Marketing, media, ticketing directors hold EB Institute Annual Workshops

Consolidating the biggest audience growth in Turkish Airlines EuroLeague history and taking that improvement to a higher level was the major theme as the Euroleague Basketball Institute's Annual Workshops continued with the media, marketing and ticketing directors each holding day-long meetings in Barcelona on Monday and Tuesday.

The meetings reviewed the great success in audiences growth on TV and through digital and social media platforms last season as the competition became the first true league in a major European team sport. Now, Euroleague Basketball President and CEO Jordi Bertomeu said, the league and club owners have made a key tenet of their recently approved five-year plan a commitment to do "better together" in all other aspects of the business, too.
"The results of our change in the competition format have been spectacular," Jordi Bertomeu said. "The next challenge for the future is to execute the same jump in quality that we saw during the season on the sports side now in business and communications. This is fundamental in order to keep growing, and the only way to do this is to work together."

The 16 EuroLeague clubs for the 2017-18 season were represented on Monday by 26 specialists in media relations, social media and digital content in talks with Euroleague Basketball executives on a wide range of communications issues. 
Chief among the objectives discussed was a strategy that aligns EuroLeague Basketball and the clubs with one voice in affirming for media and fans the elite position that the EuroLeague holds as the first true league in the history of continental team sports, thanks to the new round-robin format that will continue for the long-term future of the competition. At one with that objective is the conviction to engage fans and attract more of them with a common strategy of communications encompassing content across digital and social platforms.

"These annual meetings are very useful for us," Cenk Arastiran, Media Director of Anadolu Efes Istanbul, said. "We improve our communications skills here, we share our experiences with the other clubs, and we put what we talked about here into action during the season. Every year our communications personnel increases either on our website or our social media channels, and this helps the fans to be much closer to the clubs and to be more loyal."
Among the strategies designated by the clubs themselves at their owners meeting earlier in June is to centralize messaging to make sure that all stakeholders - from club owners down to players - are well-versed in the facts about the EuroLeague's continuing story of success and policies for external communications.

The media directors also heard from a pair of executives from Euroleague Basketball's join venture partner, IMG, on the subject of enhancing live television and digital content over and above the vast improvement in quality witnessed last season. Ross Clarke, Executive Producer of EuroLeague for IMG, reviewed the dimensions of the TV production efforts that helped attract 32% more viewers to EuroLeague broadcasts last season as compared to the previous one. Xavier Bidault, Commercial Director, Basketball, for IMG, spoke about taking the competition's 166% rise in on-line audience last season even higher by devoting increased efforts to social media and digital products.

"Next season, based on feedback, we are going to increase production resources to provide as much digital content as possible," Mr. Bidault told the media directors. "One of the priorities is to distribute that content to reach you."

On Tuesday, a total of 27 representatives of the marketing departments of EuroLeague clubs gathered to focus on offering sponsors and fans the most attractive experience possible for both. The participants discussed ways to best connect fans with sponsors in an ever-changing marketplace, and how data, content and innovation will play a key role in further growing the league's and clubs' business in the present and in the future. One objective that all the marketing directors shared was how to rejuvenate the EuroLeague fan base going forward by paying attention to younger potential fans by monitoring trends of consumption in that age group and bringing basketball excitement to them in the formats they like best.

"All of us here deal with the same problem of reaching younger people. We also have the problem that we are not the youngest people from this millennial generation," Bjoern Albrecht, Marketing Director of Brose Bamberg, said. "So we have to find content, generate content, find channels and generate ideas to reach these people. This is one very important outcome of today's meeting."

At the same time on Tuesday, the ticketing directors from EuroLeague clubs met to strategize for future increases in arena attendance on top of the 13.2% rise in the number of fans who witnessed games live this season as compared to the previous one. Their meeting focused on giving fans a variety of ticketing options from which to choose as well enhancements to the in-game experience that provide added value to attending EuroLeague games.

"Hearing new market trends, reviewing successful cases and sharing experiences with other clubs sparks many new ideas and challenges us to improve," Une Marija Jurkstaite, Ticketing Director of Zalgiris Kaunas, said. "The positive outcome of these workshops is visible not only in our club's ticket sales performance, but also in the overall fan experience during games. Every time we meet, I clearly see how all clubs are shifting to the next level."