While we try to keep an eye on the future while being in the present, it is nice to lean forward and see opportunities yet to move into the sports. Media and entertainment world that are bubbling up elsewhere, and as they become opportunities to marshal profit and engagement, could soon make the jump.
Two new “jobs” that are gaining traction seem to be Chief Resilience Officer and Head of Metaverse, two big areas which teams and leagues, always looking for new opportunities, might be looking to define and create in the coming months and years. In the past we have looked at and seen new titles like Head of Gaming, Chief Storyteller and Director of Fan Confidence steadily come into vogue, now these two seem to be popping up more. Here’s a bit more on why they should be on your futurist job board.
Chief Resilience Officer
Right now, this position is happening with big cities, trying to marshal groups in a municipality to work together and solve big problems before, or when they occur. Why is this important in sports? Look at the mini cities that ownership groups are building with a venue as the hub…Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Washington, Chicago, Harrison, NJ soon to be on Long Island…areas where people will live, work, shop with a venue as the hub. These new entertainment districts have with them their own set of challenges and opportunities that a team building executive may not have the bandwidth or expertise to deal with, but will be essential to the generation of revenue and brand value as teams look to be more than just gameday tenants or operators and fit event goings on into a bigger lifestyle play for those in the vicinity and the real estate footprint that ownership now is part of.
While this CRO is different from what many teams have already… a Chief Revenue Officer…their roles are probably going to be more intertwined and complimentary, as resilience will impact the potential of revenue.
Today, a Chief Resilience Officer by definition, works across departments to help improve internal communications, and to address its own complexities. By facilitating communication that reaches across sometimes-significant internal divisions, the CRO promotes new collaboration; makes sure that offices aren’t wasting resources doing duplicative work; and promotes synergy between the various projects and the plans that agencies are drafting.
The person brings together a wide array of stakeholders to learn about challenges and help build support for individual initiatives, and for resilience building in general. These stakeholders include government officials, and it is critical that representatives from the private sector, non-profits, and civil society are also included. The CRO brings in a wide variety of stakeholders, to help identify resilience challenges, its capabilities and plans to address them, and then to identify the gaps between these two. At the end of this process, the CRO will have a series of resilience-building initiatives that he or she will then work to put into action.
At the same time, the CRO acts as the “resilience point person,” ensuring that resources are leveraged holistically, and projects planned for synergy. This gets the most “bang for its buck” on projects, potentially achieving multiple resilience goals with one project.
The CRO is instrumental to how to address the challenges of complexity and scalability, and thus how the business will contribute to the evolution of a long-lasting global community of practice around building resilience.
Then we move to option two, one which is probably coming into focus quicker, and has already seen a hire connected to the industry at CAA…Chief Metaverse Officer. Good read on Metaverse 101 by Shelly Palmer here.
Now the metaverse is hardly the first time that organizations have been forced to grapple with the leadership implications of technological change: most notably, the rise of the “chief digital officer.”
The best metaverse leader will have a wide range of skills, including expertise in marketing, product and technology, and cross-functional collaboration. And company and industry are important; what a video game company wants in a metaverse lead is different from what a team or league may seek.
The skills required to succeed in this era will evolve as the technology itself evolves, as access to it becomes more mainstream, and as individual companies and industries respond to the changes.
Ever since Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta in October 2021, the metaverse — loosely described as the “immersive internet” — has become a headline grabber, not just in sectors such as technology and gaming, but also in spaces such as fashion, retail, healthcare, education and financial services. The vast potential of dynamic, remote interaction has prompted a frenzy of speculation around a new economy that one report estimated could be worth as much as $5 trillion by 2030.
So, what should this person do? The role would support teams or leagues who are breaking ground and expanding their businesses into the virtual world. Help the organization better understand and capitalize and monetize tools like NFTs, crypto, coding, data analytics, streaming, gaming, virtual fashion, virtual worlds and Metaverse growth strategies into areas like VR and ASR adoption. More importantly this person also needs to have a handle on the tangible and tactile and understand the traditional role teams play in fan engagement and know when the button pushing should happen on any and all areas, not just for box checking and buzz, but for genuine revenue generation.
We fully realize the need in a challenged economy to justify positions, but like the others we have looked at, sports ownership and structure keeps nipping at the heels of these overall areas. Will they become carve outs in the new economy for real jobs? The skeptical may scoff, but who knew gaming, or cause marketing or health and wellness would become vital categories so quickly?
It just takes one or two teams to start the trend, let’s see who does as we keep leaning forward.
