View from the Editor: The sands of time are changing - February 2007  

Readers, it’s all change at ArkSports Towers. We have been bought by the delicious SportBusiness group (via the company’s parent Electric Word), which means that exciting things are on the horizon for S&T. We’d of course have to kill you if we told you what they are now, but let’s just say that good times are ahead. We’ve already moved our Exeter City FC mug, potted plant and leaky biros into SportBusiness Towers and have even been promised our own telephone at some stage! (Apparently, that is a mystical vessel that enables communication between people in difference locations. S&T fears for the longevity of its ‘paper cups connected by string’ device).
SportBusiness, among its giddy cornucopia of activities and whatnot, publishes the marvellously glossy SportBusiness International magazine, which not only looks stylish on the coffee table and impresses the neighbours when they drop in for a Soya Latte, but is also a jolly good read indeed. Within seconds of entering SportBusiness Towers, S&T was asked to pen a response for the aforementioned magazine to a question asking whether video on the web will be successful for smaller sports and enable them to make some dosh (or something like that). For those of you who can’t wait for the magazine to come out (and notwithstanding S&T’s policy of plagiarising one’s own work as it all saves energy and we are very ‘eco’ after all), here’s our response. Pull up your slippers, put on your armchair and read on. Alternatively, skip forward to the next section ingeniously entitled ‘Anyone for a sand-wich?’ if you want to save it to read in the mag.

Video’s sporting chance

Broadband’s lovely fat pipes enable, among other things, the successful delivery of video over the internet. One only has to look at the YouTube and MySpace phenomena to see how video is finding itself onto the web in abundance, even though that is throwing up a fresh set of challenges for rights owners and their lawyers. With a website already in existence that allows users to edit and change the endings of Hollywood movies, surely it can only be a matter of time before sports fans can create their own classic matches and alter results to suit their own allegiances?
According to research carried out by ArkSports in late 2006, only 45% of individual sports stars have video on their websites, although this may have more to do with who owns which rights rather than the technical savoir faire of the athletes themselves. Presuming athletes own their own image rights at the very least, then a short video of them training or going about their daily business would be like gold-dust to a diehard fan. Video on the web doesn’t just have to be about events, games and/or matches. And sports should remember that opportunities also exist beyond video. Podcasting is growing in popularity and enables rights owners to interview players, athletes and management in a way that is even more cost-effective than video and consumable ‘on the move’.
Online streaming has often been heralded as the saving grace of ‘smaller’ tier and non-mainstream sports, but whether this can be monetised successfully is always a matter of concern. Launching a broadband video channel is certainly cheaper than doing so for a traditional television station (around 10-times so), and online audiences are certainly a lot more measurable than through linear programming. However, expecting fans to pay for premium content either on a subscription or pay-per-view basis is challenging against a perception that still exists that content on the web should be free. Another challenge is whether audiences of smaller sports are of a sufficient size to capitalise upon even if they were willing to pay. Eyeballs are king in this regard.
Perhaps smaller sports should use broadcasting via the web as a way of growing audiences and communities for their sports rather than worrying overly about making an online profit from their fans? After all, the more popular a sport becomes, the greater the capacity will be to attract commercial partners both online and offline in the future.

Anyone for a sand-wich?

Gadzooks, that was all a bit serious wasn’t it? Fear not readers, S&T has done its usual trawling of the tabloids and low-quality websites over the last month to find some daft technology-related news for you. Hot on the heels of NASCAR launching highlights downloads of its races on iPods, comes The Fat Duck, (an English restaurant that introduced the world to ‘delicacies’ such as sardine on toast sorbet, snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream), with its brand new audible iPod dishes. The Berkshire-based eatery, which was voted the best place to eat in the world in 2005, has introduced a dish called ‘Sound of the Sea’ which requires diners to listen to lapping waves and the like on MP3 players while they munch on edible sand.
Anyone growing up in the UK in the 1970s will have regularly snacked on sand at the seaside (usually in ‘sand’wiches and ice cream), but this was due to the howling gales that often accompanied the annual holiday, rather than choice. Perhaps improvements in technology can really make the gritty nuisance taste better? (And, at least sand is vegetarian which gives it a big S&T thumbs-up).
Potential diners wishing to sample the new dish may wish to take note of the recently-enthused citizens in Beijing and queue up patiently to do so. So worried are authorities in China’s capital city that the 2008 Olympics are going to be chaotic due to its inhabitants being unable to form orderly lines, that they have decreed that the 11th day of every month between now and the Games is to be designated ‘Queuing Day’. No more jostling and punching from Beijing’s finest in order to board a bus. Well, not on the 11th day of each month anyway. In empathy, S&T is in favour of making the 11th day of each month in the UK ‘Non-Queuing Day’. Imagine how less stressed we would all feel if it was socially acceptable for us to just barge our way to the front of the line in the Post Office and jab each other with pointy elbows to board the tube/train first? (Oh how we miss living in Central London…….)
On that rebellious yet (we would like to think) ironic note, S&T would like to sign off and wish our readers a Happy Chinese New Year. For those of you attending SportAccord in Beijing in April, remember to get your visa applications in soon. And for those of you attending SPORTELAmerica in Miami in a few weeks time, S&T looks forward to joining you for a sand sarnie on Miami Beach. See, we told you there were good times ahead.

Rachael Church-Sanders
Editor

Do you regularly eat non-edible items while distracted by your iPod? Or do you prefer to eat a normal, sound-free diet? If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in S&T, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments to editor@sportandtechnology.com. Or watch television instead. S&T is please that Prison Break is back on our screens in the UK but suggest that it ends with this series rather than continuing to a third, else it might get a bit daft(er).

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