Around the world with IMG: a region-by-region guide - episode 3: EMEA

0:03Welcome along to Around the World with IMG, a region by region guide and this is episode 3 EMEA. Do listen back on the feed for our Americas and Asia editions, but it's EMEA today. My name is David Cushnan and with me here in the Leaders Studio in London, absolutely delighted to have Sally Brown, the VP and co-head of multi-sport content at IMG. It's a slight mouthful of the job title, Sally, but you're going to tell us all about it shortly. But it's great to have you with us. Thank you for having me. And the first question, and I think we're going to flip-flop throughout this episode, EMEA or EMEA?

0:48What, for me? What would I say? For you, personal choice. I do both. I think I do both. And I'm not sure there's one standardized. No. I think from different companies I've worked for, people have said different things. So you sort of suddenly think, oh, what's right? What's wrong? But I think we can mix it up. It's good to hear there isn't a standardized ING version and there certainly isn't a standardized leaders version. So you will probably hear both, listener, but maybe we'll go with EMEA to start with. An interesting, a varied region, some very mature, established sports markets and some less mature markets that are growing, as we all know, extremely rapidly.

1:26And we're going to get into all of that with Sally, but also with a couple of other IMGers over the next few minutes. Chris Guinness, the EVP and Global Head of Commercial and Roland Nicolaou, VP of Football in the MENA region, will be joining us shortly. But Sally, first of all, let's establish your credentials and the facts behind that job title that I mentioned. Give us a sense of the roles and responsibilities that you have, particularly on the production side within IMG. So I work for studios. I work in content. There are four VPs in content. Sally Wood, who looks after the golf, of which there is a lot of it.

2:08Rich Bayliss looks after the football, of which there is a lot of it. And then there's Steve Rudger and myself, who have this same sort of title, which is head of multi-sport, which basically means you can throw us any sort of sport and we'll do whatever it is that is asked of us. Steve has been focusing a lot in the Middle East. I've supported him a bit on the Sports World Cup that was in the summer. But mostly for me, a big part of what I look after is the EuroLeague basketball. I think it's a privilege when you come. It's a funny role, the multi-sport role. And when that actually first became a role, I think it might have come from Sky Sports.

2:41I think it might have been Barney that sort of brought that in the first place. But it sort of covers everything else. I started my career at Sky Sports back in 1996 and I worked on the multi-sport team. So I worked across darts and snooker and world superbikes and speedway and pool and etc. So it's quite a good thing that you can bring all the expertise from working across lots of different sports, what you've learned from the different ways that sport is covered and bring it into the next sport that might pop up. So, yeah, I could be working across anything. I also dip into a little bit of business development.

3:11So I support that team when we're looking at new business. I support some of the other teams like football, for example. from a creative perspective, I bring a lot of my sort of creative ideas into some of the content football ideas as well. So yeah, a jack of all trades, a master of none. No, no, no, no, no. A jack of all trades and a master of many, I'm sure. A master of multi-sports. And it is an interesting sort of catch-all, isn't it, for multi-sports? What's the sort of, hesitate to use the word strangest, but what's the most left-field sport or project that you've been asked to tackle? Well, at IMG, I haven't had such a left field one yet, but no, not strange.

3:53I mean, you know, what's exciting about it is when you're given a sport that perhaps you haven't worked on before. At Sky, there were loads of different things. So I sort of immediately arrived and was like, oh, fantastic. This week it's darts, you know, next week it's elite league speedway. But I think, you know, at BT Sport, I landed in the beginning of the company starting up and I was given the UFC and I didn't know anything about it at all. But within years, I was the expert. So, you know, it's lovely when you can take something on and there's not too many restrictions on how you're going to do it, but just like help the client grow this sport.

4:32So that was fantastic. But no, not so much at IMG. I haven't been thrown a strange one yet, but I look forward to it. Bring it on, I say. That's it. That's it. We're going to speak to Roland and Chris, as I mentioned shortly, and I'm sure with Roland being based out in the Middle East, he will have some real knowledge to share about the market, the region and the markets within that region. So maybe just thinking about Europe and some more established markets. And again, with your production hat on, what are some of the big trends within sports production that you are seeing and particularly in those more established markets and amongst those perhaps more established rights holders?

