Merry Christmas From Sport Industry Group
With Santa making the final checks to his sleigh before it pulls onto the runway, Sport Industry Group takes a look at a few of the highlights (and lowlights) of 2014. The normal news service will resume on Monday 5th January.
Social Media
This summer the FIFA World Cup became the most talked about sporting event in online history, recording 673 million tweets during the tournament, 1 billion Facebook posts from over 350 million people, as well as 2.1 billion Google searches. Germany’s domination of Brazil in the semi-final saw 35.6 million tweets during the game, while the final recorded 35.1 million tweets with a spike of 618,725 messages of 140-character-gold a second when Germany’s Mario Gotze scored the winning goal.
Biggest goals of the tournament – from an online perspective – included Van Persie’s flying header against Spain in the opening game, Messi’s goal against Iran in the group stages, and James Rodriquez goal against Uruguay in the quarterfinals. England, meanwhile, lost out again.
Next up was the SuperBowl XLVIII, officially the second most talked about event of the year, and the most viewed SuperBowl in America in history. Some 111.5 million people tuned in to watch the Seattle Seahawks defeat the Denver Broncos. Over 24.9 million tweets were sent out throughout the game, with a spike at 381,605 tweets per second.
Completing the top three was the Sochi Winter Olympics, which generated 54 million tweets throughout the Games, with 10 million tweets sent out during the opening ceremony and 25 million sent during the closing ceremony.
The Ryder Cup saw Team Europe defend their title on the course, while Team USA also took a beating online – with the contest securing 771,000 mentions on twitter, although @RyderCupUSA has remained somewhat silent ever since.
Ryder Cup hosts, the European Tour, were also busy online after investing heavily in on-course wifi, boasting 17,000 concurrent users of the public wifi on the Saturday.
The success continued on the greens throughout the year, with Rory McIlroy claiming The Open Championship and PGA Championship to add to his 2011 US Open Major.
Elsewhere, this year’s Commonwealth Games revitalised the City of Glasgow, two Australian athletes were photo bombed by the Queen, Unicef used the Opening Ceremony as a platform to raise almost £5 million ahead of a competition that saw over 3.3 million tweets sent over the 11 days.
Controversies
There were certainly some controversies over the last twelve months, Nicolas Anelka kicked us off last season with his ‘quenelle’ gesture, Dani Alves took a unique stance to a fan throwing a banana at him by taking a novel potassium-fuelled hit before a corner.
Yannick Sagbo and Benoit Assou-Ekotto were charged with improper conduct for social media posts appearing to support Anelka’s gesture, while Rio Ferdinand was banned after calling someone’s mum something rude (no, we have no idea what it meant either) on twitter.
Then there was Mario Balotelli.
Meanwhile, Malky Mackay lost out on a potential Crystal Palace role after text messages came to light from during his time at Cardiff, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life after being caught on tape revealing his ‘views’ on the world.
Louis Suarez bit someone (again) and remember Newcastle boss’ Alan Pardew’s headbutt?
As for the cricket field, Kevin Pietersen continues to find himself on the back pages despite his central contract being terminated a full 11 months ago.
While the result of their first clash was somewhat controversial, the rematch between Carl Froch and George Groves at Wembley was less disputed. The richest fight in British history was officially the most popular sporting event of 2014, according to viagogo, outstripping the Rugby World Cup and Murray-mania at Wimbledon.
Retirements
It is not often a sport bids farewell to a true great, in 2014 rugby said goodbye to two on 31st May.
First, Brian O’Driscoll bowed out of rugby with a final appearance for Leinster – apparently celebrating with a takeaway pizza, a Coke and a Toblerone.
Not to be outdone, Jonny Wilkinson finally gave his body a rest signing off in the most apt of circumstances – leading his Toulon side to a Heineken Cup and Top 14 title with his final two games.
Both will continue to battle it out off-the-field after signing separate deals with BT Sport and Sky Sports, respectively.
Speaking of retiring Rugby World Cup heroes, England women secured their first World Cup for 20 years with a 21-9 victory over Canada in August. Since then, a number of the squad have called it a day including Maggie Alphonsi, Joanna McGilchrist, Katherine Merchant, Sophie Hemming and Rebecca Essex.
After some World Cup moonlighting with the BBC, Thierry Henry swapped the football pitch for the Sky Sports sofa – finishing a career with as many league goals as Frank Lampard, who sort of waved farewell to the Premier League by signing for the newly created New York City FC. And then came back a few weeks later.
His international midfield partner (whether they liked it or not) Steven Gerrard also hung up his England boots after completing a winless World Cup campaign.
There’s even some fresh speculation that ‘secret talks’ have been taking place between FIFA officials and Sepp Blatter about the future of the president of football’s governing body. Will he be standing next year?
On a more positive note for international bodies, IOC president Thomas Bach saw all 40 of his Agenda 2020 recommendations approved, which will see an overhaul in the structure of the Olympic programme over the next few years.
Big deals
Following months of speculation, adidas finally confirmed a record £750 million, 10-year deal with Manchester United to replace Nike from the end of the season, while shirt sponsor Chevrolet agreed a deal worth a reported £53 million a year – more than a quarter of all Premier League shirt sponsorship deals combined.
Puma also stated their intentions in the football world by becoming the official kit partner of Arsenal FC, in a five-year deal worth around £30 million a year.
After even more speculation, false dawns, breakaway deals and media right fights, the Heineken Cup was finally reinvented as The European Rugby Champions Cup – with Sky Sports and BT Sport sharing rights to the inaugural continental competition – while in tennis, Perform signed a new ten-year media agreement with the WTA worth over half a million dollars.
Formula One was under the microscope once again after new look cars mixed up the pack that saw Lewis Hamilton claim his second World Championship – while supremo Bernie Ecclestone returned to the F1 commercial board after paying £60m to end a court case in Germany.
In Yorkshire, 2.5 million spectators lined the route of the opening two days of the Tour de France, which race’s organisers hailed ‘the grandest’ Grand Depart of all time.
Sport Industry Group
This summer the Sport Industry Group relaunched its new look website, complete with an exciting new Cutting Edge Sport hub, as well as The Cutting Edge Sport Award, celebrating the best in progressive thought, invention, innovation and digital engagement in sport.
Entries for the BT Sport Industry Awards also rose by 30% compared with last year, representing the calibre of work from the UK industry. You can join us on 30th April by booking your table today.
Once again, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at the Sport Industry Group.
