Category Archives for Fan engagement

GSB News and Notes, UK Style: Arsenal Supporters Protest Owner Stan Kroenke’s Ownership of Hunting Channel; Oval Cricket Ground/SkyTV Tackle Plastic Ocean Waste; Forest Green Rovers League Two Debut Earns Big Media Coverage

With the 2017-18 Premier League (EPL) football/soccer season set to kickoff tomorrow/Friday, with Arsenal hosting Leicester City, and with a raft of interesting Green-Sports stories breaking out across England, now is a perfect time for a UK style GSB News & Notes. And, just like the EPL campaign, we start with Arsenal, as their supporters protest the club’s American owner Stan Kroenke and his ownership of a cable TV hunting channel. Then we move on to an initiative from London’s Oval Cricket Ground and SkyTV to build awareness of, and action on the plastic ocean waste issue. We end with GSB fave Forest Green Rovers (FGR). Their debut in the fourth tier of the English Football pyramid, League Two, after earning promotion from the fifth tier last spring, drew coverage from major media outlets the world over. Why? Because FGR is the Greenest Team in Sports.

 

 

ARSENAL SUPPORTERS PROTEST OWNERS OWNERSHIP OF CABLE TV HUNTING CHANNEL

Arsenal is one of the Premier League’s (EPL’s) most decorated clubs, with 13 league titles and a record 13 FA Cup trophies to its credit. It is also an EPL green leader: The club just extended its partnership with Octopus Energy to supply the Emirates Stadium with electricity generated solely from renewables. The stadium also puts its 100 percent of its food waste through an anaerobic digester, which then gets composted.

Gunners’ supporters seem to be supportive of the clubs greening initiatives but that hasn’t stopped them from criticizing the club’s American owner, Stan Kroenke, on another environmental issue — animal cruelty — specifically, his company’s ownership of My Outdoor TV (MOTV), a hunting-themed cable network. And they are, smartly it says here, pushing Arsenal’s main sponsors — Emirates, Puma and Vitality — to condemn Kroenke’s support for hunting.

According to Jack de Menezes of The INDEPENDENT of London, “a petition calling for [Emirates, Puma and Vitality] to call for Kroenke ‘to stand down’ has [as of August 3rd] nearly reached 50,000 signatures, as pressure continues to grow on the American billionaire following the launch of his hunting TV channel.”

Kroenke has faced searing criticism and outrage from Arsenal supporters after it was revealed on August 1 that MOTV is owned by his company, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. Per de Menezes, the aforementioned petition calls for a “meeting between the Arsenal board, key sponsors, leading animal rights charities and most importantly, [representatives] of the international fan bases regarding this situation.” Tom Farmery of The Daily Mail reported that the dustup reached up to the highest levels of British politics as UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the criticism of Kroenke’s MOTV app, which for £7.60 ($10.06) a month offers “the Netflix of the hunting world.”

But perhaps it was the BBC and its “Have I Got News For You” show that nailed the story with this tweet of a doctored jersey (“kit” in British English,) which Arsenal fans then picked up with a vengeance.

 

Arsenal Tweet

 

Can you see American sports fans protesting against a hunting channel? Or against fracking? While there certainly were marches against Mike Vick after he served his time for organizing dog fights, it’s hard for this reporter to imagine a movement against hunting in the US. And if that’s hard to imagine, it’s harder still to picture protests against, say, fossil fuel companies who sponsor sports events/teams. We certainly can learn some things from our British sports fan cousins.

 

LONDON’S OVAL CRICKET GROUND PARTNERS WITH SKY TV ON PLASTIC OCEAN WASTE CAMPAIGN

Sky TV, one of the UK’s two largest sports broadcasters (BT Sport being the other) is advancing Green-Sports in ways that its US counterparts ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, and CBS Sports, should emulate.

