Editor Jake Bickerton gives a preview of the latest print edition of Broadcast Sport. You can read the whole magazine here. 
Welcome to the first issue of Broadcast Sport for 2020. It feels like the year has barely started, yet we’ve already seen plenty of action in the Six Nations; witnessed Liverpool running away with the Premier League title; had a genuine watercooler moment with the Fury v Wilder II fight that seemed to turn everyone into boxing fans; not to mention huge sporting events such as the Australia Open and the Super Bowl LIV.
The televising of big sporting moments such as these continues to grow in ambition, with rugby fans benefitting from a series of five new data-driven insights during the Six Nations games (see p30-33 for more on these).
If Coronavirus can be kept at bay, the year ahead should continue to provide a wealth of sports content for the varied mix of platforms available to sports fans today.
Euro 2020 and The Tokyo Olympics, in common with new sports formats such as The Hundred cricket tournament, Roborace and Extreme E will maximise their reach by getting tailored, bespoke platform-specific content out across a bewildering array of social media sites and apps, linear TV, D2C and OTT streaming services. See our roundtable discussion on p26-29 for more on how a burgeoning sport reaches its target audience in 2020.
And this broad mix of sports content, covering the action both on and off the pitch, will be examined in detail at the inaugural Broadcast Sport Content Summit, which is being held at Dock10 on 5 March. The event promises to be a fascinating day, providing insight into many different aspects of sports content production (see the programme on p46-49).
Keeping with the same theme, there are interviews with Duane Jones of Renowned Films (p6-8) and Julian Gibbs at Intro both focusing on how to get the world’s biggest sports stars to open up on camera.
We also go behind the scenes at Curious Films’ Squad Goals sports doc series (p12-17); focus on the production of two UK-based esports events (p34-39); spend a fascinating Saturday at IMG’s offices (cover story, p40-45) and investigate what sports broadcasters are doing to cut their carbon footprint (p20-22).
You can read the latest edition here.
Jake Bickerton, Editor, Broadcast Sport