CASE STUDY
Street League Skateboarding
THE BRIEF
LA-based Street League Skateboarding (SLS) is theworld’s most prestigious street skateboarding series and made its London debut at The Copper Box Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in May 2018.
With just one month to go, we were tasked with creating an integrated communications plan designed to generate a significantly increased profile in the UK for both the sport of skateboarding and the SLS World Tour, and to drive new audience groups to attend the inaugural London event.
Activity
A four-week, integrated communications plan was produced, which began with the creation of impactful media messaging around skateboarding in both the UK and internationally as the sport builds up to Tokyo 2020. The messaging translated into extensive media relations designed to drive commanding coverage with target media brands and audiences.
This required the coordination of strong feature content with a variety of well-briefed spokespeople from international athletes to the sport’s global administrators. This heavy engagement was accompanied by focused stakeholder management with those from established markets (skateboarding community) to government organisations, often bridging the gap between the USA and UK.
Prior to and during the event, we also offered counsel and expertise relating to issues management and managed the entirety of the media operations for the event weekend.
The Results
- Unprecedented coverage for the sport of skateboarding and the SLS World Tour across a host of major international, national, and regional media brands. Most notably:
- Over 5000 people attended the event.
- 15 major moments on UK national television, including BBC Breakfast, BBC News, BBC World Service, BBC Online, Sky Sports News, Sky Sunrise, and Sky Sportswomen.
- The biggest radio programmes in the UK carried strong feature material, including BBC Radio 1 and 1xtra, Radio 2 (Chris Evans Breakfast Show), Radio 5 Live, talkSPORT, and LBC.
- Over 50 pieces of focused print (6.5m circulation) and online coverage (654m online readership), including BBC Online, British Vogue, The Sunday Times, Metro, and Evening Standard.
- Key feature material in influential sports industry and skateboarding press, including Inside the Games, Around the Rings, Sidewalk Magazine, and Mpora.
