#101 Sports trends that need to stay in 2023

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We are officially in the last month of 2023. In anticipation of a new season, 2024, today on the podcast, we will be focusing on Sports Trends to leave in 2023. Every year, new practices, technologies and so on are introduced. While some are here to stay because they provide sports organisations and the communities they operate in a lot of value, others should be retired to never be seen again in 2024. And that is what we will be focusing on in this episode. If you find this helpful episode, remember to leave a review or a comment to let us know. And if we have left out anything, don’t hesitate to give us that feedback, too.

But without further ado, here are sports trends to leave in 2023:

1. Jumping on trends too quickly

NFTs and Crypto Curriencies have been one of the biggest trends of 2022 and 2023. Although we advocate for embracing new technologies, this should be done with caution. According to the BBC, Major League Baseball, Formula 1, Mercedes-Benz and Cristiano Ronaldo are all facing class action lawsuits over their promotion of failed crypto-exchange FTX. Although we do not know the ins and outs of what went wrong, we know that sports is a game of trust. Fans trust their favourite leagues and athletes and as such, with great power comes great responsibilities. So take your time when working with new technologies. Do your due diligence. Look at the long term impact and not just at the short term rewards.

A perfect example of how to proceed with new technologies is how FC Barcelona rejected higher bids from cryptocurrency sponsors and settled for a lower offer from Spotify as a shirt and stadium sponsor. According to Leader Insights, The club has reasons to want to distance itself from cryptocurrency platforms. The club had previously had to cancel an NFT deal with Ownix shortly after announcing it due to crypto fraud allegations involving someone who helped arrange the deal.

2. Not managing expectations when trying new technologies

Remember the Metaverse and the promised enhanced fan engaged, according to Robots.net despite the initial excitement and hype surrounding the metaverse, it has largely failed to live up to its lofty expectations. CoinDesk write that

The Metaverse Is Struggling to Hold Onto Users and Sports Could Fix That. Although the industry has an opportunity to be pioneers in this technology, something that is rarely associated with the industry, when experimenting with new things, it’s always great to start with a small group and then take it from there. This way, you can save on resources while being innovative.

3. Making women’s sports an afterthought

There are still clubs who udnerfund their women’s teams and just copy men’s clubs’ strategies in their approach to their women’s clubs. Some clubs even allocate whatever is left over from the budget to the women’s side instead of budgeting according to the needs of the team. This trend needs to stop in 2023. The numbers show that women’s sports is a great investment opportunity so clubs should treat them as such. And women’s teams are very much supported by society especially the younger generation so le’t not make them an afterthought.

4. Giving away too many free tickets to women’s games

Women’s sports teams often give away a lot of tickets. This is great because it increases accessibility which men’s sports don’t often have, especially at the top leagues. However, there should be a balance. If women’s sports organisations cannot sustain themselves due to low revenue, this puts the entire industry at a danger of perpetuating the status quo that says, women’s sports aren’t worthy becuase they don’t make much money. So let’s find the balance between tickets given away and tickets sold.

If you want to find out more on the trends that you should be following in 2024, make sure to listen to our podcast episode next week.