March’s new-look Sportel Miami proved a success for buyers, sellers and other stakeholders from across the sports media and technology sector.
According to organisers it succeeded in its objective of delivering more content, more networking and more buyers.
The event saw the introduction of a sold-out conference day featuring big name speakers including Matchroom Sport group managing director Eddie Hearn, LaLiga president Javier Tebas and Ray Warren, president of NBC Universal Telemundo.
The conference was timed and designed to enable participants to focus on a series of discussions of the major issues shaping the sector and to take advantage of structured networking opportunities before getting down to deal-making when the market opened the following day.
Additionally, a series of invitation only ‘Buyers’ Breakfasts’ helped encourage participation and boost the number of buyers present, enabling organisers to look back in satisfaction at the response to its new initiatives.
“We pride ourselves on listening to and working with our community and we know the industry is very competitive and ever-changing,” said Sportel chief executive Laurent Puons.
“For this reason, I will continue to provide the Sportel community with the best opportunities to do business,” he added, announcing that next year’s spring market would be a three-day event, with two market days preceded by a conference.
Puons praised how the intimate format of the Miami event offers different but complementary benefits to its bigger brother, Sportel Monaco, which will take place this year from October 26-28.
Ahead of Sportel Miami, he said: “Delegates have more time per meeting to develop business relationships with the key established and emerging stakeholders from across the Americas and globally. In contrast, Sportel Monaco is much larger and very fast paced, with the mission of maximizing business and delegates having back-toback 30-minute meetings throughout the three-day event.”
The factor which unites both the spring and autumn events is the focus on innovation to meet the needs of a continually changing industry.
“We were delighted so many of the Sportel community have welcomed this new initiative and engaged with us as speakers, sponsors or signed up to attend and network. This new format of back-to-back sessions with no trade floor in parallel on the same day was a first for the spring event.
“Buyers are always a high priority at Sportel conventions, with clients requesting to meet more buyers at our spring events and our two-day series of invitation only ‘Buyers Breakfasts’ during the convention was designed to facilitate interaction between select buyers and sellers of sports media content and new technologies that raise the bar for the industry. We believe these two new additions could become a footprint at future events,” he said.