Technology to the rescue?
With no disrespect to rugby and cricket, who are both in the midst of successful World Cups - or indeed to UEFA who just last week announced the UK & Ireland as joint hosts of the 2028 Euros – there can be little argument that sport’s two biggest global jamborees are the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympic Games. Therefore, our tournament centred ramble this week rightly focuses on these two behemoths of sporting culture…who have just announced plans to get even bigger.
We begin with FIFA, who just last week revealed that the 2030 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted across not one, not two but three different continents! The opening matches of this centenary edition are set to be held across Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay, before the action returns to the billed home nations of Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
After opting for the one (small) host nation approach of Qatar in 2022, and a supposedly carbon neutral event, FIFA have swung firmly back in the other direction. ?Through the upcoming North American World Cup in 2026, that will be spread across Canada, Mexico and the United States, and then the aforementioned three continent football-fest in 2030, fans, teams, media and other assorted stakeholders will be asked to travel hundreds of thousands of miles between games, notching up a pretty sizable carbon footprint along the way. For all of President Infantino’s talk of unity and joint celebration, you can’t help but feel the real uniting issue of environmental impact is being slightly overlooked. Yes, there will undoubtedly be improvements before 2030 in areas such as fuel technologies and offsetting initiatives, to help mitigate the impact of these bigger tournaments – the 11 Nation Euro 2020 actually had a smaller carbon footprint than - one nation (France) Euro 2016 – but relying on innovation to bail you out feels somewhat risky.
Technology will also be heavily relied onto to provide a sense of commonality across the three very different landscapes – both economically and culturally – whilst enabling a localised experience, personalised to the identity of the six host nations. ?In conjunction with the different host cities, FIFA will need to provide fans on the ground with the same quality of experience, whether they are in Madrid, Marrakech or Montevideo. This means the same standards in areas such as access control and in-stadia experience. FIFA’s dedicated ticket platform and in game features available through their FIFA+ app will help deliver this, but their success will also be dependent on the digital infrastructures and connectivity offered at each location which are likely to vary hugely.
Through language and content focus, FIFA’s digital channels will also play a part in personalising the experience for fans across the different countries but, outside of the matches themselves, technology laden Fan Festivals offer perhaps the biggest opportunity for fans to engage with the tournament in a regionally relevant environment. From local music acts to themed interactive digital experiences, Fan Zones can connect the tournament to individual towns and no doubt advances in areas like AR and VR will make for more immersive local opportunities come 2030.
Now to the Olympics…
While the International Olympic Committee – IOC has yet to countenance any of this multi-host nation tomfoolery, it was announced last week that the Olympics would be adding up to five new sports for the LA 2028 Summer Games. Baseball/Softball, Cricket (T20), Squash, Lacrosse and Flag Football (the touch rugby equivalent of gridiron) are all up for review with a decision on their inclusion to be made at the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai next week. Assuming they all get in, as looks likely, this expansion of the Olympic roster will bring about a variety of challenges.
On the one hand, the assimilation of “US sports” like Baseball, Flag Football and even Lacrosse should be fairly seamless for Los Angeles where the venues and infrastructure needed should already be well established. However, for cricket, despite the growing global appeal of T20, the game requires specialised venues with the bespoke technological infrastructures needed to deliver Hawkeye, Snicko and the other forms of TV umpire assistance that are commonplace in the professional game. They are also not cheap to install and run, with combined costs for the Decision Review System (DRS) at the current world cup expected to be north of $2.8m across the tournament. The requirements – and therefore the figure – for Olympic cricket wouldn’t be this high but at an estimated $100,000 to run this sill makes cricket an expensive addition!
With T20 World Cup being partial held in the US, the International Cricket Council (ICC) will be hoping the LA Olympics will build on this, leaving a legacy of professional grade facilities in a key emerging market. However the truth is any new or converted facilities are unlikely have regular, ongoing cricket use in the US beyond 2028 and run the risk of adding to the long list of mega sports event white elephants.
Perhaps more realistically, the ICC will also be hoping that Olympic cricket in LA will be a source of new fans. For this to happen, they will need to harness the quadrennial spike in interest in way that other sports (e.g. rowing) have failed to. While the pace and colour of T20 make it more immediately appealing than its Test Match relative, the game is still alien to many of those outside the commonwealth (and indeed to many in it) so audiences will need to be educated before they can be converted. Streaming and mobile technologies will play a big part in this, providing multiple commentary options – AI-powered or otherwise - tailored to different audiences and offering supporting second screen content to educate fans as they watch.
So FIFA and IOC are going big, driven by ideals around the expansion of the game/s and taking their sports to new markets. The issues around sustainability, infrastructure, implementation and education are seemingly being filed under “for another day” but with more than five years to go, there is justified hope that technology ?- existing or new – will ride to the rescue and find a way to solve/mitigate them in due course. No pressure then…
The Sports TEC Ramble comes from the weekly musings of our consultants?Kevin Bain?&?David Wright?on all things sport and technology.