News Corp has inked an exclusive partnership with the global sports industry conference SportNXT to promote its News Sport Network.
The deal aims to generate awareness of the News Sport Network, which is the overarching brand for all of News Corp’s sports brands and content across its national network, as well as provide the event with access to News Corp Australia’s audience of 18 million people.
This year’s event features speakers such as Casey Wasserman, chair of the LA2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games; Andrew Liveris AO, president, Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee; Brett Gosper, head of Europe & APAC, NFL; Alan Gilpin, CEO, World Rugby; Rebecca Sowden, founder, Team Heroine & Correct the Internet and James Sutherland, CEO of Golf Australia.
The annual SportNXT conference, which is now in its third year, brings together global and domestic sports and business leaders to discuss the industry’s future. The event has big ambitions to be “the Davos of Sports” and attracts an audience of big hitters, according to Hamish Anderson, CEO of SportNXT.
“The delegates include key decision makers across the sports industry from clubs, leagues, federations, governments, venues, sports tech companies, sponsors, media – anyone within the sports ecosystem. The audience is very senior with 50% comprising of c-suite, director level executives,” Anderson told Mediaweek.
Anderson said key trends to be examined at the conference include the commercialisation of women’s sports, the impact of AI on sports, and the globalisation of sports.
News Sport Network managing director, Michael Wilkins, told Mediaweek the globalisation of sport was a significant area of interest for sports fans.
“The global sports brands view Australia as a lucrative market, a small market, but a lucrative one,” said Wilkins, “They’re very interested in expanding their footprints here. If you look at sports like the NFL and NBA, and the English Premier League, there are massive audiences here. There are no boundaries to the sports fan anymore. They can access sports from all over the world, and, as a media company, its very important that we’re surfacing content around those sports to engage the fans. If fans are demanding more global support, we’ve got to give it to them.”