5:18Well, I suppose with Europe, for me, it very much is all focused on EuroLeague at the moment. And so, you know, what we would be noticing is people wanting to look and think about multi-screens when it comes to production. Also very much thinking about AI and how that can enhance productions in any way. We use the AI for digital highlights. So we use WSC, which is really there to try and speed up the way that we get highlights out. There's still work to be done there. I think that the NBA are quite happy for it to be quite raw, but the EuroLeague very much like the integrity of the highlights to make sure it's in the right order, it's telling the story correctly.

5:58So we still have a bit of a human touch there as well. You know, we're looking at, there's AI commentary, because we're trying to, you know, see if we can help in all many different languages now as well. So yeah, I think they would be the main things that sort of we're focusing on at the moment. And also, like everything universally, you know, people just want to get people closer to the action. So it's all about innovation on court, in terms of perhaps a new camera, what we can do with the sound so people can be you know when i think about the euro league basketball and these these enormous superhuman uh athletes you know we're trying to always find for the federation how we can perhaps come up with something or a slight angle someone hasn't before where we can just show show them you know being superhumans really and again as you think about the the the EMEA market or EMEA market in general.

6:53And again, with your production hat on, what do you see as some of the, what are you expecting over the next five, 10 years? I mean, you talked about AI, you talked about localization, personalization. These are words we're hearing a lot across the industry at the moment. What are some of the expectations or sort of best guesses in terms of where the sports media, the sports broadcast game goes? Probably it's more that we're likely to be seeing sport more on the streamers, on the big streamers. So on Apple, Amazon, Prime, Netflix, YouTube, you know, it's anywhere that we can get more growth you think about you know in terms of basketball i always think about the uk as a as a market that we're desperate to sort of grow in but um it's difficult at the moment um with their uh it not being as popular a sport as say football rugby um etc um and and trying to find creative ways to be able to get this brilliant euroleague brand um out there in the uk um i know that they are showing it on YouTube channel, on TalkSports YouTube channel.

8:07And we can see what's happening with the different influencers who are perhaps sort of streaming broadcast. So I know our strategy team at IMG are thinking and working closely with the EuroLeague to come up with some creative sort of ways to get the EuroLeague into the market. We obviously are really excited that the London Lions are now in the EuroCup, which is the league below. If we can get a team that can get into the EuroLeague, that's going to make a massive difference as well. And it's a really interesting lens through which to think about the region in general, I think Euroleague in the, as you say, the UK, you have a very big media market, a very big sports industry market where Euroleague and the sport of basketball hasn't necessarily reached its potential.

8:55You have other very established markets. Spain, I would probably point to France, where EuroLeague is much more of a mainstream product, I suppose. And you've got some probably really interesting smaller markets where basketball is also extremely popular and somewhere approaching a national sport. And I imagine that's quite a challenge from a production and a content standpoint to get the mix right to dial up in certain markets or dial up different elements in certain markets versus others? So it's our responsibility with the World Feed to standardise the product. So it shouldn't make any difference where we're broadcasting from.

9:38And you should be able to know that that is a high quality Euroleap product. So we work really closely with the different regions and there are different challenges in all the different regions. And we have to work with all different OB supplies. It's the sort of third party, you know, who's supplying the power, the connectivity. There's challenges in certain countries. We think about, you know, you perhaps think about the Premier League and you think about, oh, this team plays at that stadium, that's their stadium. It's very different in Europe. And it's quite different to standardise. We think about things like perhaps remote production across the board might be a question that we ask.

10:12But then actually you realise that a lot of these teams don't own their own stadium, they're sharing it with another sport. So it's quite complicated. You know, you think about virtual advertising and think, well, that's a big, big area that the league would like to look into and we look into. And then you realise it's quite complicated with the placement of where the basket, the nets are or, you know, what kind of gets in the way. So things are just a little bit more complicated. You know, how people travel around, obviously, with the political unrest and the situation with Israeli teams, it's been very, very challenging for them because they've had to play in different countries, different places.

10:47So there's so many different complexities when it comes to the EuroLeague and moving thousands of people around it and so much kit around Europe as well. And maybe building on that and talking slightly more broadly, looking at the Middle East from a production standpoint. There's obviously a lot of interest and appetite there in sport. We're going to talk to Roland about all of that shortly. But again, from a production and enhancing the production, and I suppose there's almost an element of upskilling a local workforce as well. Talk about some of the challenges and opportunities you see in terms of producing sport for the Middle East in the Middle East region.

11:35Well, I'm not that close to that. That would come more under my colleague, Steve Rudge. But I know that they have done a phenomenal job in bringing in a lot of local people over there and also very much trying to invest in women over there. So there's some really positive stories. I think, you know, to start off with bringing our expertise, we've been bringing in all the best directors, the best people in and are doing a really good job of educating the locals. So I think it's really good that they're working hand in hand and working together. And so, yeah, that's probably as far as I can go on that.

