EventAIQ: An impact measurement and intelligence platform for sport and live events
The Sports Consultancy has launched a new AI-enabled platform that helps the major events industry measure and optimise the long-term impact of their (mega) events.
Branded as EventAIQ, the platform brings together multiple dimensions of value – including economic, social, reputational, commercial and environmental impact – in order to give organisations an integrated view of value. The platform gives organisations a structured way to understand performance across both individual events and wider event portfolios.
EventAIQ has been designed to offer intelligence to stakeholders active in the events ecosystem, including rights-holders, governments, destinations, venues and event owners.
Matt Wilson, Managing Director at The Sports Consultancy, said EventAIQ’s arrival comes in response to the growing need for investment-grade data and evidence.
“For too long, impact evidence has been inconsistently commissioned, incomplete in its analysis and in many cases not captured at all. EventAIQ is about changing that. It gives organisations a consistent, self-service way to measure, compare and optimise the value of events, programmes and infrastructure assets, so evidence can play a stronger role in decisions about investment, hosting, funding and future growth.”
The full lifecycle
A defining feature of EventAIQ is that it informs investment decision across an entire events portfolio, and across an event’s lifecycle instead of just individual moments.
As governments, destinations and investors make central investment decisions across city-wide events calendars, the ability to compare events across a whole portfolio and to forecast performance before committing rather than after is essential. To this end, EventAIQ provides a consistent and scalable alternative to traditional one-off impact studies, which are rarely comparable.
“Through EventAIQ, users can bring together complex data, model scenarios, aggregate information, generate reports and track performance in one place,” explained Wilson.
This approach is important for destinations that run larger, festival-style recurring events. Sustaining support for an event with a multi-year cycle depends on identifying the specific drivers of economic impact and improving them edition over edition – turning a one-off return into a compounding one.
EventAIQ is designed to support that full lifecycle, from pre-event forecasting and scenario modelling through to post-event reporting, portfolio comparison and long-term optimisation.
For the Middle East
Kailash Nagdev, Partner at the award-winning sports consulting firm, said the launch comes at a timely moment for the Gulf region, with the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia preparing to host an unprecedented pipeline of major sports and entertainment events over the coming years.
Saudi Arabia’s sports market is targeting $22.4 billion by 2030, with FIFA 2034 and the Asian Games anchoring a calendar that spans Formula 1, tennis, golf, boxing and esports. Doha is building on its FIFA 2022 legacy with the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027, the 2030 Asian Games, and an active Olympic bid for 2036.
The UAE meanwhile continues to deepen its sports portfolio across basketball, Formula 1, tennis and golf.
“Across the GCC, the decision to invest in sport has been made and the ambition is extraordinary. The harder question is how to direct that investment well,” said Nagdev.
“As governments commit centrally to city-wide events calendars, you need to compare events across the whole portfolio and forecast what each will return before committing, not after. And as destinations build out larger, festival-style recurring events, the priority becomes identifying what actually drives economic impact and improving it edition over edition. EventAIQ is built for exactly that.”
Notably, The Sports Consultancy has designed and developed EventAIQ in the region, which is serves through its offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Nagdev: “We are not bringing this capability to the region from the outside. We are building it here, for the decisions being made here.”
Outside the Middle East, The Sports Consultancy has offices in the United Kingdom and Singapore.
