Q&A: Aura Sports - October 2004  

Continuing its series of questions and answers with companies influencing the digital sports space in the UK and Europe, Sport and Technology spoke to Paul Wright, managing director of digital sports agency Aura Sports.

Please describe how Aura Sports came into being

“Aura came into being because of the so called dotcom crash where myself and three colleagues from Sports.com found ourselves redundant for the first time in our lives. We felt that, despite what we had seen, there was an opportunity in the sports marketplace for a company focussed on digital sports. Within about six weeks we were up and running. Initially, we pitched at football [soccer] clubs but have now expanded to other sports.”

What are your main services and who are your main clients?

“Our core clients are rights holders who want to make revenue from advertising and sponsorship via their websites or mobile sites. These clients range from Premier League Football clubs like Chelsea to Football Portals like 4theGame.com and Soccernet to rights holders like the ECB [England Cricket Board]. We also work with games companies like Sports iNteractive and Codemasters. All of our clients have strong brands and loyal fan bases and are hence attractive to sponsors and advertisers. We also offer marketing consultancy services to help those who are launching or relaunching into the sports marketplace and more recently we have set up a sponsorship sales division that works across both digital and offline properties. All of these approaches are founded on a fundamental understanding of the media side of sports and making sure your media property gets in front of the right people.”

What is Aura's strategy for moving forward?

“Our strategy going forward is two fold. To continue to expand our portfolio of partners where we see a need or an opportunity. Secondly, to look at new opportunities as they become viable such as mobile, sponsorship and sponsor funded content. We believe that the ‘digital world’ will become increasingly important in communications strategies and hence the opportunities will continue to grow for our business.”

Do you think sports rights owners in the UK are fully exploiting the web/mobile space?

“I think that many people are utilising the web and increasingly mobile well. The principle of unique content seems to be a principle that many rights holders now understand and increasingly we see them behave like media owners and treat their users like customers. The dotcom boom in essence speeded up the process for people to understand what makes a sensible online business and what did not (!) and now we see more rights holders taking that learning and applying it to their digital properties.”

What common mistakes do you see being made on sports websites?

“Poor navigation and design always stand out - consumers are very savvy when it comes to sites and have little patience for badly designed ones or ones where the navigation is impossible. My advice to any company building a website is get some people who are non-technical to use it and see what they say – it is always fascinating to see how they react. Then launch it – having feedback to the designer. Too many sites have to launch on a certain date and because they do, glitches are forgotten and the site goes live anyway. Changing the site after the event is hard, and potential users may have visited and been put off by the problem.”

Which do you think has greater potential in the future - broadband or wireless - and why?

“Broadband and wireless are simply more convenient ways of accessing stuff. I do not believe that these on their own have a direct impact. The issue is the way in which people use these systems and how many people need them. Broadband is little more than another access point for the web and its affect will be to allow more media rich content to develop. There is still much debate as to what will change in a broadband world and as yet there is some evidence that the major shift is that users download more rich content.”

When do you think 3G will gain mass popularity/uptake?

“I am a little cynical about 3G at the moment and interestingly the operators seem to be too. The reason is there is no ‘killer application’ for consumers to get 3 G. So therefore we would imagine its take up will be slow unless it is driven by cheaper phone calls. This is precisely the dilemma of the ISP market – which has spent millions getting people to transfer from narrowband to broadband only to end up with the same business model. Equally once people have 3G are they going to use it? Well, only when you have some content that works for them and they are prepared to pay for. A 30 second clip of a goal – yes definitely –  but not five hours after it has been scored. Obviously, this creates a dilemma for the industry as to how does a live clip been sent to a mobile during the game affect the live broadcaster deal. This is an area the European Commission is looking at currently – we will await their decision. But we have to remember the economics of the industry currently which is naturally skewed to the broadcaster – will that change?”

Which sports and what sorts of offering work best on broadband and/or mobile in your opinion?

“Frankly, any sport can have a website – but only sports that have real mass appeal will make money on any platform. In the case of the web and mobile – it offers great opportunities for small sports to reach their audience, where broadcasts may not. But unless you have critical mass of users – any of the revenues streams that work on any platform rarely make economic sense. So it is big sports like football [soccer] that have most to gain currently.”

What is the best revenue model for rights owners/telcos/broadband companies?

“The best revenue model for any one involved in rights has to be based on multiple revenue streams – experience has shown that reliance on one key stream is poor.”

Do you think large broadcasters and telecoms companies are restricting the growth of online/mobile sports offerings?

“I think in the dotcom boom there was some evidence of some companies not realising rights that were potentially available. However it is worth pointing out that at the time the technology was in its infancy so its release to the marketplace would have made little difference anyway. Now you do see broadband and wireless rights being made available and broadcasters and others bidding for them, the recent FAPL auction was one of these. That is a normal market operating and I would imagine will continue as key rights come up. Nonetheless, some digital companies have complained about access to rights and that they are unable to gain these rights. This has more to do with some ISPs not having a business model to support what rights holders are looking for (cash guarantee) as opposed to being not able to pitch for rights. Broadcaster and telcos do have deep pockets – so maybe ISPs and others would do better to gain secondary rights from those who get them as opposed to trying to pitch at a level that does not make economic sense.”

What do you think will have the greatest impact on the growth in broadband/mobile sports services in the future - either short term or long term?

“I do not think there will be one key thing that changes the market – it will be a combination of things that will drive it – and ultimately it is down to consumers, if consumers find something they like, then things will change. It is worth remembering none of these technologies are replacements for the TV yet and hence will work alongside the key way in which we currently enjoy sport.”

The next Q&A will feature Andrew Thompson, BBC Sport's head of new media, sports news and development

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