Kia Oval Stadium, the 24,000 seat South London home of the Surrey cricket club, partnered with Sky and its new Sky Sports Cricket channel to build awareness of the plastic ocean waste problem. The broadcaster, through its Ocean Rescue sustainability campaign, gave out refillable water bottles to fans who came to the stadium from July 27th-31st for the England-South Africa five day Test match. Thanks to a hat trick by star bowler Moeen Ali, the home side won by 239 runs. I have no idea what “England won by 239 runs” in cricket means…other than that England won.

 

England bowlers Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad are supporting the Sky Ocean Rescue initiative, which is encouraging consumers to reduce the use of single-use plastics

England bowlers Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad are supporting the Sky Ocean Rescue initiative, which is encouraging consumers to reduce the use of single-use plastics. (Photo credit: Sky Sports)

 

 

According to a story by Luke Nicholls in edie.net, 20,000 limited-edition re-usable bottles were given out at the London ground throughout the five-day Test affair, and “fans were encouraged to use 20 free water distribution points which were installed throughout the venue.” Giving out water bottles is hard to imagine at a stateside sporting event, or even at an English soccer/football match. But, perhaps the make up of the crowd at a five day Test match — where there are breaks for tea — gives the organizers confidence that the water bottles will be used in a proper, decorous fashion.

A Sky Ocean Rescue mobile studio was set up at the Oval, allowing fans to commit their own recorded pledge to become an #OceanHero. These were then shared via social media.

But it is on TV where Sky is really stepping up its Green-Sports game.

Sky News reports on the plastic ocean waste issue were played during breaks in the match and viewers were challenged to reduce use of single-use plastics in the home.

Sky Sports Cricket channel devoted parts of its Test match coverage to highlighting the impact plastic is having on the world’s oceans, using some cricket statistics that, per Nicholls’, are “shocking”: For example, “In the time it takes to bowl one over, the equivalent of four rubbish trucks’ worth of plastic will be dumped in the ocean.”

Now, I have no clue as to what “bowling one over” means or how long it takes, but I do know that if Sky Sports can broadcast environmental messaging during an important international cricket match, ESPN and Fox Sports can do the same during, say, an NBA playoff game or World Series games. Will they? Stay tuned.

To Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch, the Ocean Rescue campaign, which launched in January with a 45-minute documentary which aired across the company’s TV channels and has received almost 25,000 views on YouTube, is a no-brainer: “The dire health of our oceans is such an important issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed. At Sky, we want to use our voice and the potential of our reach to inspire people to take action to protect our planet by bringing to life our amazing ocean for millions of people across Europe, and discussing the solutions.

England cricketer Stuart Broad, who is also supporting the initiative, noted that “by 2050, there’s a chance that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish, which is really scary for our world, isn’t it?”

 

 

 

FOREST GREEN ROVERS EARNS DRAW IN FIRST LEAGUE TWO MATCH, ATTENTION FROM ESPN AND THE GUARDIAN FOR ITS GREENNESS

Forest Green Rovers (FGR), the Greenest Team in Sports (GTIS), played its first match ever in League Two, the fourth tier of English football, on Saturday, earning a 2-2 draw vs. Barnet in front of a raucous home crowd at The New Lawn stadium.

[NOTE: If you are a loyal GreenSportsBlog reader and are thus very familiar with the Forest Green Rovers story, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs. For GSB rookies, keep reading.]

FGR embarked on its journey to earn its GTIS designation when Dale Vince, OBE^, who also owns British renewable energy company Ecotricity, bought the club in 2010 and became team chairman. Over the next several years, he installed an organic pitch at the New Lawn, has it mowed by a solar powered Mo-Bot, and converted all of the stadium concession stands to vegan-only food.

You read that right.

The club’s fortunes on the pitch also improved since Vince took over, with FGR finally earning promotion from the National Conference, the 5th tier of English football, to the 4th tier League Two. This might not sound like much — sort of like a minor league baseball club moving up from Rookie League to Class A, if American sports had promotion and relegation — but it really is. That’s because, League Two is the bottom rung of The Football League, with the English Premier League at the top of the pyramid#.

