Alum Danis Roberts picks up Gold for Best Sports Event at the Sports Business Awards
The FIFA Master alumni continues to make headlines in the sports industry. This time it was Danis Roberts (Class of 2013), who received a prestigious award in the name of the rugby club Harlequins FC, yesterday night.
The London-based rugby club, which plays in the Aviva Premiership Rugby, won in the category “Best Sports Event” at the Sports Business Awards for the success of the 9th edition of their annual “Big Game”.
Harlequins is a rugby club based at The Stoop, a 14,800-capacity stadium in South West London. Each year they move their Christmas fixture to the Home of Rugby, Twickenham Stadium, for their annual Big Game.
Celebrating their 150th anniversary season, this year’s match, the ninth of its kind, was one of the Club’s headline events. In 2016, it had its most successful year to date with a total ticket revenue equivalent of 12 regular home matches.
With 77,567 supporters packed into Twickenham Stadium to see them edge Gloucester, Harlequins recorded the largest sporting attendance in Europe that week, and a staggering 484% increase on their 13,287-average home attendance. Millions more were reached in the national newspapers, via international television broadcast and online through an innovative social media campaign.
Big Game prides itself on being about more than just the rugby. 8,656 tickets were sold to local clubs and schools, while 577 junior supporters had the privilege to play pre-match at the Home of Rugby. Additionally, £80,000 was raised on the day for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and The Harlequins Foundation.
In their sesquicentennial year, Big Game 9 truly became Harlequin’s biggest ever game.
Danis posted on his Linkedin account: “Chuffed to pick up Gold for Best Sports Event at the Sports Business Awards. It really is a full club effort and it is great to be rewarded for all the hard work that goes into it every year”.
