Beyond Sport United

The last day of the Beyond Sport festivites is named “Beyond Sport United” and focuses a lot of its energy and attention on how we can collaborate and how the professional sports leagues can continue to improve their impact in their communities. Throughout the day there were many interesting perspectives shared from all levels of sports.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS

KEYNOTE—Maurice Jones—President and CEO, LISC (Local initiatives Support Corporation)

• Talking about trip to London
  • Mind the GAP
• DC Life expectancy
  • Difference in life expectancies around DC
  • Zip code impacts years that you have to live
• 4 areas of opportunity
  • People
    • Health
    • Education
  • Place
    • Infrastructure to catalyze opportunity for adults and children
    • Courts
    • Houses
    • Rinks
  • Enterprise
  • Systems
• Solutions
• Richmond, VA
  • Two previously incarcerated individuals focused on keeping kids out of prison
  • Wanted to use basketball
  • League with just kids from housing projects
  • Wrap other things around it
    • Workshops
    • Trainings
  • Formed partnership with police
  • Motto “No jumpshots, without workshops”
  • 12-15 teams
  • When the league is in session, crime in Richmond goes down
  • Police chief wants it to be an all year round league
• Country has unbalanced distribution of high quality recreation facilities
  • Partnered with NFL
  • NFL has invested $50M to build and rehab fields
  • Fields have transformed communities
• Most opportunities are local
• The GAPs and minding the gaps are a team sport
• Key is how well we put together high functioning teams

KICKOFF SESSION:  WHAT WE MEAN BY GOING LOCAL

MODERATOR:  ALEXANDRA CHALAT

OMAR MITCHELL, VP SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE&GROWTH INITIATIVES, NHL

• Programs
• Infrastructure
• Cultural shift
• Over half of the rinks are over 20 years old
• Going hyper local
• Hockey used to integrate people into the local community
• Focus on inclusion

JESSICA YAVITZ, VP COMMUNITY RELATIONS, CHICAGO FIRE SOCCER CLUB

• Plays Program established in 2013
• Work in Chicago Public Schools
  • Finished in 30 schools
  • 40 schools next year
  • Youth that have a barrier to be able to play
  • Building 50 minute pitches
    • Free places to play
  • Working with youth to create free places to play
  • For many this is the first entrance into soccer
  • Chance to be engaged
  • Reduction in crime because they are working in this program
  • Good citizen and good neighbor
  • Engaging partners and club
  • What does it mean to be doing good next door
  • Partners like to align themselves with partners and brands
  • Need partners to understand what Fire agenda is

MELISSA SCHILLER, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS, NFL

• Shifted focus and thinking to celebrate 100 years
• Initiative to engage fans and connect community
• Huddle for 100
  • Million people
  • Tackling philanthropy in spirit of volunteerism
  • Drive initiative in way that is hyper local
  • Partners that have taken it and run with it
  • Players have hosted their own initiatives
  • Vikings CSR team drove business through this initiative
  • Being able to take a lead platform and drive it locally
  • Grants to activate as the community deems appropriate on the local level
  • Marketing strategy driven for local initiatives

TARA GUTKOWSKI SCHWARTZ, VP, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, NBA

• Focus on two philosophies
  • We are a basketball league
  • We understand that we are expect in putting on games, not necessarily in knowing what the community needs.
    • They are not prescriptive
    • They want to identify leaders
    • What is the work being done in each city
      • Dakkar
      • Jo’burg
      • Every city will be different
    • Benefit from growth of global business
• Get people to love the game
• Play and sport is something inherent in life
• Use it to bring NBA, WBNA and Special Olympics athletes

SARAH EBANJA, CEO, TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR FOUNDATION

• How they are using the stadium
• New stadiums built as an extension for the community
• Her background is in public sector
• Foundation
  • Previous focus on infrastructure
  • Now focus on operations
• Focus on security and help people find jobs

CASE STUDIES:

WHERE LOCAL HAS BEEN GOOD FOR SPORT BUSINESS

• MATTHEW BARRETT—FOUNDER, GOAL CLICK (NEW CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT)
• STEPHANIE WEBBER, DIRECTOR, PARTNERSHIP SALES (AMERICAS) CITY FOOTBALL GROUP (SPONSORSHIP GENERATION)
• JASON JENKINS, SVP COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMUNITY AFFAIRS, MIAMI DOLPHINS (FAN ENGAGEMENT)

This panel provided great examples of how focusing on the local community has been really good for their business model. The local focus has allowed them to build stronger relationships with their constituent communities and to make sure that they are listening to what their fans want. What these organizations found was that the local focus gave fans an opportunity to be invested into the programs run by the teams.

BREAKOUT B—BEST PRACTICE IN SPORT GOING LOCAL

• Jim Boyle—VP, Programs and Communications, Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation
• Jennifer Paulett—Manager, Corporate Citizenship, ESPN
• Tom Farrey—Executive Director, Project Play

Jim Boyle—VP, Programs and Communications, Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation

• How do you localize the campaign
• Mr. Wilson lived in Detroit and owner the Buffalo Bills
• $1.2 Billion spend down for counties around Detroit and Buffalo
• Develop other assets around cost barriers and access
• Campaign looks at messaging around cost barriers
• $3 million in paid media around the campaign
• Robust social media campaign
• Work with Aspen to deliver Project Play Summit
• Program with Kaboom
• They view content as open source
  • Put your logo on it and push it out to the community
• Sport matters to communities and it is about healthy communities
• More physical active means:
  • Better in school
  • More healthy
  • Less crime
• Get kids more physical active
  • Only 25% of kids are active 1 hour per day
    • Currently only 13% reach that benchmark
  • Enormous economic impact on health costs for the community

Jennifer Paulett—Manager, Corporate Citizenship, ESPN

• Project Play 20/20
  • Made up of leagues and corporations
  • Kids cant do it alone, leagues cant do it alone
  • Must collaborate
• ESPN Focus
  • Access to sports
    • 1.4 million given access
  • Leadership through sports
    • How do we bring those skills through sports
    • Life skills through sports
    • Develop you as a human being through sports
• 2018 only 38% of kids 6-9 are playing sports
• 69% of girls drop out of sports

Tom Farrey—Executive Director, Project Play

• People want this conversation
• He could see the thirst
• Project Play exists as a catalyst to elevate the space itself
  • Free resources
  • Parent checklist
  • Teamwork toolkit
• Landscaping local communities to mobilize local leaders
• Collective impact needs some rigor
  • Shared agenda
  • Measurement system
  • Communication channels
  • Trust
  • Effective path
• Where can you find data
• How can you tell where your community fits in
• Can the website be used by your organization to fit in
  • Improve coaching
  • Raise money
• Their resources are there to lift the whole space
  • Take it away from the “preaching to the choir space” to new people
• His ask
  • Look at site and see if you can make use of some of the resources
• What is the value proposition
  • Kids who play sports are 3 times as likely to follow sports
• Johns Hopkins calculator to show the impact of this sport on the downstream results
  • Be strategic
• Pushing to invoke systems level change
  • How can we create a system where it is easier to create a sustained experience
  • Policy conversations
  • Willingness to be