarship for individual training programmes funded by ellesse and Patta, as well as tennis equipment and kit