[Welcome back, GSB veteran readers!]

Being in The Football League for the first time in its 128 year existence means more exposure for FGR. But because of the club’s green ethos, that exposure is growing exponentially, far more than for the typical League Two promo-tee.

For example, a long form piece by Ian Chadband, ran on espnfc.com, which draws 11.48 million monthly unique visitors, two days before the Barnet match. It characterized FGR as: “a little sports club with big dreams like no other…The fairy tale, as they like to call it, of a village team on the verge of bankruptcy, who have risen to become the club from the smallest community ever to host a team in England’s professional Football League…[And] there’s the uniquely green bit, the fact that vegan-embracing, eco-friendly Forest Green have a very different ethos from perhaps any other sports organization.”

Stuart James, writing on July 31st in The Guardian, with its 30 million+ monthly uniques, dug deep into the food aspect of the FGR story. Vegan cuisine is not only on offer for the the fans; players and coaches are on all-vegan diets. Good thing for them that Em Franklin, the club’s chef, is a foodie’s — vegan or otherwise — dream: “The Q-Pie is brilliant – people love it,” Franklin told James. “It’s a shortcrust pastry base, puff pastry lid and it’s Quorn with soya béchamel white sauce, with thyme and leeks. It’s full and it’s filling because my portions are hearty! We’re doing a pasty as well this year – that’s something new. Because we’re vegan doesn’t mean it’s all lettuce and lentils.”

 

Em Franklin

Em Franklin, the chef at Forest Green, where the food is vegan. (Photo credit: Martin Godwin for The Guardian)

 

Speaking Wednesday to Brian Oliver of The Star Online of Malaysia, Ryan Harmer, FGR’s club’s commercial director summed it up this way: “In the past week we’ve had reporters here from China, been on Al Jazeera and ESPN, on German radio stations. In League Two that’s probably unheard of.”

 

^ OBE = Order of the British Empire
# From top to bottom, the Football League consists of The Premier League, the Championship, League One and League Two

 

 

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GSB News and Notes: Manchester City Promotes Energy Storage to its Supporters; Land Rover BAR Pushes to Win America’s Cup and the Climate Change Fight; Jenny Vrentas of SI.com Decries U.S Exit from Paris Climate Agreement

Manchester City continues the greening of the English Premier League by entering into a partnership with Eaton and Nissan that will promote home energy storage units to fans. Land Rover BAR, in Bermuda to try to bring the America’s Cup to Great Britain for the first time, continues its winning sustainability performance, going all in on the climate change fight. And Jenny Vrentas, the excellent NFL reporter for si.com’s fantastic MMQB blog, writes about the U.S exit from the Paris Climate Agreement. All in all, it’s a busy GSB News & Notes Tuesday.

 

NISSAN AND EATON HELP MANCHESTER CITY AND ITS FANS GO GREEN

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally planned to be posted on what turned out to be the day after the tragic terrorist attack in Manchester, England. We decided not to run it then and are offering it today instead. 

Manchester City, third place finishers in the recently completed 2016-17 English Premier League football/soccer season, is owned in large part (86 percent to be exact) by oil barons from Abu Dhabi. Their stadium is named after Etihad Airlines. With that pedigree, the club seems an unlikely Green-Sports innovator.

But Green-Sports innovators they are.

In a sponsorship deal announced in May, US-based battery storage developer Eaton agreed to market its xStorage Home Energy Storage Units—developed using recycled batteries from existing Man City sponsor Nissan electric vehicles (EVs) and manufactured at that company’s Sunderland, England plant—to supporters of the Light Blues.

According to “Soccer Meets Storage,” a story by Madeline Cuff in the May 12 issue of GreenBiz, City fans will receive “targeted content about energy storage across Man City channels over the coming weeks, including via the club’s website, app and at ‘certain moments’ during games. Die-hard fans also will be able to purchase a limited-edition Man City-branded storage unit for their homes.”

