Following Threads, Fifa Women’s World Cup campaigns, conversations about inclusion, the future of sports coverage, music industry remasters and the Barbenheimer double: it’s all in the latest Trippant Takeaways, our round-up of stories on communications trends in sport, tech, media and entertainment.
Hard Fork and Vox on the age of Threads
Threads is here. You might have heard about it.
With 100 million users signing up inside a week, Meta’s new text-based social platform has an audience. So what is its purpose?
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, talks to The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast about the inspiration for the service — other than Twitter — as well as the work that has gone into it and the road ahead. Meanwhile, Vox asks if Threads can find the edge or the spark that made sites like Twitter so compelling in the past.
Marketing Week and PR Week on the Fifa Women’s World Cup
The Fifa Women’s World Cup, one of the biggest sporting events of the year, is only a week away. But with football’s global governing body late to agree TV rights deals in key European markets, the build-up to the tournament has been unexpectedly quiet.
However, as key figures sponsors and agencies explain, brands will be eager to make themselves heard as the action begins in Australia and New Zealand.
SportsPro on women taking risks in the sports industry
Events like the Women’s World Cup and Women’s Ashes might point to progress on the field in sport but the lack of representation in commercial and leadership positions still creates a different career path.
To mark its Women’s Sports Week and continue its New Era programme, SportsPro has brought together three female members of its team — Milly Miller-Adams, Elena Kouyoufa and Katie Preston — to ask three senior female executives how they think about risk, and about the chances they took to reach their current positions.
The Guardian and The I on lowering barriers to sport
As many sports grapple with problems around diversity and inclusion, they are learning how multi-faceted the response needs to be. In The Guardian, Jonathan Liew explores how the expense of going to events has closed off access — a factor often overlooked by those working in the industry and attending for free.
And as the fourth anniversary of England’s breathless Men’s Cricket World Cup triumph approaches, former captain Eoin Morgan reflects on the diverse backgrounds of that victorious team and warns that they might remain outliers if the sport cannot open up its culture.
The New York Times disbands its sports department
In a week where the LA Times confirmed it would stop carrying ‘box scores’ and overnight results, the New York Times has taken an even more radical step: shuttering its sports operation entirely, shuffling reporters to other beats, and shunting daily coverage to The Athletic, which it bought early last year.
The shock move raises questions not just about the future of sports journalism, but the future scope of newspapers.
The Financial Times on Gary Lineker’s podcast company
Few British athletes with sporting achievements like Gary Lineker have had quite so much success in their second careers. But the UK’s most prominent sports broadcaster and potato snack ambassador has continued to seek new challenges and targets.
The former England captain has helped turn Goalhanger Podcasts into an unlikely audio powerhouse — its influence built on history and politics as much as football. At the same time, its growth has outlined the specific financial potential of the medium.
The Ringer on an era of re-records in music
Pop music fans are getting used to hearing Taylor’s Version, as Ms Swift remasters her work to regain control of the copyright.
With streaming now dominant and AI-based music production looming large on the horizon, it’s a practice that is only growing in popularity among artists.
Bloomberg on Barbenheimer’s box office impact
In the long shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, the movie industry remains a little jittery about the long-term viability of the cinema experience. So the unforced error of releasing this summer’s two biggest, most distinctive titles on the same day — Greta Gerwig’s pastel-hued comedy Barbie and Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s intense historical drama about the dawn of atomic warfare — induced a minor Hollywood panic.
Film fans, on the other hand, saw an opportunity for a great day out, challenging one another to take the two on back-to-back. And ticket data suggests that what began as a meme is about to become reality.
The Times on Wimbledon’s little rubber duck
Rain, naturally, is a pressing issue for the organisers of the world’s premier tennis event. And while the organisers of Wimbledon consult the most sophisticated meteorological technology available, they also place great confidence in the movements of a plastic duck named John Quackenroe.
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