Sports Techie will be an official blogger at the Global Sports Forum Barcelona (GSFB) 2012 in Spain from March 7-9. Many thanks go to the GSFB, the world’s leading exchange platform for sport, and the City of Barcelona, for selecting me to write daily blogs and live tweet from any Programs that I attend while at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya. “Sport: What’s Next?” is the tagline of the GSFB and I aim to find out exactly that with an additional emphasis on sports technology.
GSFB: http://www.globalsportsforum.org/
Barcelona was home to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games and the recent Mobile World Congress so they know how to host a Sports Techie kind of event like the 2012 GSFB certainly will be. The GSFB has 1,000 delegates, dozens of speakers, all representing over 50 countries. It is my pleasure to be a Sports Techie at the GSFB in this once in a lifetime opportunity for any blogger and especially a sports technologist.
Thank you to Havas Sport & Entertainment for your part in this excellent event and for choosing me as an official blogger.
Havas: http://www.havas-se.com/whatwedo.php.
Last year I volunteered to blog for the GSFB from here in Seattle and felt a real connection. Some of the bloggers from last year’s GSFB are now Social Media connections today via Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+. Sochi 2014 President, Dmitry Chernyshenko, is a GSFB past and present speaker who I have connected with via SM. Meeting people in person this year will be a next step that I look forward to happening.
Sports Technology is a big subject. It covers all sports, all technology and everybody, including animals and our Mother Earth. I love sports tech. No question about it, covering the GSFB Sports Techie style with blogs and tweets is as good as it gets.
GSFB Progam: http://www.globalsportsforum.org/program_en_us/.
After registration on Wednesday, the Official Opening – How sport brings a city to life; promises to set the events mood because the Welcome Address will by given by the Mayor of Barcelona. This is an important world wide topic because more and people are moving into Megacities and sport helps give every sized cities a way to connect, compete and earn sports business dollars.
Just announced by the GSFB is news that Justin Tuck, New York Giants, will be attending. I was the Moderator for the N.Y. Giants historical wiki three years ago and I always wanted to know if the GMen players like Justin read my daily posts? Justin’s plans to discuss his charity work and philanthropic nature, in addition to, relating his experiences with being a NFL player who played in London during 2007, and how all these opportunities have assisted his International fan reach.
Hope Solo, the U.S Soccer Women’s starting goalie, is confirmed. Hope and I have some things in common such as knowing Seattle area soccer coaches and we both have history with DWTS. Her topic, the Future of Sport & Entertainment, is together with the Head of Coke, Global Sports & Entertainment, along with a Warner Brothers Executive. I have already learned a new term by reading the description for their Program – Sport and Entertainment: bridging the gap. That word is: sportertainment. Fans and brands are the focus here.
On Thursday, I like the program – Changing the rules: emerging sports and new ways to play; featuring the ESPN Senior Direct, Marketing & Content, ESPN X Games, and the CEO of the Youth Olympic Games 2012. Paying attention to emerging sports and forms of play is something I enjoy.
I also like how this new topic sounds: When the NFL comes to Barcelona. The NFL will one day soon be a Super League because advances in travel technology are near. The GSFB has given me a direct flight from Seattle to Paris that saves me major amounts of flight time. This will be my first time in Europe and I have been told that it is the best route for me to fly. Soon enough, flight times will be several hours rather than half a day or longer to get around the world. The NFL having teams in London, Barcelona, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and Rio, all feel like a done deal within the next 10-25 years.
The GSFB announced a partnership with the Consortium Stade de France. According to the GFSB, “The deal will see the Forum create a Stadium Innovation Trophy.” How cool is that, Sports Techie. I wonder what the criteria are for winning the new Stadium Innovation Trophy? Look forward to digging down deeper into this hot sports tech award.
There are now only five Olympic cities looking for a winning bid in summer of 2020 after Rome dropped out because of finances: Madrid, Tokyo, Istanbul, Qatar and Baku. The GSFB program – Event bidding: what it takes to win, what it means to lose; covers this process with the help of Moderator, Kevin Roberts, Editorial Director, Sports Business Group.
The presence of the best youth football academy in the world, FC Barcelona’s La Maia, on the stage for a session on “Meet the Champions of Tomorrow” which is an exciting opportunity to understand more about how both plan to lead successful football academies. Soccer legend and the Director of Soccer for the NY Cosmos will speak in a separate engagement.
Laird Hamilton is a big-wave surf legend speaker who works with Oxbow and has invented his own water sport products. He does not fear the sports tech unknown, rather, like a good Sports Techie, he embraces it wholehearted.
A Bossaball Demo by @BossaballWorld sounds engaging.
I have tweeted directly to Oscar Pistorius a fair amount of times over the past two years so listening to him in a GSFB ‘Conversations’ on Sunday will be most enjoyable. He is a World Champion Paralympics sprinter and uses prosthetics to compete. Many of his fans know Oscar as the “Blade Runner.”
This is followed by a ‘Conversation’ with Sebastian Coe, chairman of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Seb recently shared that 54 per cent of the Organising Committee’s total workforce of 70,000 is female. London 2012 has made Olympic sportsbiz history by employing women as the directors of sport and communication for the first time. This trend bodes well for Sports Techie women and future job opportunities.
A Panel which includes the YouTube, Head of Sports Content Partnerships, will get together and discuss: TV vs Web – Round #2 for sports. This topic about television vs. the Internet is compelling and intrigues me. I look forward to participating and reporting more about what is discussed.
Since Sports Techie loves stadium technology, the Forum: Stadium developments – at the heart of the experience; will help me to better understand how the most real fact that many venues built for major sports events such as the Olympics or World Cup eventually can become ‘White Elephants.’
The one word that might best describe what the Forum will try and cover in – The new frontier: globalization of brand sponsors; is the word “Linsanity.” The NBA and FIFA, plus the former CEO of America’s Cup as the Moderator, makes this a sportsbiz must follow.
Finally, betting goes hand and hand with sports technology and business. The last panel will chat about: Gambling in sport: how much is good for business? As we push onward towards the future, will regulating gambling be left to the sports and NGB’s themselves or does there need to be further intervention by governments themselves to ensure morals and ethics are followed and enforced with the help of technology?
The last event is the Closing session: Meet the champions of tomorrow. Real Madrid has stepped up the recruiting and training of youth soccer players. How much is technology assisting with their agenda?
Here are SM links to connect and follow the GSFB:
GSFB Twitter: http://twitter.com/GlobalSportsFor
GSFB Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/globalsportsforumbarcelona
GSFB Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/GSFBarcelona
If you have a subject or speaker that you feel I should listen to and interactive with, please let me know below in the blog chat, or via a tweet or other SM posting.
Words do not do justice to the amount of joy I am feeling to be THE Sports Techie at the GSFB 2012. Stay tuned for more.
I will see ya when I see ya, Sports Techie
Sports Techie Twitter: @sportstechieNET, http://twitter.com/SportsTechieNET
Sports Techie Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/SportsTechie
Sports Techie YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sportstechie
Sports Techie Google+: http://gplus.to/SportsTechie
Sports Techie Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Sports-Techie-2958439
Sports Techie MySpace (Bob Roble): http://www.myspace.com/549000677
Sports Techie Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67964145@N05
Sports Techie Klout: http://klout.com/sportstechieNET
Sports Techie Blog: https://n5y.1cd.myftpupload.com/