SBD Global's Year In Review takes a look at some hits and misses from the past year.
HIT: The NFL experienced huge success in London in '15. All three games were sellouts and increased demand has raised the question of whether London will one day have its own franchise. Only time will determine that, but London will host the NFL for the foreseeable future. The league agreed to a five-year deal with Wembley Stadium which will see at least two games played there through ’20. The NFL also agreed to a 10-year deal with Tottenham to play two regular-season games a year at the club’s new stadium, set to open in ’18.
MISS: The sporting world was racked with scandal in '15, from FIFA officials receiving life-time bans to the IAAF banning Russia from int’l competition. Football’s world governing body has spiraled toward an embarrassing end of the year which includes U.S. prosecutors charging 41 officials with crimes ranging from bribery and corruption to money laundering. FIFA President Sepp Blatter and his one-time right-hand man UEFA President Michel Platini have both received eight-year bans for unethical behavior. The IAAF was accused of helping Russia cover up a system of state-sponsored doping, while Kenya’s athletics federation was also named in a doping scandal. Now IAAF President Sebastian Coe is charged with cleaning up the sport as his reputation has been called into question because of his close ties to Nike.
HIT: The Premier League blew the competition away, signing a TV rights deal with BT and Sky amounting to a record $7.8B. The deal was a 70.2% increase on the existing $3B, three-year domestic deal. The EPL also reached a three-year agreement with Chinese web entertainment portal LeTV worth a reported $400M. In response to the EPL’s TV deal prices, media analyst Claire Enders said, “The explosion in cost is so phenomenal there is no rational explanation.”
MISS: The only Formula 1 grand prix held in the U.S. saw attendances drop by more than 6,000 this year at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The event’s attendance has steadily dropped since its debut in ’12. Organizers blamed Mother Nature for the 13 inches of rain that fell between Friday and Saturday, pushing the qualifying to Sunday and keeping many fans from showing up at all. Those who did show up witnessed Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton clinch his third world championship. Yet, the race’s future is now up in the air since Texas Governor Greg Abbott decided to cut funding even after claiming that the race “pumps millions of dollars into our economy.”
HIT: The Rugby World Cup hosted by England was hailed as the “biggest and best of all time” by World Rugby CEO
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| Brett Gosper |
Brett Gosper. The tournament sold more than 2.8 million tickets and generated a profit of $247M. The event broke TV audience records across Europe, and was credited with helping ITV’s ad revenue swell 8% in the third quarter. Despite the host nation’s inability to exit the group stage, the tournament generated an estimated $1.5B for the U.K. economy.
MISS: BBC Sport saw its TV deals erode away after announcing a $228M budget cut this year. It had aired the Open Championship for more than half a century, but the free-to-air channel will no longer broadcast the 155-year-old competition starting in ‘16. The BBC opted to end its existing deal one year early, and left the door open for Sky to scoop up the tournament in a deal worth $22.7M. Cuts included the loss of the Australian Open and the Olympics beginning in ’22. The BBC also requested a renegotiated contract with F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone, who refused, leaving the BBC’s future in F1 in question as well.
HIT: Spain’s passing of the Real Decreto changed the face of how Spanish Football League (LFP) TV rights are regulated and spreads La Liga’s TV contract revenue evenly among clubs. Before the law, Real Madrid and Barcelona earned up to 10 times more TV revenue than the league’s lowest earning clubs. Now, the Real Decreto requires La Liga’s TV rights to be sold collectively, spreading 50% of revenue equally among clubs, with the other 50% distributed based on various criteria.
MISS: Hamburg, Germany had been one of four European cities bidding to host the 2024 Olympics, before the public rejected the idea in a referendum. According to the bid committee 51% of voters said "No" to having the country host the Games. An IOC spokesperson said that “Hamburg would miss about” $1.7B in IOC investment. Paris, Budapest and Rome remain as the potential hosts bidding for the Games, and have all since decided not to hold a referendum.
HIT: Beijing won the right to be the first city to host the Summer and Winter Olympics. The IOC decided the city's reputation for organization and reliability won them over and voted 44-40 in favor of the Chinese capital to host the 2022 Winter Games. While the selection is a huge success for China, the decision has come with criticism over the city's lack of snow as well as the country's human rights past.
MISS: The Japanese government announced in July that construction for the Tokyo Olympic Stadium would begin in October. Nearly six months later the city has scrapped the $2.1B design and replaced architect Zaha Hadid with Kengo Kuma. Rising costs and a tightening budget led to the decision to revamp plans surrounding the stadium, which is set to begin construction in Dec '16. The estimated cost of the new project is $1.2B.
