Is sport getting left behind in a digital world?

Ben Wells, former head of marketing at Chelsea FC, explains how sports organisations need to stop applying an outmoded mindset to the modern toolkit

I’ve never been comfortable with the term “sports marketing”. I’ve never understood why it has its own industry subset. Marketing is marketing. For me, “sports marketing” demeans the very crucial role that marketing should play in the digital age.

While sport has embraced marketing, admittedly as a cost centre, it has been slow to understand the potential of digital and, indeed, data.

It is slowly coming around to the fact that it needs ...