Year 2 Reflections at the Adelaide Football Club: AFLW, Esports, Baseball and Australian Sports most diverse BDM role

Working inside a sporting organisation had long been a dream of mine and a point of fascination for people I meet in my work and personal life, so each year I want to provide some highlights and reflections. If you read my Year 1 summary, you would know this is slightly overdue, so before the AFLW/AFL/Esports 2020 partnership conversations take hold, I wanted to recap last year as the Business Development Manager for the Adelaide Crows across our AFL, AFLW, Legacy Esports, META High School Esports and Adelaide Bite Baseball teams.

Our second AFLW Premiership and one incredible final!

One of my memorable parts of working at the Crows was watching the Crows AFLW team win their second premiership in the three years of the leagues existence, the highs of the win and seeing the passion on the face of each fan, player and staff member.

Over 53,000 fans filled Adelaide Oval (the fifth highest AFL crowd at the stadium), putting pressure on the stadium to fit people into every single seated and standing section, providing an electric atmosphere and passion that only grew as the team won convincingly.

The game was not without it's lows unfortunately, featuring multiple ACL injuries, including Co-Captain Erin Phillips, who is a great Ambassador for AFL in all its forms and a role model for the next generation of sporting talent, both on and off the field. Erin's injury highlighted something truly special about the AFLW, with almost every player from both teams going to Erin on the way off, momentarily silencing the stadium before providing the loudest and longest standing ovation I have witnessed for a player in any sport.

META High School Esports: ANZ's Biggest Grass Roots Esports Tournament

Almost two years ago, we created an online High School Esports tournament that enables students to participate in competitive and casual esports together with the guidance of a teacher, as students have the chance to do with traditional sports.

This year alone META has organically almost tripled in size, encompassing 308 teams and almost 2,500 students who compete in teams, playing League of Legends, Rocket League and/or NBA2K through a range of online qualifiers, culminating in state based championships. The state based champions then play online for a chance to be one of two teams playing in the National Finals (this year at the Melbourne Esports Open), with all costs covered by META.

This year we are proud to announce multi-year partnerships with Presenting Partners Acer Computers and Intel, and Major Partners Optus and Torrens University, underpinning the growth and accessibilty of grass roots esports, while continuing to demonstrate why they are leaders in engaging technology savvy millenials across Australia and New Zealand.

The Adelaide Bite and Australian Baseball

Just over a year ago, the Adelaide Crows acquired the Adelaide Bite, expanding our offshore footprint, with esports and baseball featuring in the top 3 sports/hobbies of countless countries. The move will support the professional growth of baseball to ensure the increasing player base have professional state, national and international future pathways.

This is my first year engaging potential partners with the Adelaide Bite, providing great flexibility to utilise strong home crowd attendance, almost 300,000 game day viewers in Australia and over 5,000,000 viewers overseas. The creativity and flexibility within baseball allow custom partnerships to be created across apparel, digital, streaming assets and game day activities, appealing to a passionate fan base for across a 40 game season.

Given the Australian Baseball League (ABL) plays 'Winter Ball' (by overseas standards) from November to February, there is always an influx of talent from Major League Baseball (MLB) US, China and Japan, featuring players continuing to grow their craft in Australia in their off season, viewed by over 20 million overseas last season alone.

Australian Sports most diverse Business Development role

Since writing my Year 1 post, our expansion has provided the opportunity to talk to brands and listen to their opportunities and challenges at a detailed level. By combining AFL, AFLW, Legacy Esports and META High School E-League and the Adelaide Bite Baseball assets, there are countless partnership and marketing opportunities to engage a range of demographics across a truly 365 day a year opportunity, which is a game changer for brands.

This year there have been countless firsts, including the chance to create the full range of asset costing and values for Legacy, META and the Bite, taking these assets to market and developing a broader range of marketing understanding, ways to drive ROI and constantly honed ability to create concepts and campaigns to meet partner briefs.

While I can not take any credit, a key highlight this year was the creation of a long term partnership between Optus and the Adelaide Football Club, Legacy Esports and META and witnessing how a partnership with many facets is formed from conception to announcement. Being part of something so impactful and across so many areas is undoubtedly the best motivation to continually strive to create pioneering partnerships with impact!