The R&A has renewed and expanded its long-standing partnership with IMG to create and invest in new commercial opportunities that drive long-term growth and support its wider strategy.
Starting January 2023, the new long-term agreement will see Endeavor-owned IMG now provide best-in-class digital services, powered by its digital arm Seven League:
- continue to evolve The R&A’s world-class production and content offering across its professional championships;
- distribute their international media rights;
- evolve the partnership structure across The R&A’s portfolio of championships and assets and provide event management support for its championships.
The R&A and IMG are exploring further opportunities to expand the relationship across other areas, including
- OTT/streaming with Endeavor Streaming,
- hospitality with Endeavor’s On Location, and
- sports data with IMG ARENA.
IMG‘s Seven League will focus on enhancing and amplifying The R&A’s existing digital assets, content and experiences while creating future value through audience growth and new products and content formats supported by IMG’s production team.
In recent years, IMG has played a vital role in supporting The R&A on the event delivery of the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship and the AIG Women’s Open.
Under the new agreement, IMG will extend this support across The R&A’s professional and amateur championships.
Streaming war
Deloitte Global predicts that in 2023, streamers will spend over US$6 billion on exclusive major sports rights in the largest global markets. To put that into perspective, in 2021, the combined content spend by all streaming providers was about US$50 billion.
For this reason, the interdependence between streaming providers and the largest sports leagues is growing.
IMG should help The R&A how to use skillfully first party customer data to understand fans’ needs and preferences and deliver the right amount of quality content, easy access, an engaging user experience, and exclusive perks, all at a reasonable cost.