The women’s game, immersive fan experiences and content commerce is the future of Sport

In his latest View From Asia column, Unmish Parthasarathi, the Singapore-based Founder of Picture Board Partners, the Strategy, Innovation & Venture Development boutique, shares insights from an event earlier this month at the intersection of Sports, Technology and Finance.

On 11th April, I had the privilege of hosting the second STF (Sport, Tech, Finance) Asia Leadership Dialogue – a private forum of decision makers from the worlds of Sport, Technology, Media, Finance, and, Government – at the Singapore Cricket Club, in association with the Professional Triathletes Organisation, on the eve of their first T100 Asia Race on the Marina. 

The 100-strong audience was treated to an insightful day listening to, and networking with, over two dozen speakers from London, Madrid, Dubai, Johannesburg, Seoul, Hong Kong, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur besides local representation from the Lion City – that remain the hub of Asia. 

The event theme “Connecting Content, Code & Capital to Engage The Gen-Z Fan” provided many answers and even posed some questions to the invite-only gathering. The following were my #TopTwentyTakeaways from six panels, three case studies, and an After Dinner Chat with Joseph Schooling – Singapore’s first Olympic gold medalist who famously beat Michael Phelps at Rio 2016!

1. Siddharth Patel (Asia Managing Partner, CVC Capital and Board Member, Gujarat Titans) spoke about the value of Sport in aggregating passion, at scale, gives its centrality to popular culture for the masses 

2. Nikhil Bahel (Managing Partners, Elysian Park Ventures) celebrated Sport as the last bastion of appointment to view content that enables value creation & capture to be scheduled around the Match Day window 

3. Matthew Wheeler (Founder & CEO, A&W Capital) located India as a forward indicator of what is Asia’s Decade as growing leisure for a young demographics boosts the growth of spectator and participant sports

4. Stirling Mortlock (CoFounder and CIO, VX Capital) cited Australia as the ideal lab where SportsTech companies can find their feet with a mix of innovation, insights and investment to then take on the world

5. Lawerence Duffy (Founder & CEO, Aurora Media Partners) shared how a next generation technology stack is enabling the omnichannel productisation of content at a speed and scale that’s unprecedented in the history of story telling in Sport

6. Anurag Dahiya (CCO, The International Cricket Council) looked into the future at how the women’s game and grassroots sport are the new foundations for future relevance – and hence growth – of Cricket

7. Erica Kerner (Global MD, Sponsorship & Events, Standard Chartered Bank) sensed a tipping point in the measurement of brand spends – from analogue metrics to behavioural & psychographic learnings

8. Javier Foncillas (Head of Commercial Partnerships, Dolby) shares how immersive experiences of sound and video allows promoters to bring the stadium to the fan – the reverse of a historical pattern 

9. Kelvin Watts explained the success of Rugby (Union) in South Africa with an emotional case study about Super Sport Schools in South Africa, an experience enabled by Pixellot’s computer vision tech. 

10. Mike Kerr (APAC MD, BeIN Sports) cited the concept of ‘concentrated engagement‘ as premium content and technology has combined to elevate Race Weekend experiences for Formula 1 fan across Asia

11. Mitch Hong (Chairman, Eclat Media and Group CEO SPOTV) shared how Sport is driving value for Pay-TV in markets such as Korea and Japan whilst recognising the challenges across SE Asia and Hong Kong. 

12. Yannick Colaco (CoFounder and CEO, FanCode) explained the thesis for the OTT first play in India that’s built a community that’s niche and deep and pioneered social commerce at the last Cricket World Cup 

13. Vikrant Mudaliar (CMO, Dream 11) was bullish about the growth of fantasy as an all-new genre that emerged as a larger revenue generator for federations over the last month and spoke about #WhatsNext

14. Sam Renouf (Founder and CEO of the Professional Triathletes Organisation) , and event host partner of #STFA24 explained the launch of Asia’s first T100 race on the Singapore Marina as part of a packed 2024 calendar 

15. David Franks (Chairman, The Protect Group) explained the concept of embedded insurance – a key feature to secure advance bookings by mitigating risk of cancellation tickets to major events for the punter and the player alike. 

16. Anthony Arena (Founder, Aura Platform) explained the concept of ‘orchestration’, as a the magic sauce that’s urgently needed to enable personalisation at scale that’s table stakes to engage the Gen-Z fan segment  

17. Iris Cordoba (General Manager, of the Global Sports Innovation Center Powered by Microsoft)explained how an ecosystem is being built using problem statement to drive innovation; it takes a village!!

18. Mark Chay (Chief Development Officer, Global Esports Federation) and a former Olympic swimmer who flew the Singapore flag at Sydney & Athens, celebrated Sport’s adoption of Gaming as a vital way to remain relevant to the next generation of Fandom!

19. Simon Davis (Founder CEO, Mighty Bear Games) shared a research trip to Las Vegas where he saw young punters consuming five discrete, yet complementary, content items simultaneously – it’s the North Star for Sport! 

20. Last, but nowhere the least, the recently retired Joseph Schooling shared his plans to launch a Sports Fund that will capitalise on opportunities in wellness and fitness – in Asia and beyond! 

The author can be contacted at unmish@pictureboard.asia