Industry Shorts: Formula 1, Adidas, Goodform Group
Formula 1 has announced the provisional calendar for its 2021 season, which will include a record 23 races, but has also seen its Vietnam race dropped.
The inaugural Vietnamese Grand Prix was scheduled to take place in 2020, but was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, however it has not been included in the provisional 2021 calendar, with a late-April 2021 date simply reading ‘TBC’.
The 2021 F1 season will start in Australia in mid-March and finish in Abu Dhabi in early December. It will also feature the first-ever race in Saudi Arabia, which was announced last week and will take place in Jeddah.
Adidas has launched a new at-home campaign centred around its GMR product – an insole that recognises the physical movements that players make in order to measure statistics like shot power, distance covered and speed.
The new campaign, fronted by Portugal and Atletico Madrid star Joao Felix, will challenge fans to compete against him in the Prove It with GMR shot power challenge – which will see fans measure their creativity and shot speed before posting on Instagram to take part in a daily global competition.
Adidas launched GMR in collaboration with EA SPORTS and Jacquard by Google in March 2020, and the new campaign will see fans win FIFA Mobile prizes for taking part over the next two weeks, as well as bigger rewards for those that finish in the top 20 overall.
The British & Irish Lions has appointed Goodform to drive fan growth and engagement ahead of the Tour to South Africa in 2021.
Next year’s tour will be the third consecutive Tour the sports data and insight agency will have supported the Lions on, and will provide an ‘always-on, in-depth’ understanding of fans through connecting data points, and using it to deliver targeted marketing campaigns across email and social media.
The news cements Goodform’s position within rugby of all codes, working with the Six Nations, Premiership Rugby and the Rugby League World Cup 2021 along with the Lions.
Evolution Media Capital (EMC), the merchant bank of CAA, has appointed James Elliott as its Head of Sports Media, EMEA.
EMC provides a range of traditional investment banking and strategic advisory services to organisations in sport and media, and has advised on more than $60 billion (£45.3 billion) in transactions for its clients since its inception in 2008.
In his new post, Elliott – who joins from Room9 Group, a consultancy he founded in 2017, having previously held leadership positions at Pitch International, The FA and UFC – will work closely with EMC Partner and Head of Sports Media Alan Gold to lead EMC’s media advisory work in the EMEA region.
Chelsea have become the first Premier League club to sign an official strategic partnership with Chinese digital platform Weibo.
The partnership will see the club deliver exclusive content to fans in China on a daily basis, as well as officially collaborating with the platform to ‘operate fan communities’, as well as work on creating new commercial and revenue models.
Chelsea was the fastest-growing European football club on Weibo in China last season, and has more than 8 million followers on the platform.
The Swimathon Foundation says its 2020 Swimathon event has raised over £1 million, which will support the work of Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie as well as promoting swimming’s role in health and wellbeing across the UK.
Over 18,000 swimmers took part in the Swimathon challenge, held virtually for the first time, collectively swimming over 19.5 million metres. Swimmers used the MySwimathon digital platform to swim in one session or across multiple days to accommodate the restrictions in place at swimming venues as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
AS Roma’s Chief Strategy Officer Paul Rogers has announced his departure from the club.
The news comes after the Serie A side changed ownership, with James Palotta selling the club to The Friedkin Group.
Rogers leaves the club after almost six years having joined from Liverpool in 2014.
