SVG Sit-Down: Deloitte's John Footen and Art Wong Offer Deep Look at Sports Media Solutions Practice Offerings include conceptualizing, designing, building, integrating tech for broadcasters, venues By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - 10:29 am
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For the sports-production industry, the name Deloitte connotes professional services for back-office departments like tax, audit, and accounting. However, the firm's Sports Media Solutions team offers services aimed squarely at production and the SVG community at large: conceptualizing, designing, building, and integrating technical solutions for a variety of broadcast facilities, production studios, and sports venues large and small.
SVG sat down with two of Deloitte's leaders in this space - John Footen, managing director, media and entertainment, and Art Wong, principal, Sports Media Solutions - to discuss exactly what the Sports Media Solutions team does, how Deloitte's global size and scale benefit that team (and, by extension, its clients), a few marquee projects on the practice's plate recently, and how the team helps clients think through big business problems to inform better decisions for the future.
Deloitte's John Footen: Sports are universally understood, and, with so many countries engaging in sports in so many ways, Deloitte's global network allows us to meet clients where they are, physically and contextually.
Tell us a bit about Deloitte's Sports Media Solutions practice and some of the services it offers the SVG community.
Footen: While Deloitte is often recognized for its tax, audit, and accounting services, our consulting practice is a huge part the organization's offerings, bringing our professional services to a variety of industries. Together, we lead our Media Solutions practice, which specializes in conceptualizing, designing, building, and integrating robust end-to-end business and technical solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of our clients: advanced strategy and project management, audio and visual capabilities, media supply-chain issues, and comprehensive media-engineering services.
What exactly does the practice do?
Wong: We work with our clients to solve complex problems, such as increasing audience engagement, optimizing operational efficiencies, enabling workforce changes, identifying and realizing expected tax incentives, and implementing future technological advances. As you can see, none of what I just said is exclusive to broadcast transformations; you can apply these to any transformation an organization embarks upon - digital, back-office, etc. - and that's because, when you truly transform a business in the way they work, all of these factors need to be considered, reimagined, and redesigned. This results in end-to-end solutions that are effective in the short term while sustainable and adaptable for the future.
How does Deloitte's global scale benefit its Sports Media Solutions team and, by extension, its clients?
Footen: Deloitte is a huge organization. We are connected to a network of partner firms in 150 countries, so we can meet clients and their needs almost anywhere in multiple languages. That global reach means we have comprehensive knowledge and resources tailored to unique circumstances. For example, we've done extensive work with a global sporting organization, coordinating very closely with our counterparts in Spain to deliver value to their events over the next 10 years. Sports are universally understood, and, with so many countries engaging in sports in so many ways with various forms of infrastructure to support them, Deloitte's global network allows us to meet clients where they are, physically and contextually.
Deloitte's Art Wong: Building a facility is just one part of a transformation; we help you get the most out of improving and optimizing your business.
Walk us through a marquee project that your practice has done recently.
Wong: We did a large-scale stadium redesign for a leading sports franchise that allowed us to incorporate advanced technologies like IoT and AI to enhance both the fan experience and operational efficiency. We also developed a personalized and secure guest experience at the stadium through data-driven insights, seamless app functionality, innovative wayfinding, third-party integrations, and advanced marketing solutions. Building a facility is just one part of a transformation; we help you get the most out of improving and optimizing your business.
Specific to the media-engineering side of things (studios, venue, etc.), how can you help clients think through big business problems to inform better decisions? And how can you tailor these solutions to the specific needs of each client?
Wong: Our Sports Media Solutions practice is focused on three key areas: Stadium Builds, Digital Signage, and Asset Management. These are clearly trends we're seeing change the landscape of sports media. Combined with our experience and best practices across numerous industries, we bring those lessons learned into the world of sports (bringing lessons from building out latency networking infrastructure for financial-services companies and applying that to sports-video production and distribution).
Where can we find more of Deloitte's thought leadership?
Footen: Our 2024 Sports Industry Outlook and 2025 TMT Predictions can be found online. Be on the lookout for the 2025 Sports Industry Outlook in the coming months and much more in the world of sports and media from our subject-matter experts.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
