68 XTREME Sport and Data
A LOT OF TRADITIONAL SPORTS CONTENT HAS BEEN CREATED FOR MEN, BUT THE FLUID FAN HAS THE POWER TO BREAK THAT BARRIER, BECAUSE THEY’RE EMPOWERED TO CHOOSE
“A lot of traditional sports content has been created for men, but the fluid fan has the power to break that barrier, because they’re empowered to choose. They don’t want to be passive anymore, they want to contribute towards content. The fluid fan is creating women’s leagues and women’s content, and it is enabling men’s sports to be created in ways that are more engaging to the female viewer,” explains Ruggiero. “With new platforms and new distribution streams, businesses can experiment more and potentially capture the demographics that have previously been underserved,” she continues. “Everyone’s focussed on catering to the youth, but we should also focus on gender, socioeconomics, race – what if someone wasn’t able to consume content simply because it wasn’t in their language?
You engage the fluid fan by thinking about how you’ve been underserving these broader markets, and you invest in technology that is going to help you reach them. This new age of sports is not about creating something that’s for the global fandom, where it’s all about distribution. It’s about creating platforms and tools that enables fans to be a part of the action.” There is no guarantee that this new business model will drive a ton of revenue, but think about Reddit as a parallel – it’s an engagement platform that the brand itself has no control over, nonetheless it’s somewhere that enables fans to create a brand identity and association. “I don’t think OTT is a way to profit today, but I definitely believe it will be the way you profit tomorrow. Businesses are cutting the cord and bundling à la carte OTT packages; you pick and pay for what you like and nothing more. This is all about investment in the future and who has that long-term vision, versus the short-term cash cow,” adds Ruggiero. “We like to advise on what’s happening. We’re realists, not futurists. There are people out there who like to pretend to predict the future, but no one knows the future. We’re a market research company at our core. We look at trends, products and people, and we study what the market is doing and try to relate that into where companies should be investing.” THE TERMINATOR Ruggiero recalls why she started the company and tells us about the quantified athlete sector – otherwise known as wearables or performance tech – to which she was introduced as an Olympian. “There are a lot of great products out there, but there are also a lot of not so great products out there. All these wearables that purport to save health, create longer careers and predict futures are not accurate because the tech isn’t there yet. We’re trying to educate our clients about this and help them make those important partner decisions.” Ruggiero explains that more and more quantified athlete products are coming
ON THE RUN Privacy could be an issue in future, if detailed data generated by an athlete’s performance is commodified
into the market – Sports Innovation Lab currently has 800 hundred wearable companies in its database – and elite athletes are pressure testing these products to ensure that they are also becoming more accurate. “These companies could potentially improve healthcare – for example, a footballer who’s tracking their steps can now wear skin hydration patches to measure how much fluid they need over the course of a game. The sports industry can accelerate the adoption of this technology and it will hopefully make its way into bigger markets,” she says. But with all this athlete data being generated, and wonder at what technology is going to be created next, there is a bigger question of data privacy. Sports Innovation Lab recently debated this.
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