12:09But I know that they are doing amazing things over there. Well, let's get into a little bit more of the Middle East in general, but also this EMEA region and some of the intricacies and some of the examples, building on your EuroLeague example by bringing in Chris and Roland. joining us now on the show delighted to have with us a couple more imgers uh we have roland nicolau vp of football head of football in the mina region and chris guinness evp global head of commercial chris have i got that job title correct it's a long one but yes you have good start uh good start uh maybe maybe flesh out that job title a little bit for us chris um you've been with IMG for, I'm going to say, a number of years.

12:58I don't know if you want to put a specific number on it. Well, I first joined IMG in 1989 and then left IMG in 2001 and then came back in 2007 and have been at IMG ever since. It's a long stint and it makes you well-placed, I think, because you've operated and now have this global role, but operated in several different regions. With regards to EMEA, I wonder what you've seen in that market and how you've seen that market in particular evolve over quite a long period. Yeah, I mean, I think that similar to other parts of the world, you're seeing a lot of consolidation, um free-to-air broadcast is obviously being more and more challenged to be competitive in the sports rights landscape um and now obviously pay tv operators being squeezed and potentially threatened by the emergence of uh the streaming platforms all of whom have different strategies in terms of market focus timing as to when if they haven't already they'll they'll come to market.

14:17And so it's an evolving marketplace. And EMEA specifically is a market that has certain countries and territories that are extremely challenged and other markets which are seeing significant growth in demand for sports depending on the strength of domestic athletes. Italy obviously being a case in point with regard to tennis with the huge emergence of tennis players, most notably Sinner at the top of the ranking. So it can't be ever described as a region which has overt similarities across the board, but it's definitely a market of change. And as a result, we as an organization are having to evolve as to how we address this change.

15:09And just give us a sense, mentioned your job title there, EVP and Global Head of Commercial, as the name suggests, a global role. Give us a sense of your roles and responsibilities and particularly how that relates to this EMEA region. My role is that I oversee the global rights distribution business. And obviously, having spent 17 years in Asia, I used to run the Asian part of business and in terms of a region of the world that's overtly culturally diverse. It's both a fascinating region, but also very complex. And every market is to a certain extent different. The Americas, we have a very strong team based in North America, led by colleague Hilary Mandel.

16:07Latin America is emerging, but we have a unique capability in Latin America because we represent one of the leading rights holders, Comnebol, and we're in the middle of a media rights process there. And last but not least, EMEA, which in some respects is the most mature. But as I was saying earlier, has certainly overt opportunities in different parts of the region and has diversity and differences, if not quite the same as Asia, certainly along that scale. And Chris, what would you say if we had to pin you down to it, appreciating what you said about individual markets within the region, what do you see as the most significant sports industry story in the emir region at the moment the two things that uh are of interest to me um one is the most recent news about um sky um in talks to take over itv's tv and streaming business and similar in the dark region germany austria in Switzerland, the RTL acquisition of Sky, which is still subject to regulator approval, which we're expecting in early 2026, both of which I think are examples of media entities combining together to challenge the onset and the potential threat of the streaming platforms.

17:41A big story, which we may well delve a little bit deeper into in a few moments time. Let's head to the Middle East, where there is obviously lots of activity going on. Roland, good to have you with us. And give us a sense of, first of all, where specifically you're located as IMG's football man in the Middle East, and a little bit about your remit in that region. Yeah, thank you. Today, I'm in Dubai. Yesterday, until midnight this morning, I was in Saudi Arabia. So I spent my time pretty much between Dubai, where my family is, but in Saudi Arabia, where a lot of activity is happening. So currently, I lead IMG's football business across the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on strategy, rights delivery, commercial growth across our core partnerships, including projects like the Saudi Pro League, the Gulf Cup, and also another range of strategic collaborations with other leagues, federations, and government entities in the wider GCC.

18:46basically our work spans the full spectrum from consulting to media writing broadcast production sponsorship sales event delivery and long-term capability building so essentially we're really here to help our partners define a commercial and strategic future across this region which is evolving quite fast and like anywhere in the world right and my role sits across commercial growth I think cultural transformation, as I like to call it. Very good. And obviously, lots going on, in particular in Saudi Arabia. I suspect I might know what you will say here, but same questions I asked, Chris. In your part of the world, what is the most significant story at the moment?

