This Monday, March 14th, SPORTEL Rendez-vous 2022 presented its new format marking its return to Miami, United States. With a new approach, the event is offering an experience with two days of activities, showing new products that include debates with references in the sports and media segment to premium exhibitions.
The conference is also enabling the reunion of international leaders in the sports, technology and betting market in the Americas, as well as global content acquisitions secured through a dedicated buyers program.
According to official information, this edition sold out with more than 500 participants and 290 companies, resulting in intense networking and new partnerships. It is worth mentioning that the iGaming Brazil portal is covering it with special articles, galleries with the best images and exclusive interviews.
Highlights of the first day of SPORTEL Rendez-vous 2022
Welcome and introduction with Laurent Puons
The edition that represents the return of SPORTEL to the Americas market was officially opened with a brief welcome speech by the CEO of SPORTEL / Monaco Mediax, Laurent Puons.
Panel: Chat with PFL and Torneos
In the first panel of the day, Professional Fighters League (PFLMMA) CEO Peter Murray shared some thoughts with Torneos Commercial Director Santiago (Uki) Sluzewski Monti about PFL’s recent multi-year agreement with DIRECTV regarding media in Latin America for the so-called 2022 PFL season.
This agreement is part of the entity’s global expansion plans and efforts to provide premium MMA content featuring elite fighters to fans around the world.
Dashboard – Enhancing the broadcast experience to capture and retain audiences
Ken Kerschbaumer (Sports Video) provided moderation, while Oscar Sanchez (CONCACAF), Eli Velazquez (Sports Content – Telemundo Deports) and Tomash Devevisher (Kero Sports) participated in the debate on emerging production techniques that are transforming gaming days.
These techniques add cinematic quality event date, live AR (augmented reality) drones, cinemas and drive-ins providing a much more immersive viewer experience while fighting piracy.
Additionally, the conversation highlighted the adjustments rights holders have needed to make during the COVID-19 pandemic and what they can still do to create new channels to improve the viewing and streaming experience.
Panel – How culture and diversity are changing the direction of sports media
Anna Lockwood (TELSTRA) moderated this conversation, which also included Joss Sotolongo (Florida Sports Foundation), Angela Suggs (Flora Sports Foundation) and Heidi Pellerano (CONCACAF). The panel showed how much media companies need to continue investing in a diversified structure to serve audiences that are not yet properly represented.
Heidi Pellerano reinforced this need: “In order to have diversity, investment is necessary: We need to inspire diversity and this effort needs support to change, such as special programs for that”.
José Sotolongo declared: “I am displeased to hear: This was the first woman to achieve such a feat! I hope to live one day in an environment where we don’t need to make any kind of separation for any type of characteristic, but only boast of the victory, not the gender”.
Angela Suggs, on the other hand, pointed out: “We didn’t create a team of notorious CVs, we created a team of people with the most diverse experiences possible. It is still curious to see on this panel that the only black people sitting here belong to my team. We have a lot to change.”
Dashboard – A broadcast to anyone and everyone
This topic was taught by Roland Lange from Kiswe, showing that people have always wanted to watch sports with the ones they love. Now, broadcasters/rights holders are taking it a step further, broadcasting with various types of platforms to reach fans regardless of their areas of interest.
Throughout the seminar, the company representative mentioned a few ways this trend can be very helpful in helping to increase engagement and engagement for sports fans.
Dashboard – OTT and network giants expanding audience reach
Ken Kerschbaumer (Sports Video) was the moderator of this meeting, which also involved Eric Conrad (Univision), Fabio Medeiros (WarnerMedia) and Paulo Finster (Amagi Corporation) in a conversation about the reversal of digital role: partnership and licensing of OTT and Streaming to diversify revenue.
Participants further cited key challenges of monetizing top-tier rights fees through subscription/OTT, the value of acquiring viewer data and joining sports and entertainment to programming, as well as revenue output, satellite TV and the changes observed in the domestic market.
14:50 – 15:10: Panel – The new world of connected sports
Jeremy Dujardini (Tata Communications America. INC) spoke about how the world of sports is transforming: the way it is captured and delivered, immersive and richer fan engagement, the power of big data and AI (artificial intelligence), streams of agile working in the cloud, a growing need for personalization and localization, and new ways to monetize all the content produced.
And in this hyper-connected digital native world, brands need to play a differentiated role to achieve leadership positions by driving innovation, business efficiency in sports, live events and the entire media value chain.
15:45 – 16:30: Panel – What’s next for football in the US?
The last roundtable this Monday was composed by Pedro Freire (TyC Sports), Olek Loewenstein (Televisaunivision), Callum McCarthy (Sportbusiness Media) and Boris Gartner (LaLiga International), who focused on the growth process of the MLS (the main United States football).
Panelists discussed how this league advance is interfering with the growth of football in the country, pointed out the opportunities that can be explored from now on and how broadcasters are developing attractions to attract younger viewers.
The last seminar also explained how this can shape the path to the 2026 World Cup, which will take place in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico), making football one of the favorite sports of the American population.
