The second day of SPORTEL 2021 got underway this morning in Monaco.
Following on from yesterday’s masterclasses, Wednesday played host to a number of conference talks from industry-leading professionals.
The morning’s sessions centred around the ongoing issue of piracy within the broadcasting industry. President of Law Offices, Thomas P. Riley, gave the room some fascinating insight into the practical ways we can counteract and address this rather incurable problem.
His speech identified the scope of piracy at its current level, its impact in the marketplace, and projections for industry losses in the future.
He also provided a brief overview of the various civil and criminal remedies available worldwide and outlined solution based approaches that aggrieved parties can employ independently, or in conjunction with the efforts of their valued business partners involved with marketing, licensing, and distribution.
Piracy continued to be the key theme of the morning as Senior Director of Synamedia, Simon Brydon, spoke effusively on tackling piracy using intelligence and getting a clear return on your investments.
By deploying a blend of human and digital intelligence, Simon outlined how it is possible to build a comprehensive and detailed picture of the complex and constantly evolving pirate ecosystem.
In the afternoon, Digital Sport caught up with SPORTEL’s CEO, Laurent Puons.
With the convention drawing to a close, Laurent highlighted the wonderful job his team have done in putting on this year’s event: “I’m proud of my team because they have been very involved and very dedicated. In the event organisation sector, the most important thing is having good people, and that’s exactly what we have. One team, one dream!”
The job Laurent and his team have done becomes even more impresses when you consider the circumstances of the pandemic over the past two years. “Of course, with COVID, it was very difficult,” he reflected. “But we wanted to create a new marketing and communication strategy, to help best support the industry, and I feel we’ve done that incredibly well.
“Our first goal was to provide the community with the best possible business opportunities. It’s very important for us to provide great business opportunities, especially new ones, and this year we are very happy with the figures. There have been more than 16 new companies in attendance, in terms of delegates and exhibitors, of course, which has created over 116 new business opportunities for the community as a whole.”
One of the industry opportunities Laurent is particularly enthused by is Esports, which has been a hot topic of conversation over the course of the convention. “I think Esports is really interesting because it has been around for a long time. Everyone thinks ‘well, it’s something new’ but actually Esports has been around for years, it’s just the commercialisation side of things that’s in its infancy.
“In regards to media rights, it is very different compared to traditional sports. It’s challenging because usually in sport you have the event provider, the governing bodies, the media rights holders etc. whereas in Esports, you have just one stakeholder who owns the IP or who owns the entire game, and so that makes it a bit more challenging to monetise media rights strategically.”
After yet another sterling year for SPORTEL Monaco, Laurent’s aim is to now bring the convention to a wider business audience. “There are still a number of companies who are unaware of SPORTEL. Our goal is to get them here and to support them. I’m convinced they will be in a better place after they’ve been to SPORTEL Monaco. We want to help them succeed.”
The next stop for SPORTEL is Miami in March 2022. With the U.S. borders now reopening, it promises to be another wonderful event and a vital space for human business interaction across the sector.
