ESA Ireland’s Post

Every July, France turns its entire road network into a stadium. No tickets. No gates. Just 12 million people standing on the roadside as the world's biggest cycling race passes by. The numbers are staggering: 1 billion+ hours of live viewing worldwide Broadcast in 190+ countries €955M in regional economic impact 1.3 billion social video views But the real lesson isn't the scale. It's how that scale is achieved. Most brands try to buy reach through polished, distant advertising. The Tour does the opposite — it builds reach by staying radically local. A small French village becomes the center of the sporting world for one afternoon. A sponsor's logo isn't inserted into the broadcast — it's just there, on a jersey, in a mountain pass, as lived reality. That's the value at the heart of it: authenticity doesn't compete with scale — it's what makes scale believable.

𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗱𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 🇫🇷 (𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗲́𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 🇪🇸). 𝗪𝗶𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗻🇬🇧. 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮 𝟭 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘅. 🇬🇧 This weekend, three events are happening simultaneously with different business strategies. 𝙏𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙚 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 — 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙚 1 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙖. 12 million people line the roads and pay nothing. The revenue comes from TV rights (55-60%), 40+ sponsors and cities paying to be on the route. $70 million in sponsorship revenue in 2024 alone. The Catalan government projects €260 million in tourism spend across the three Catalan stages alone. 1.2 million spectators expected on the roadside, all watching for free. 𝙁𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙪𝙡𝙖 1 — 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙚. 565,000 spectators across four days, on track to be the largest F1 event in history. The British Grand Prix generates over £100 million in economic impact. Brands are no longer treating Formula 1 as a static sponsorship, they are treating each race weekend as a compressed marketplace where audience, influence, spending power and global visibility arrive all at once F1 contributes £12 billion annually to the UK economy through engineering, manufacturing and technology alone. 𝙒𝙞𝙢𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙙𝙤𝙣 — 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠 1. £423 million in annual revenue. 17 official suppliers, the fewest of any Grand Slam. Sponsorship income nearly tripled in 7 years without adding more partners. Centre Court five-year seat rights covering 2026–2030 were priced at £116,000 each. 2,520 were sold. That's £292 million raised, without a bank, without an outside investor. Wimbledon sold guaranteed access directly to fans, guaranteed access to the most coveted seats 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙚𝙨 🚵 The Tour monetizes reach. 🏎️ F1 monetizes hospitality, premium access and experience. 🎾 Wimbledon monetizes scarcity

Did you try to watch the Commonwealth Games at the weekend? After searching several channels, I eventually found the Games and settled into several happy hours shouting at the netball. I also got sucked into another, less traditional sport ... seeing how the channels who were bringing the sport to air were doing it. Searching and paying for (yet) another television subscription, was frustrating but it also highlighted one of the most interesting points surrounding Glasgow 2026. Scotland's largest city stepped in after the State of Victoria withdrew, and has delivered a very different kind of major event: fewer sports, a compact footprint, existing venues, no purpose-built athletes’ village and a far leaner operating model. Technology is an important part of making that possible; it facilitated more elements of production, distribution and event delivery to be handled with a lighter physical and human infrastructure than normally associated with major sports events. Ideally that would make Glasgow a blueprint for the future, showing competitions can be more affordable, more sustainable and therefore, accessible to a wider range of host cities. But there is a but… While a more commercial broadcast model improves the economics, the age old issue of reduced free-to-air makes events harder to discover. Once audience reach is limited, the shared national moments that make sports so special (and valuable to sponsors) are also diminished. Perhaps Glasgow’s real test is whether major events can become smaller and smarter behind the scenes AND maximize their audience reach. #commonwealthgames #sportstechnology #sportsbroadcast #netball

Everyone watches the match. Few people study the business model. When we think about global events like FIFA, it's easy to assume ticket sales are what make them possible. In reality, the economics are far more complex. Broadcasting rights. Sponsorships. Tourism. Hospitality. Government partnerships. Private capital. The event is the visible product. The real value lies in the ecosystem built around it. Looking at these events through a financial lens changes how we think about influence, incentives, and the way capital flows through culture. It also raises a broader question: what other industries are we misunderstanding because we're only looking at what's visible? I explored that question in my latest article for STNDRDS. I'd be interested to hear your perspective. https://lnkd.in/gjKJcjSe

Great read. Technology keeps pushing boundaries, but it's the passion and expertise of the people behind it that truly create return on emotion. 🚀

The Australian Open faced a gap in their brand toolkit during Covid that most organisations wouldn't even have noticed. Tennis Australia did and what followed was one of sport's most recognisable sonic identities, built in partnership with us. Roger Sho Gehrmann and Georgia Juliette Roberts joined Tennis Australia's Roddy Campbell and Britt Wickes on The Subthread's "The Partnership Game" podcast, hosted by Rich Hewes, to unpack how it all happened: the brief that sparked it, the challenge of aligning stakeholders when everyone has an opinion on music, and how to demonstrate ROI on something as instinctive as sound. The conversation also gets into who's getting sonic strategy right across sport (Champions League anthem to name one) and why human brand sound still has the creative edge. We've said this before, sound is processed by our brain faster than any other sense (including visual). Sports, more than almost any other context, knows that. This episode is worth listening and/or watching: https://bit.ly/3TMEC5O

Sonic branding has evolved alongside media. 📻 The Radio Era: jingles Catchy, repetitive and built to make a brand name impossible to forget. 📺 The Television Era: sonic logos and stings Short, distinctive signatures designed to punctuate a commercial or brand moment. 📱 The Systems Era: sonic ecosystems Brands now appear across hundreds of touchpoints - from apps and social content to products, retail spaces, events and customer experiences. One sound is no longer enough. Brands need a flexible sonic language. I recently joined Tennis Australia at Cannes Lions to discuss how we got here- and what the next era of sonic branding demands from brands. #SonicBranding #CannesLions #TennisAustralia #BrandStrategy #MusicStrategy

The most valuable sponsorship space at a mega-event may not be inside the stadium. It may be in the spaces where fans gather before, during and after the match. That is what makes FIFA Fan Festivals interesting from a sponsorship and branding perspective. Fan Festivals are not new. The Australian Open has already shown how a major event can become a broader precinct experience through food, music, retail, partner activations and public gathering spaces. But the commercial lesson is becoming clearer: 5 lessons sport marketers can take from this: 1）The stadium is limited. The event brand is not. Ticketed attendance has a ceiling, but the wider fan experience can scale across cities, screens and communities. 2）Sponsors need interaction, not just visibility. A logo is seen. An experience is remembered. 3）Public spaces can become sponsorship inventory. Fan zones give brands more ways to create value beyond perimeter boards and broadcast exposure. 4）Local culture strengthens global event branding. Food, music, city identity and community participation help make a global tournament feel locally relevant. 5）The fan journey is bigger than the game. The commercial opportunity starts before kick-off and continues long after the final whistle. The strongest brands are not just appearing at the event. They are helping shape how fans experience it. #SportsMarketing #SportSponsorship #BrandActivation #FanEngagement #EventMarketing

What’s really driving sports facility bookings in 2026? 📊 Our latest UK Sport Facility Booking Trends & Insights report breaks down the data behind hundreds of thousands of bookings across schools, councils and sports clubs. Inside, you’ll find: ✅The sports attracting the most bookings ✅The football formats players are choosing most ✅When demand peaks throughout the year ✅How booking trends differ across each sector ✅Practical takeaways for operators looking to increase utilisation and stay ahead of demand If you want a clearer view of what’s happening across the market — and what it could mean for your own venue — this one’s worth a read. Download the report for free here 👇 https://lnkd.in/eWGEXHVe