Swans HQ in Moore Park was home to Nine’s 2024 Agency Games yesterday, a gathering of 14 different agencies competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals under the watchful eye of Olympians and Paralympians.
The afternoon opened with host James Bracey welcoming the agencies to the games, as well as introducing breakdancing Olympian Rachael Gunn and Wheelchair racing Paralympian Rheed McCracken who kept score and judged the teams on activities such as an Olympic walking relay and a breakdance battle.
Teams also participated in games of goalball, badminton, futsal, and wheelchair basketball. Starcom ended up taking home gold with a score of 265, PHD secured silver with 244 points, and Kaimera scored bronze with 203 points.
Matthew Granger, director of sales for sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games at Nine, was present at the event and told Mediaweek that Nine is in the third stage of its games release – firstly going to market in July 2023 with a package release, premium packages releasing in February, and now open to the casual market.
“We are exactly where we wanted to be at this point in time with those premium package holders,” he said.
“Part of the premium package release we had was providing access to keep key brands outside of partner sponsor level and we have met the key focus right now.
“The reason for this event today was to make sure that the agency community were across what an amazing event the Olympics will be, and particularly for them to get the balance between the Olympic Games and actually participating in Olympic Sports.”
Granger said for him and his team, success from the Olympic and Paralympic games will be measured by how well they can provide for partner and sponsor brands.
“We came into this with a proposition of providing a mega marketing platform for brands, that proposition being delivering a unified content ecosystem that was a global first,” he said.
“Our success benchmark is being able to deliver that for partner and sponsor brands, in a way they’ve never been able to do before, and we feel very comfortable in reaching that.”
In April, 9Now unveiled a new look and interface upgrade to mark 100 days until the Paris Olympics, as director of programming and 9Now Hamish Turner called its impending coverage the “biggest undertaking in the history of Nine” to create the “greatest Games of all time.”
9Now will feature more than 40 individual live sports channels, curated on a new interface that will allow viewers to watch coverage whilst browsing the app.
See Also: ‘Biggest undertaking in the history of Nine’: Nine’s Paris Olympics plans, 100 days out
The 2024 Paris Olympics begins on 26 July and the Paralympics begin on 28 August.