SportAccord 2021 Dates in Limbo - Conferences & Conventions

(ATR) There has been no official announcement but the dates for SportAccord 2021 in Ekaterinburg, Russia are now listed on the main page of the SportAccord website as "to be confirmed".

The convention had been scheduled for May 23 to 28 but SportAccord president Raffaele Chiulli, speaking on an ATRadio podcast last month, hinted that a change was coming.

Chiulli told Around the Rings that many of the international federations who attend the event will be preoccupied in late May with final preparations and qualifications for the postponed Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo.

Besides the demands on IFs preparing for Tokyo, lingering lockdowns and restrictions on travel from the pandemic remain an issue for SportAccord 2021.

"We have more than 2500 delegates, so we are monitoring the situation very closely. And of course we are an international event with delegates planning to travel from all the corners of the globe. So therefore we are aware that plans for the event may have to be changed, depending on how the situation unfolds," Chiulli told ATR in February.

There was no mention of any date in a press release issued by SportAccord on March 23 announcing that the theme for the 2021 CityAccord conference would be ‘Event Hosting in the New Reality and Ever-Expanding World of Sport’.

SportAccord declined to give any information on a possible date when contacted by ATR.

Those who wish to register for the convention can do sohere,

Plans for SportAccord in 2020 were scuttled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Originally set for Beijing, the event was moved to Lausanne. But limits on the size of meetings in Switzerland put an end to that plan. It was the first time in 17 years that SportAccord wasn’t held.

International Federations Summit Next Month

The 4th edition of the International Federations Summit will be held virtually next month due to the pandemic.

The event is scheduled for April 21-22.

Organizers say that given their international audience, a flexible time schedule and menu of options is available to create an individualized workshop program.

There will be three different 90-minute workshops on offer for each day. Delegates can register for up to five.

The themes are Broadcast & Digital, Esports, International Federations & Associations, Host Cities, New Olympic Sports, and Venues.

To ensure"as real an experience as possible" for the online summit, organizers are offering Breakfast, Lunch and 'After Hours' roundtables to give delegates the opportunity to meet each other outside the program sessions.

Click here to register and take advantage of an early bird discount.

SportsPro Live Reveals Session Details

Details for the first sessions of the upcoming SportsPro Live virtual event are being released.

Among the speakers lined up so far are Andrea Gaudenzi, the chair of the ATP, the organization that runs men’s professional tennis, and Matchroom Sport Managing Director and boxing promoter Eddie Hearn.

Eurosport president Andrew Georgiou, DAZN’s co-CEO James Rushton and Olympic Broadcasting Services chief executive Yiannis Exarchos will also speak at the two-day event on April 28-29.

Click here to register for free. A VIP pass that also includes on-demand content access, networking access and access to the VIP attendee list costs £199 ($273).

Host City Americas to Debut in June

The inaugural Host City Americas digital conference will take place on June 29-30.

The event will bring together international rights holders and suppliers with event hosts and investors in the Americas.

Host City says more than 1,000 people will be taking part in the online event, including IOC members, sports ministers, mayors, International Federations and Organizing Committee leaders.

There could be plenty to talk about, including which of the 23 cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in the running to host 2026 FIFA World Cup matches will make the final cut later this year.

Key themes for the 14 planned sessions include Post-Covid Recovery, Digitalization, Sustainability, Private Investment, Esports, and the changing media landscape.

Speakers for the event are currently being lined up.

Click here to register and get your free ticket for Host City Americas.

Later this year, the 2021 edition of Host City will be a global, hybrid event held in Glasgow, Scotland on December 7-8. The format change is designed to build on last year’s first digital edition, combining the face-to-face interaction at Glasgow’s Technology & Innovation Centre with online connectivity.

Sportel+ to Hold Second eTALKS

Sportel’s new virtual platform Sportel+ will turn its focus to esports for the second in a series of what it calls eTALKS.

There will be two sessions for the online event on April 8. The first entitled "Esports & Traditional Sports – Cultivating the Crossover" and the second "Opportunities in Esports for Broadcast & Production". The sessions, which each run an hour, will be held back to back beginning at 1400 Central European Time. Speakers for both will be announced soon.

Sportel+ eTALKS, which the company says is designed to complement live events and connect with the community digitally, discuss evolving trends emerging from the pandemic and beyond.

Click hereto register. The events are free to attend.

The first two sessions in the series were held on March 11 and focused on sports media rights and new broadcast strategies.

The future of sports tech is the topic for a third set of sessions to be held at a yet to be determined date in May.

Meanwhile, Sportel is starting to prepare for the next edition of Sportel Monaco, scheduled for October 5-7, 2021.

Last year's edition had originally been pushed back from its traditional October spot to February 22-24, 2021. But in January it was decided to delay it again so that the event could be 100 percent face-to-face.

Written by Gerard Farek

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