19:31Well, it's a tremendous moment for the region, especially over the past few years. Like we just did the Six Kings Stampiners event happening. We did that on Netflix. We produced it. Marked a landmark moment, not just in sport, but for entertainment in terms of global storytelling. And if you look at the continued evolution of the regional football from the Gulf Cup to new club competitions have elevated the region's sporting footprint. If you look at the eSports World Cup that just happened in Saudi Arabia, setting massive benchmarks for digital engagement and live production. Whether it's across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, there is a big integration of culture and music, sports that's currently shaping the future of life and experience.

20:20So what makes it quite exciting is the region is moving in a coordinated approach rather than competing between the countries. Obviously, Saudi brings scale and ambition. Dubai brings innovation, global connectivity. Qatar contributes to the infrastructure and experience in terms of hosting big events. You've got Kuwait and Oman focusing on youth development and regional collaborations. So at the heart of it, it's basically a vision that is using sport not only as a competition, but also as a driver of tourism, culture, and global identity. Now, football is your sport. Football is your business.

20:58And it's very, I think, easy when we talk about football in the Middle East to concentrate solely on Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Pro League. And I know you're doing a lot of work there. A World Cup coming to Saudi Arabia, another World Cup in the MENA region coming up in 2034. Maybe start a bit more broadly than that. What is your assessment across the region of the health, the popularity, the cultural impact of football as it stands right now? I mean, look, we've discussed this not long ago last week at our get-together at IMG. And football, for a lot of people that don't know, has quite a deep culture in this part of the world.

21:49If you look at it from 1920s, that's when it started in this part of the world, football was pretty much the sole form of entertainment. There are some rich clubs that have managed to win some accolades on continental levels and have drawn a lot of players from foreign leagues. I mean, it started with UAE and then Qatar followed suit and now obviously the Saudi pro league. so if you look at today's audiences especially the young engaged audiences they are very avid football fans very well engaged very knowledgeable about the players where they play what their records are and they want to make sure that they're following them it's a digitally native audience that lives on basically consumes social media like no other and we see that majority of these players have become content producers and media platforms by themselves.

22:47So there's always that rivalry between the top clubs in these countries. Chris, if we bring you back in, maybe with your global hat on, clearly a lot of international interest in all sorts of ways in the Middle East as a market, as an event host, as an investor in sport but also increasing international appetite for leagues like the Saudi Pro League and the teams and the players brands that sit within them how do you with it from a global standpoint think about the Middle East as a market specifically and what is the optimum approach for international organizations? I mean, as Roland's been saying, the impact of Saudi Arabia has been felt in so many different ways in terms of them, you know, hosting and wanting to host and aspiring to host major events in the region, but also getting behind certain sports.

23:55Obviously, as an example, their support of Live Golf. But for us, I think what is extraordinary to me is what we've done with EuroLeague basketball and having extended that relationship for another 10 years. We firmly put EuroLeague basketball on the map in the Middle East, not only with the incredibly successful Final Four event that took place in Abu Dhabi this year. We now have a Dubai team in EuroLeague. We have a title sponsor in Etihad. We had a host broadcaster in Dubai TV. So we've effectively, with all of the infrastructure and the collaborative expertise that we have, we have effectively given EuroLeague a very firm foothold in a critically important market.

24:54The second thing I would say, and, you know, obviously Roland is very, very knowledgeable about the region, but about football, but what we've done in the Gulf Cup is also extraordinary. The last event took place, well, ended in January this year. The next one will be in Saudi next year. But in terms of the number of countries in which that event was broadcast, putting aside the sort of record revenue that we generated on behalf of the competition, that was broadcast in 168 countries compared to the previous edition, which was 77. So, I think we're doing so much in the region and there is so much opportunity.

25:37And I think the most important thing is to attack a region of that importance on an integrated basis. And I I think the EuroLeague example demonstrates how collaboratively we've worked across all the areas of expertise within IMG to bring that success to bear. And let's maybe, Sally, dive into that EuroLeague example in a touch more detail. Bring it to life for us in terms of the production side of things and the way that relationship has evolved over time. partnership joint venture launched in in 2016 as chris mentions a recent early very long-term extension which uh i would suggest is a good sign uh that everybody's happy and uh uh more than comfortable with the the progress that's being made yeah we've got a fabulous relationship in terms of production with um the euro league client um and we're just looking forward to the next 10 years now where we can keep helping them build and grow um yeah with it's it's a growth story for EuroLeague you know now with 20 teams um as Chris says you know we've now got Dubai basketball um involved which is has brought us new challenges because we're now um having to work sort of with Dubai TV in a new uh region but that's that's brilliant because they've brought so much excitement they're bringing loads more cameras than is necessary they want to really land with a bang.

