GETTING 'FIT' FOR INVESTMENT

Consulting

Strategy

Commercial

Product Development

Media Relations

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“Colin has worked with Team Bath|MCTA Tennis for over a year. He has been excellent in promoting the whole programme and developing new ways to attract sponsors both locally and nationally. 

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Colin understands the tennis and sporting landscape very well in the UK and is a pleasure to work with.”

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Barry Scollo
Director of Tennis
Team Bath|MCTA Tennis Academy
An International High-Performance Centre (IHPC) based at the University of Bath, England

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Challenge

Team Bath wanted to expand their local talent pool of younger players to identify and develop longer-term coaching relationships with future performance players (and current professionals), from a much earlier age. On its own, the Academy was not a viable or commercial proposition to attract funding at the level needed to support touring professionals with IHPC level coaching/support, when competing on the ITF global tour.

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Solutions

  • To create a suitable product to take to market, I met with several clubs and coaches across the SW Peninsula to listen and talk about their programmes, aspirations and objectives. 

  • This insight immediately identified a range of common issues and difficulties they all faced in delivering high quality, locally-based coaching across an expansive and rural part of the country. 

  • From their feedback, I was able to build a mutually beneficial, fully expandable ‘Participation & Talent iD Pathway’ that supported both the aspirations of Team Bath and the needs of local coaches/clubs interested in joining the Pathway.

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Solutions

  • Together they significantly increased the potential audience size to approx. 1.83M (footfall) and 52K online unique visitors, across four pilot centres; creating a combined talented pool of approx. 25K players, that included 7.7K school kids.

  • The combined audience size then made it commercially attractive to sponsors, partners and benefactors, and importantly, significant enough to be of interest to the regional media for awareness building, editorial and news coverage.

  • The Pathway linked schools, clubs, HPC and IHPC centres together, bringing high-quality coaching, support and inspiration to its players (by utilising the coaches/players at the top of the Pathway for local grassroots motivation sessions), and financial support where/when it was needed most (funding allocated by the Team Bath coaches).

  • The programme then met the key objectives to increase participation levels, and so increased the funding available to identify, develop and keep the talented players ‘on track’ to break through onto the main ATP/WTA tours.

  • The Pathway also supported parents and players from all backgrounds, especially in the 10-18-year-old age groups, as it helped to decrease ‘player drop-outs’ by reducing travelling times and costs for coaching and competition by keeping as much as possible closer to players homes, and in a familiar and ‘fun’ environment.

  • I then developed a targeting strategy to identify suitable commercial organisations and public sector funding sources. Produced and distributed supporting programme collateral, negotiated initial activation deals with interested parties, and generated the media exposure needed to bring it all to life.

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