Piracy, Security On the Agenda at SPORTEL

(ATR) SPORTEL has developed from a market for media rights to the only international trade fair for sports media and technology.

Representatives of numerous industries meet annually in Monaco. With 19 percent, most of the 2018 delegates came from the Broadcast TV Network sector. Other industries included Sports Programming Distribution (15 percent), New Media (14), Sports Federation, League, Clubs (10), Press and Media (9), Technology & Software (7), Marketing, Sponsorship, Communication (7), Legal Consulting (7) and Others (12). A total of 3026 participants from 78 countries attended the 2018 Summit in the Principality on the Mediterranean. They represented 968 companies. Almost two-thirds came from Europe (65 percent). The other third is spread over the other continents. Asia/Middle East (15.5), North America (12), South America (3.5), Oceania (2.5) and Africa (1.5).

A steadily growing sector is the security sector. SPORTEL CEO Laurent Puons explained in an interview with Around the Rings: "At a time when security of broadcast content and optimization of the consumer experience are at the heart of broadcasters’ challenges, we are noticing the presence of companies specialized in these new technologies. We have been focusing on this sector, for five years now, bringing to its community the key actors in terms of anti-piracy, content monetization and fan engagement."

And Puons adds: "SPORTEL is the place to be to acquire sports technology to drive fan engagement, maximize reach, best understand how to monetize your data and much more. This has been a growing trend for many years and is now a crucial aspect for our community. I expect these trends to continue to grow, as technology continues to drive growth for many companies in the international sports business industry."

A challenge for rights holders is the strongly increasing piracy. This difficult problem is part of SPORTEL.

"How piracy is a huge issue in the industry, which is one of major headwinds to the future growth of the international sports media rights industry. We may not have all of the answers today but the industry must continue to fight piracy to ensure rights holders and broadcasters can generate ROI and live sport rights remain important to broadcasters," Puons says.

A new concept is the Innovation Zone. Start-ups of the sports media rights industry can show their innovations here. A panel discussion will deal with women's sports. At the moment the number of spectators is increasing. Almost one billion spectators followed the Women's Football World Cup in France this summer. This is an increase of 30 percent compared to the 2015 World Cup in Canada. And almost half a billion people are predicting the event on digital platforms. Since some viewers used both possibilities, 1.12 billion people followed the event, according to the World Football Association. For the SPORTEL CEO, this follows: "At this point in time rights fees for the associated content are very competitive."

The celebrations for the 30th Anniversary Party began on Sunday evening with the Monaco Boxing Challenge. For the registered participants there will be a party on Monday evening.

Written and reported by Heinz Peter Kreuzer in Monaco

For general comments or questions,click here.

Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.