SXSW SYDNEY® 2025 INSIGHTS
We hope you enjoyed exploring our newly expanded premium DOOH network and seeing first hand how our assets reach 92% of Sydney audiences every week.
To help with your future DOOH campaign planning and buying, and to give you deeper insights into everything you explored during the tour, we’ve put together a Digital Site Card Pack with key details on each of our new Sydney sites.
What You’ll Gain:
- A deep dive into the key considerations for Digital OOH success
- Expert insights into activating data-led and creative strategies
- A tailored session to explore how this framework can elevate your brand
Beyond The Podium:
The Case For Elevating Australian SporTech
We absolutely loved our time at SXSW Sydney 2025 this year. But even we didn’t have the time to take it all in. So, this year, we teamed up with our friends at SKMG who got to take in some the sessions and share what they discovered along the way. This is the first article from this series that was written by SKMG General Manager, Sam Somers.
It’s that time of year for Australia where nearly everyone you know is reeling in some way from a grand final hangover. AFL. NRL. You name it. Australia is a sport-obsessed nation, and it’s one that’s always punched above its weight at that. But when it comes to sport tech – the systems, data and innovation that underpin it all – we’re actually lagging behind the rest of the world.
That was the message from SXSW Sydney® 2025 panel, Beyond the Podium: The Case for Elevating Australian Sportech.
It was hosted by Scott Dinsdale (SportsNXT), with Jessi Miley-Dyer (World Surf League), Adam Karg (Deakin University), Victoria Denholm (Wollemi Capital Group) and Christie Jenkins (Techstars Sydney) and opened with an uncomfortable truth: sport may be one of our deepest cultural touchstones, yet it hasn’t become a digital growth engine in the way that say entertainment has for South Korea or education for Finland. Australia’s sporting system, from grassroots clubs to elite programs, is world-class, yes, but our investment in sport innovation isn’t. As Adam Karg put it, we have “millions of dollars’ worth of ideas” but not so much the mechanisms to bring them to market.
So perhaps the issue isn’t creativity, but capital. Government has long been the dominant backer of sport but, in the session, Victoria Denholm said: “governments are not the best investors in innovation. Private capital, the kind that embeds technology to drive returns, is what will unlock growth.” This was also followed up by Christie Jenkins’ take on how it’s rational that VCs aren’t backing sportech. There’s only 2% of global unicorns in the category. And, most of the world’s 35 sport-tech billion-dollar companies actually sit closer to health, media or gaming.
What’s the point here? Stop pitching niche fitness trackers to VCs expecting huge-scale returns. Instead, look to investors in health, media or team-owned funds who actually understand the ecosystem. Because – maybe – we don’t need to be world leaders in sportech to be world leaders in sport. Investment in coaching, competition and access could do more for Brisbane 2032 than any piece of kit!
But that doesn’t mean that sportech doesn’t have a place or isn’t innovative. Just last year outdoor media company QMS has already put sportech into action by riding shotgun with the Australian Olympic Committee to broadcast Paris 2024 across their digital network. Their Paris Olympics screen network spanned large-format billboards, the City of Sydney street furniture, and more, delivering more than 80,000 pieces of content like medal moments, tallies, real-time updates and athlete stories. This was (and is) sportech in motion, turning public screens into a live conduit between the global competition and everyday audiences back home.
So, the opportunity is there – Australia just needs to work on the mechanisms to bring these tech ideas to market. Every digital superpower found its spark in cultural DNA. For Australia, that spark could be sport, if we can turn our heartland passion into platform.
That was the message from SXSW Sydney® 2025 panel, Beyond the Podium: The Case for Elevating Australian Sportech.
It was hosted by Scott Dinsdale (SportsNXT), with Jessi Miley-Dyer (World Surf League), Adam Karg (Deakin University), Victoria Denholm (Wollemi Capital Group) and Christie Jenkins (Techstars Sydney) and opened with an uncomfortable truth: sport may be one of our deepest cultural touchstones, yet it hasn’t become a digital growth engine in the way that say entertainment has for South Korea or education for Finland. Australia’s sporting system, from grassroots clubs to elite programs, is world-class, yes, but our investment in sport innovation isn’t. As Adam Karg put it, we have “millions of dollars’ worth of ideas” but not so much the mechanisms to bring them to market.
So perhaps the issue isn’t creativity, but capital. Government has long been the dominant backer of sport but, in the session, Victoria Denholm said: “governments are not the best investors in innovation. Private capital, the kind that embeds technology to drive returns, is what will unlock growth.” This was also followed up by Christie Jenkins’ take on how it’s rational that VCs aren’t backing sportech. There’s only 2% of global unicorns in the category. And, most of the world’s 35 sport-tech billion-dollar companies actually sit closer to health, media or gaming.
What’s the point here? Stop pitching niche fitness trackers to VCs expecting huge-scale returns. Instead, look to investors in health, media or team-owned funds who actually understand the ecosystem. Because – maybe – we don’t need to be world leaders in sportech to be world leaders in sport. Investment in coaching, competition and access could do more for Brisbane 2032 than any piece of kit!
But that doesn’t mean that sportech doesn’t have a place or isn’t innovative. Just last year outdoor media company QMS has already put sportech into action by riding shotgun with the Australian Olympic Committee to broadcast Paris 2024 across their digital network. Their Paris Olympics screen network spanned large-format billboards, the City of Sydney street furniture, and more, delivering more than 80,000 pieces of content like medal moments, tallies, real-time updates and athlete stories. This was (and is) sportech in motion, turning public screens into a live conduit between the global competition and everyday audiences back home.
So, the opportunity is there – Australia just needs to work on the mechanisms to bring these tech ideas to market. Every digital superpower found its spark in cultural DNA. For Australia, that spark could be sport, if we can turn our heartland passion into platform.
- Sam Somers: General Manager, SKMG
