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Hangin' With ... SportQuake Founder & Chief Executive Officer Matt House

At the end of January, SportQuake announced its expansion into Asia with the opening of offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Founder & CEO MATT HOUSE started the London-based sports marketing agency 10 years ago, and has since seen the company engage in partnerships with Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool and Tottenham. House, who previously worked for Tottenham as the club’s commercial director, spoke with SBD Global about the agency’s expansion into Asia, targeting the Chinese Super League and the evolution of the industry.

On the inspiration to start SportQuake …
Matt House: I think there were a few different things there. Firstly, having worked at an ad agency and understanding how media with sports is sold and evaluated, I believed that the Premier League football platform was very much under-commercialized. It could be sold better. The majority of investment in football clubs -- and this is the case in the majority of sports, not just top flight football clubs -- focus is on the pitch or on the basketball court. And then the commercial and marketing pieces are slightly less higher prioritized. So I just felt that by getting involved in that, I could help articulate to potential partners the value of these properties better than they perhaps were being done. And we could help the club cover more ground than they could on their own because increasingly -- with the TV platform becoming more global, 200 markets around the world taking Premier League product -- the deals were coming from everywhere. I thought the inventory was undersold and that they weren’t reaching as many people as they could, because they had small teams. So I felt there was an opportunity there. It really has proved to be the case with the policies and business models that the pay-TV platforms have and the free-to-air broadcasters have with purchasing content. This last 15 years or so has been huge growth as you’re aware. The more these people spend on these rights, the more they need to promote them, which in turn turns people on to the Premier League and other football leagues as something interesting to watch and something interesting to have an opinion on. And as a result, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, they become something that advertisers want to target. Those are the reasons why I set up SportQuake. … It’s been an interesting ride the last 10 years.

On the company’s goals for its Asia expansion …
House: At a very topline level it’s very simple: we’re looking to do more west-east transactions and more east-west transactions. We think there are a number of brands we know that we can take into the CSL. And likewise, we think that we have identified a number of corporations in China that we can bring into European football. … By using our insight, research and our data, our goal is to get more companies, and get new companies engaging with the Super League than is currently the case. We’re not out there to steal current agencies’ business, we’re looking to grow the market.

On SportQuake’s target market in Asia …
House: The big sport out there is the Super League, Chinese football, so obviously the national team is very popular. You have the CBA, the Chinese Basketball Association, and you have a very strong showing with all of the track and field events, some stronger than others. There’s a massive demand for table tennis and badminton, but really, our focus is soccer.

On the challenges that come with expansion …
House: I’ve been in football for a long time now, so I’ve been commercializing football for 17 years. I think that the football industry is a fairly similar structure in China to what it is in Europe. Of course there are some differences. Football is a very cash-hungry business. Football clubs are always interested in speaking to guys like me who can help them generate partnerships and revenues and so forth. In terms of what the main challenges are and the main challenges that we face on all fronts, it is identifying the best talent to get the work done quickly and effectively. Opening an office in Hong Kong is pretty straight-forward. They’ve got many similarities with setting up business in the U.K., similar laws due to the whole situation that it used to be a colony.

On the competitiveness of the market ...
House: I think, generally speaking, in terms of competition you’ve got big global agencies like IMG, then you’ve got smaller agencies who are trying to be global like Wasserman -- they’re both American corporations. I’m a Londoner, we’re looking to do things slightly differently. All of the key people in our operation in China will be Chinese. Understanding cultural norms and local customs is very important and we understand our position in the structures and society over there. … We’re not just looking to be out there being another white-faced corporation. We’re looking to work with the next corporation of Chinese businesses. We want to differentiate in that way from our western competitors. In terms of the competition in the local market, infrastructure is not dissimilar from what we’re used to in Europe. There are good agencies out there servicing the CSL, but we believe, as we have in Europe, we’re trying to grow the market. We’re not interested at the moment in just taking market share of one of our rivals. Our view is that we can grow this market massively. We’ve grown the market and brought new sectors on in Europe, and we believe that we can do the same in China.

On the evolution of the industry …
House: I think, quite rightly, the football clubs are all focused on on-the-pitch activity, because I think if you can get the on-the-pitch activities right, that will underpin the main revenue streams in terms of TV, broadcast and matchday revenue from tickets and hospitalities and so forth. But I think, increasingly, we’re seeing that people are understanding that their sponsorship and commercial rights, as opposed to TV rights, are worth more. So as a result, the clubs are much more demanding, the deals are more complicated, the inventory is being packaged up better and they’re wringing more revenue out of it. Originally when I started working we were selling static boards and then they became rotating boards and now they’re LED. Back in the day people used to sell one shirt sponsor, now that’s being compartmentalized into a training wear partner, a shirt sponsor or a home shirt sponsor and an away shirt sponsor. Generally speaking, people are getting more interesting types of businesses involved in football, so there have been some very good activities from brands you wouldn’t normally associate with football, but very effectively reach that kind of audience. I think the industry is really starting to produce some really good case studies for how it can be a very effective communication platform for building brands and engaging customers. The next five to 10 years are going to be very exciting for the industry.

Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.

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