27:02But we're there to help support because EuroLeague is quite a complex sport to broadcast actually and requires sort of quite a lot of expertise in terms of the camera people who are working on it, that they understand who all the players are, you know, the replay operators, all the different, you know, the data, everything. It's not quite about let's throw tons of cameras and then it'll all be brilliant and better than everybody else's. But that's where we're working with them and they're really receptive and it's exciting. So this is a really lovely, lovely area for us to build. And Abu Dhabi was amazing too.

27:35There are cultural differences. We've sort of learnt, we're learning all the time when we go into these places, but we had a very successful broadcast. And obviously, the better the broadcast that we can do, the better it is for the sales guys to be able to sell it. But yeah, it's a real positive growth story. And we're really proud to be part of it. And Roland, maybe paint a picture, as Chris teed up for you of the Gulf Cup and the story there. A story and a tournament that may be a little bit less familiar to some listeners who are maybe in the UK or the US, but in its own right, as Chris hinted at, an enormously successful regional but also international product now.

28:21And the Gulf Cup is over 70 years old. So it's an event that takes place every couple of years. Six GCC nations lost to others in Yemen. Iraq has been basically the World Cup for the region. Every attention turns to it. And if you go to... But every league stops for it, even though it's not a sanctioned event by CIFAR. It's not on the calendar, but every league stops for it. every manager wants to win it every every child father and granddad and grandmother everyone sits around it and and consumes it because it's full of passion it's basically their local derby and that's generated um interest over generations as i said i've been personally involved with come to maybe now five or six of these events and previous roles and now with img we've managed to elevate the production.

29:20We've managed to expand with the help of the commercial team to new avenues and new territories, bringing the stories of this part of the world to unknown areas and where they weren't before. It's a testament to the work that we do with the help of our commercial team and the production team and everyone else at IMG. Another thing that Sally mentioned with regards to basketball and Dubai Basketball Club, but I think is really interesting and would love to get your take on, Roland, is the increasing emergence of team brands in basketball, but in football as well in the region. And obviously some of these teams have incredible histories and traditions, but I think the sense from the outside maybe is that we are seeing more of an international spotlight on some of them.

30:12And some of that is related to particular players coming into those teams, more attention, more media coverage. How are you seeing the growth of team brands within the Middle East? And what opportunities does that open up, do you think, for football in the region? I mean, look, it's another level of unlocking value and trying to build a connection with a fan. ultimately bringing team football or a new team into the mix helps you unlock some different values that potentially weren't when being unlocked before it kind of fits to the entire narrative and the evolution of what's happening in this part of the world and all the various initiatives that have been driven.

30:59Ultimately it's all about creating the right storytelling, the right narrative and the right commercial landscape to make sure that all of them are running sustainably for the future. I mean, the region has been known to innovate in a sense. If you look at what's happening with the AI technology that's been fueled and that's been driven in this part of the world, there's a narrative in terms of needing to have some IP coming out from this part of the world and then new properties coming out from this part of the world. And in terms of operating in the region and doing so effectively and successfully and smartly, who are the key people, Roland?

31:45Who do you need to know? Who are the organizations? Who are the key people that you in your role need to have a great relationship with to be able to move things forward, to be able to do better business? So obviously it's a very complex region and a lot of people confuse it as it's one region. Every country is different. If you look at Saudi, for example, whether it's the Ministry of Sports, the GEA, the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Football Federation, the Saudi Pro League, all of them interconnect one way or another. and you have to really be understanding of how the relationship between them works to be able to get things done.

32:26The same goes for Dubai and Abu Dhabi, whether it's Dubai Sports Council or Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Department. They are the major stakeholders, but not to forget also the private sector, whether it's partnerships with the brands or the media entities as well. So it's an ecosystem somewhere you really need to spend time to forge relationships and build connections. Business here is done. Pretty much like this experience in Asia, it's very human focused. It's very relationship based and it's something that a lot of people maybe forget about or are not aware of it. And Chris, again, maybe with a slightly expanded view of things and maybe thinking about some of the more established markets that you're operating in in Europe, and maybe thinking about your first answer around the big media entities who are, to some extent, in this period of consolidation.