 

Eaton video (1:02) promoting its xStorage home energy storage units runs on Manchester City’s website. (Credit: City Football Group)

 

Speaking to reporters, Tom Glick, Chief Commercial Officer of City Football Group, which owns Manchester City, as well as New York City FC (NYCFC) of Major League Soccer and other clubs around the world, said “Our job is to help bring [home energy storage] to life: help to raise its profile, to tell a story, help to reach a big audience.”

Take a moment to re-read that quote.

Do you agree with me that having a high ranking executive from one of the most valuable group of sports teams in the world say publicly that bringing the home energy storage sector to life is part of its job is a big deal?

More Glick: “Our ability to reach millions of people in the U.K., and indeed around the world, to be able to convey the message about sustainability but also benefit for their own personal situation is right there for us.” He added that “phase two” of the deal could involve Eaton outfitting Etihad Stadium with its storage products.

Why is Eaton making what is likely a sizable sponsorship investment in Man City? Because 1) the club is a perennial contender for the Premier League crown, having won it twice in the past six seasons, and 2) the residential storage unit market is poised for rapid growth in the U.K.

On the latter point, and per Ms. Cuff’s GreenBiz piece, as of year-end 2016, only about 2,000 such units were installed in homes across Great Britain but “analysts predict it will grow 70 percent this year as costs fall and consumers become more comfortable with the technology.” And that is expected to be just the beginning.

Eaton is poised to be a big player in the home energy storage category in the U.K. with xStorage installations expected to begin in July. As well as storing power, the battery packs also can feed energy back to the grid during times of peak demand.

Eaton’s initial target market is solar powered homes, as they currently stand to gain the most financially from installing a storage device and minimizing use of grid power. According to Ms. Cuff, “Nissan and Eaton claim the average home in the U.K. with a 3kW rooftop solar installation could save around $55.61 per month by installing its entry level 4.2kWh xStorage Home unit.”

Beyond the Nissan-Eaton partnership, sustainability has taken a deep hold at Man City:

  • Etihad Stadium is part of a sports, community and business hub that sits on what was a largely toxic and unusable heavy industry site. In its place are City Football Academy; the National Squash Centre; the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance; the National Indoor BMX (cycling) centre and a Velodrome.

 

City Redev edie.net

Aerial view of City Football Group’s sports, community and business hub, with the Etihad Stadium in the middle of the picture. (Photo credit: Edie.net)

 

  • Absorption chillers, and combined heat & power systems (CHP) help to export electricity to the grid and thus reduce carbon emissions.
  • Air-source heat pumps, rainwater harvesting, bore hole water and LED lighting have also been fitted across the campus to deliver results.
  • All waste water from ground activities is recycled and re-used across the City Football Academy and the Etihad Stadium.

 

LAND ROVER BAR KEEPS FIGHT FOR CLEAN OCEANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE FRONT AND CENTER AS IT WORKS TO WIN GREAT BRITAIN’S FIRST AMERICA’S CUP

One would think that the skipper, crew and support staff for Land Rover BAR, the British entry in the 35th America’s Cup Presented by Louis Vuitton taking place in Bermuda, would be focused on one thing and one thing only over the next month: Becoming the first team to win the trophy for the U.K. in the 166 year history of the race. And, rest assured, the squad is hyper-focused.

But, working with Exclusive Sustainability Partner 11th Hour Racing, Land Rover BAR is demonstrating it can go all out to win while also going all in on its very public campaign that promotes 1) a clean, healthy marine environment and 2) climate change.

