An insightful morning at the #NielsenSportsBreakfast

Sport is a multi billion dollar industry, and with the new kid on the block “esports” estimated to be around $38 billion and growing rapidly, it’s no wonder everyone is jumping on the “bandwagon”.

This morning, Kurt and Emi had the opportunity to attend the Nielsen Sports Breakfast hosted at Country Club of Johannesburg.

Nielsen Sports is a global leader and independent trusted advisor in sports intelligence and measurement, and forms part of Nielsen Entertainment. The purpose of Nielsen Sports is to help businesses maximize their commercial success through their understanding of media consumption and consumer behavior.

The informative seminars are tailored to brand and rights holders and designed to utilize their research to give insight into interesting and trending topics within the sports industry, they also assist companies in creating new solutions in order to achieve their commercial objectivity.

We all know how imperative data is to any organisation, but the depth that these guys go into is fascinating.

The topic of today’s breakfast was focused at addressing the Top 5 global commercial trends, and their impact on the South African sports industry.

The top 5 trends namely:

– Distributor disruption

– Esports evolution

– Content rules

– Sponsorship to partnership

– Sports in our changing society

The presentation proceeded a panel discussion on one of the trends, namely eSports Evolution in South Africa, which was addressed by esports experts and influencers Alwyn Venter, founder of White Rabbit Gaming South Africa, Sam Wright, better known as TechGirl ZA and Michelle Gabela, marketing specialist of ASUS.

Here are some of the comments that stood out from the discussion and presentation:

“eSports is a $32 billion business. We wanted a piece of that pie” – Michelle Gabela

“eSports is not just gaming, it’s competitive gaming” – Sam Wright

“Fascinating discussions at the #NielsenSportsBreakfast – even as a self-proclaimed old school geek, the potential in #eSports just blows my mind” – Wes Hellyar

“”Content is key to the Sports fan engagement” quite important for brands and rights holders to keep up to the rapid pace content is changing #NielsenSportsBreakfast” – Nick Moyo

“Full on gaming houses for pro ESPORTS gamers.They get paid to practice and play games all day and professionally, groceries paid for, accomodation paid for and sent on overseas trips to play!Epic! #NielsenSportsBreakfast @Plantronics_SA @TechGirlZA @WRG_AlwynVenter @nielsensports” – Kurt Solomon

“A lesson from @TechGirlZA : eSports is a niche. It’s a traditional sports production – lights, camera, commentators etc. The players train like any other athletes. They do hand-eye coordination exercises and see sports psychologist etc. – pretty cool #NielsenSportsBreakfast” – Emi Adriano

For more insights, follow the hashtag, #NielsenSportsBreakfast.

Thank you to CN&CO partner, Plantronics for providing what Sam Wright (TechGirlZA) describes as a “beast of a headset”, the #RIG500E to a lucky recipient at this morning’s breakfast.

Insightful, forward thinking and intuitive presentation and panel discussion. Thank you for having us Kelvin Watt and the Nielsen Team.