This week of sports business saw Naomi Osaka wave the Japanese flag across the fashion and sporting landscape. The National Basketball Association (NBA) keeps ahead of the digital curve with a radio-based partnership, and Manchester City is recognised as the world’s most innovative sports team. Pitbull enters the world of Nascar, and the National Football League creates a groundbreaking impact for Nickelodeon.
Naomi Osaka becomes the new face of Louis Vuitton
The three-time grand slam winner gets her 2021 off to a phenomenal start. Naomi signed a seven-figure deal with French Fashion label, Louis Vuitton, where she’ll feature in Nicolas Ghesquière’s Spring-Summer 2021 campaign.
The Japanese star has always been an advocate of the luxury brand; she claims there to be no brand as iconic as Louis Vuitton. Osaka is a terrific sporting idol as well. She’s proactively supported the Black Lives Matter movement by wearing face masks per game during 2020 with names of victims who’ve suffered from racial violence.
Osaka previously used fashion to represent her homeland, Japan. New York Fashion Week saw her present her first collection in collaboration with Japanese brand, ADEAM. Luxury fashion and sport are a flourishing relationship which is evolving modern sports culture to a new audience. It will be fascinating to see a new audience generated across elite tennis.
NBA x SiriusXM get serious with extending their partnership
The National Basketball Association (NBA) broadens its partnership with radio broadcasting firm, SiriusXM, to add exclusive streaming rights from the current season. SiriusXM subscribers will have access to live game audio broadcasts from the North American Basketball League (NABL). Thirty additional play-by-play channels on the radio app will deliver the coverage for each basketball side.
SiriusXM’s Premium Streaming package is now being offered for $1 per month. Consumers will receive NBA content on the app, website and other devices/smart speakers. This deal with the NBA reinforces their coverage across US Sport while it covers Major League Baseball (MLB), the PGA Tour, National Football League (NFL) and Nascar.
Manchester City named the globes most innovative sports club
Research and market intelligence firm, Sports Innovation Lab, labels the English football giants as the worlds most creative sports team. Real Madrid, Arsenal, FC Barcelona, and Bayern Munich were also in the top five football teams included within the list of 25 sports clubs.
Sports Innovation Lab gathered insights across the ten most profitable sports leagues. The 25 teams were assessed on revenue diversification, organisational agility and technology orientation. Over 8,000 data sources and 150,000 market signals influenced the sports intelligence firm’s final rankings.
COVID19 has made an extortionate impact across revenue generation for major sports properties. It’s become more imperative than ever for sports clubs to rely on income streams away from gate revenue and game-related sales. Hopefully, the top 25 trailblazers’ celebration will inspire other clubs to think similarly about diversifying their sports business affairs.
Pitbull joins the Nacar’s Trackhouse Racing Team
The global musician, formally known as Armando Perez, now part-owns Trackhouse Racing Team ahead of its first season in 2021. Pitbull becomes the second celebrity to own a Nascar team, National Basketball Association (NBA) legend, Michael Jordan, is the team owner at 23XI Racing.
Pitbull boasts a powerful digital reach with 25.5 million Twitter followers and 8.2 million fans on Instagram. Mr Worldwide will also act as an active partner on the Trackhouse executive team as a brand and public-spirited ambassador.
Since the 1990 movie ‘Days of Thunder’, the US rapper has supported Nascar’s story featuring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. Bringing Pitbull on board at the Trackhouse Racing Team will evolve Nascar into a new global entertainment culture, leveraging a new and younger audience to the tournament.
The NFL gives Nickelodeon their most-watched programme for nearly four years
Last Sunday saw kids TV network, Nickelodeon, broadcast the National Football League’s (NFL) wild card game between The New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears. The match drew in approximately 2.06 million viewers, the highest viewership figure for the children’s channel in almost four years.
The production included guest reporters explaining the rules, a Spongebob themed-intro, on-field graphics, and digital filters alongside ‘slime cannons’ activated after touchdowns. Over 70,000 posts were associated with Nickelodeon’s coverage which accumulated 402 million impressions, 2.2 million engagements and $6 million created in social value.
The was an experiment by The NFL to entice to keep their sport fresh for the next-generation. From the results acquired, do you reckon there’s room for more activations like this?
That’s a wrap! How far can the potential stretch for sport and luxury fashions relationship? How impactful will SiriusXM prove to generate a new audience to The NBA? Will we see another revenue area away from match-day sources become the highest fund supplier for sports properties? Who else will Pitbull and Michael Jordan inspire to join the evolution of the Nascar series? And, will we see the NFL and Nickelodeon collaborate once again?
Ash Sports Media 
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