As far as the racing is concerned, Land Rover BAR and skipper Sir Ben Ainslie made it through last week’s qualifiers and are facing off against Emirates Team New Zealand in this week’s challengers’ playoffs. The Kiwis own a 2-0 lead over Land Rover BAR in the best 5-of-9 series, winning the opening races on Monday after the British boat suffered damage to its wing, which required the team to abandon the first race and forfeit the second in order to do the necessary repairs. But things can turn around quickly with two more races set for tomorrow, two for Wednesday and up to three more on Thursday – this series runs as a “first-to-win five races,” so the numbers of actual races sailed will depend on the results. The winner will face the winner of the Artemis Racing (Sweden) – SoftBank Team Japan duel, tied 1-1 after Monday’s action, in the challengers’ playoffs finals, scheduled for June 10-12. The survivor will then match up in the final series vs. Oracle Team USA, the current holder of the America’s Cup, beginning on June 17.

While Land Rover BAR’s results on the water are still to be determined, its sustainability initiatives are already proven winners. This is due, in large part, because the team and 11th Hour Racing are leveraging the “Power of Partnership,” encouraging and working with the team’s many global, British and Bermudian corporate and nonprofit partners (BT, Aberdeen Asset Management and Low Carbon to name but a few), to engage their stakeholders (employees, consumers, etc) to take specific positive environmental actions. The partners were provided a toolkit that shows them how to seed a new environmental action each week during the month-long America’s Cup homestretch, starting the week of May 22nd.

  • Say No to Single Use Plastics (w/o 5/22)
  • Go Meat Free on Mondays (w/o 5/29): Talk about a win-win-win: Cutting meat from one’s diet one day per week helps slow climate change, protect the environment and improve one’s health.
  • Consume Only Sustainable Seafood, Including Lionfish (w/o 6/5): Scheduled to coincide with World Oceans Day. 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are overexploited, or have already suffered a collapse. Invasive lionfish have no natural predators in the Atlantic—and are particularly problematic in Bermuda. They threaten native ecosystems including coral reefs. During the run up to the America’s Cup Finals, 11th Hour Racing spearheaded an #EatLionfish educational campaign in Bermuda. With World Oceans Day taking place June 8, this is a great week to, per Land Rover BAR, “Eat ’em to Beat ’em!”

 

Lionfish

 

  • Promote and Use Renewable Energy (w/o 6/12)
  • Recycle Unwanted Materials (w/o 6/19)

 

These programs are just the latest examples of Land Rover BAR’s Best-In-Class sustainability track record, including its BREEAM Excellent (akin to LEED Gold) home base in Portsmouth, England, to its Life Cycle Assessment approach to carbon efficiency, and much more. Per a recent press release, these efforts are designed to keep the team consistent with the tenets of the Paris Climate Agreement, doing its part in the effort to reduce global carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 30 years.

 

 

JENNY VRENTAS OF SI.COM’S MONDAY MORNING QB OPINES ABOUT U.S. EXIT FROM PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

Jenny Vrentas is a fantastic sportswriter, covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated’s popular Monday Morning Quarterback site—it reaches 1 million readers monthly. Her stories on the varied aspects of the league’s potentially existential concussion issues are informative and illuminating. This week, she substituted for the vacationing Peter King, the site’s Grand Poobah, penning her version of the must-read (for pro football fans) MMQB column, a detailed, insider’s view of the news, rumors and nuggets surrounding the NFL.

 

Vrentas

Jenny Vrentas, from si.com’s MMQB blog. (Photo credit: Twitter)

 

So imagine my pleasant surprise when Ms. Vrentas, near the very end of MMQB, in the TEN THINGS I THINK I THINK section, in the “I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week” subsection, included the following as her items c and d:

c. I was trying to find a smart link between the urgency of the fight against climate change and sports. This was the best I could do.

d. A better idea would be to simply link to this video of climate change happening, a section of ice the size of the tip of Manhattan calving from a glacier in Greenland.

I think I thought two things upon reading this:

  1. Welcome to the Green-Sports movement, Jenny Vrentas, even if you aren’t aware you’ve joined!
  2. You can find plenty of smart links between the climate change fight and sports right here at GreenSportsBlog!

 

 

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