Sport Trends and Predictions 2023 - Thematic Intelligence

An analysis of the biggest sporting trends that are likely to impact the sporting world, and the ways in which that might happen.

The rise of cryptocurrency in 2021 was almost as dramatic as its fall in 2022, with the market experiencing a significant crash. The value of bitcoin began dropping in the summer when Celsius and Binance, two of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges paused withdrawals citing ‘extreme market conditions'. This instability had a severe knock-on effect for Bitcoin prices globally, with investors becoming concerned after these stories broke. The inherent problem with Bitcoin, and the reason for its instability, is that there are no underlying assets to it, unlike company shares whose price can be influenced by the financial performance of a business. This means that shifts in the price of Bitcoin are entirely dependent on the investors pumping money into it, and their speculation on how the market will either rise or fall in the future. While this was cited by many as a reason not to invest too heavily into Bitcoin before 2021, many did not listen, particularly in the sports sponsorship industry.

The accessibility and interest in women's sports have been slowly trending upward over the years, thanks to much of it being easily watchable on free-to-air channels in the UK. However, the triumph of the England women's soccer team at the 2022 European Championships will inspire a generation of young girls like nothing else ever has in the country. The historic triumph, which happened in front of a fervent home crowd at Wembley against Germany, is one of the most significant moments of sport the UK has witnessed in decades and will drive a significantly increased interest in the women's game going forward.

A big debate over the last few years has been the ethics behind certain sponsorship deals, namely with betting brands. Gambling addictions are said to afflict hundreds of thousands in the UK, and soccer has often been criticized for the number of betting sponsors present within the sport, particularly in England.

Key Highlights

• Among the most disastrous stories to emerge from 2022 regarding cryptocurrency was the collapse of FTX, which issues its own token, FFT, and was the fourth-largest crypto exchange in the world before its collapse. The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, had also founded a crypto trading firm called Alameda Research, whose largest assets all comprised billions of dollars' worth of FFT. The CEO of rival crypto exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, announced his plans to sell all of Binance's stockpile of FFT due to leaks highlighting the blurred nature of FTX and Alameda's funds. Zhao's actions triggered a disastrous drop in the value of FFT within 24 hours and investors realized that FTX did not have the liquidity required to back transactions and keep themselves afloat. This had a knock-on effect on the entire market, with Bitcoin seeing a drop to a two-year low. Zhao and Bankman-Fried then struck a deal for Binance to acquire the non-US brand of FTX, which essentially served as a way to bail out FTX to prevent a larger market crash. However, Binance bailed out of the deal a day later after completing its ‘corporate due diligence'. Contributing to the decision were news reports that FTX had mishandled customer funds, and that the exchange was under investigation by multiple different agencies. FTX was then forced to declare bankruptcy and froze all withdrawals, although these were later reopened. However, a hack then emptied over $600 million from FTX wallets, which led to FTX general counsel Ryne Miller announcing that the company would move all their remaining assets to ‘cold storage' to prevent further hacking attempts.
• Globally, interest in this tournament was greater than ever, with an estimated 365 million viewers tuning in around the world. This is more than double that of the 178 million who watched the 2018 edition, and 214% greater than the number of fans that tuned into the 2014 European Championships. The event was also extraordinarily well attended, breaking the record for the average attendance per game and total aggregate attendance for a Euro's match. The 87,192 people in attendance for the final set a record for the most well-attended women's soccer game held in Europe, beating the previous record of 80,203 who attended the women's Olympics soccer final in 2012.

The effect on younger generations will be seismic and will inspire a wave of young girls to take up the sport in an attempt to emulate their heroes. Women's sport has always been underfunded globally in comparison to men's sport but increased interest here in the UK will force federations to take note and invest more money into the women's game. The effect is also likely to be sizable on the Women's Super League (WSL), which is the highest tier of women's soccer in England. The league features several English stars including Beth Mead, Ella Toone, Chloe Kelly, and Alessia Russo who were all instrumental in the Lionesses' triumph, and the popularity they have accumulated will lead to increased viewership in 2023.

• The growth of esports in the next year will trigger more sponsorship opportunities. Sponsorship deals within esports have been steadily increasing in value as viewership increases, and brands will become increasingly keener on partnering with teams and competitions that they know will accumulate significant numbers of viewers. As an example, the most viewed esports event of all time was the 2021 Free Fire World Series, which accumulated over 5.4 million viewers. While this is an extreme example, it highlights the sway that esports has on gamers and younger generations, which most esports fans comprise.

Scope

• This report provides an overview of the most exciting developing stories in the world of sport business for 2023, and where each of these stories might be headed.
• Discussion on how these topics and stories have developed over the course of 2022, and where they currently stand now.
• The report provides a detailed analysis on how some of the biggest sports stories have shaped 2022, including the collapse of crypto and the explosion in interest of women's sport.
• A closer look at what the metaverse could mean for sports in the future.

Reasons to Buy

• For those wanting an in-depth analysis of what 2023 may look like for sport, and where the industry may look to grow financially.
• For those wanting a sense of the current landscape of the sporting world, as well as the current outlook for the future of cryptocurrency and the metaverse.
• The publisher's thematic research ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors. It has a proven track record of identifying the important themes early, enabling companies to make the right investments ahead of the competition, and secure that all-important competitive advantage.