“Australia is a country that consumes big events very well, we have a desire to see the world’s best in our backyard”; Geoff Jones, CEO of TEG, discusses how the company brought the world’s biggest soccer team Real Madrid to Australia and what attendees can learn from him at the upcoming Ministry of Sports Marketing conference.

TEG is Australia and New Zealand’s only integrated live entertainment organisation connecting Ticketing, Live Content Touring, Research and Data Analytics. TEG is the overall company for Ticketek, Softix, Allphones Arena, TEG Rewards, live entertainment company TEG Live and Eventopia.

“We live in a global marketplace where the media dictates that wherever you are in Australia you can see and consume big sporting events or music events. That then dictates that once you start consuming those, you want to see them in your own backyard.

“At Ministry of Sports Marketing, I will be speaking about- how we get them in our backyard, what we create around them in terms of fan engagement and trying to make it a sustainable and ideally repeatable operation. I’ll be talking about bringing superstars to Australia, I’ll give examples of things that we’ve done and how the star power attracts people.

“Should the superstar actually make it down to Australia, nothing is ever guaranteed, but it’s a really good recipe for success. It creates big events, it’s not just about people paying to see the sporting event or watching it on television, it’s the media, the social hub that you create, other forms of activation. Ultimately what it becomes is the economic impact of the game on the state it’s held.

“Recently we brought down a little team in football called Real Madrid. They are the number one team in a lot of metrics- number one sporting team in the world, one of the biggest players in the world Cristiano Ronaldo. We sold two games where Real Madrid played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where Ronaldo played at both; we sold 225,000 tickets to the three games of football at the MCG, including 99,365 tickets to the game between Real Madrid and Manchester City.

“The economic impact for Melbourne was amazing, because just over 50 per cent of those people came from interstate or overseas. So you can imagine what that generates for the economy- which i’ll quote at the conference. The learnings are European Football clubs have great traction with an Australian audience, that superstars attract a whole range of different people- we had die-hard football followers, as well as the casual observers who want to see the superstar and wouldn’t normally go.”

An example of the hoopla around Real Madrid’s games in Melbourne included the #RonaldoWatch where fans sneaked photos of the superstar around the city:

.@Cristiano Ronaldo was spotted in @Culturekings Melbourne today! Here are some photos. #RonaldoWatch pic.twitter.com/Z0StGjdHBy

— Dion Fountas (@DionFountas) July 11, 2015

@Cristiano at Yoyo nightclub in Melbourne last night… #ronaldowatch #ronaldo @realmadrid #ICCMelb pic.twitter.com/7ZGItClGLS

— Ari Charilaou (@Ari_Charilaou) July 19, 2015

Have you seen @Cristiano in #Melbourne?!?! Let us know! #RonaldoWatch

— Gold 104.3 Melbourne (@gold1043) July 16, 2015

Jones will be speaking at the breakout session ‘Creating The Big Event’ at the upcoming Ministry of Sports Marketing conference to be held at Sydney’s iconic Randwick Racecourse on 19th July. The MSM conference features amazing international speakers like: Nike Golf global senior brand director, John Hess; leading US sports agent Kelli Masters and World Rugby head of broadcast, commercial and marketing Murray Barnett.

There is also fantastic local speakers like: Rebekah Horne, chief digital officer at the NRL; the new general manager of the NBL, Jeremy Loeliger; chief digital officer at Seven West Media, Clive Dickens CEO of Bastion Collective Marketing ANZ, Jack Watts and Ben Slack, head of international business at Tennis Australia.

Plus more to be announced!  Check out the program for the big day here. Use the code BANDT to save $100 on tickets. Offer ends at 5pm 8th July 2016. 

It’s going to be a cracker of a day and evening. So give this little link a click and find out more about Ministry of Sports Marketing conference coming up on July 19. Follow the social pages – B&T’s Twitter, MSM Conference’s Twitter and Facebook – for more information and updated stories.