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Cannes

Cannes 2025: It’s sports, of course

The annual advertising festival kicked off on Monday.

Basketball, soccer ball, and football skewed on a toothpick inside an Aperol Spritz.

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photo: Getty Images

less than 3 min read

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Hello! Or rather, bonjour! I don’t actually speak any French, but hopefully I’ll learn fast, because I’m officially on the ground in Cannes. It’s not helping that I’m running on exactly zero hours of sleep after a red-eye flight. If you saw me falling asleep in the audience at a panel, no you didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, my first stop of the day was at Stagwell’s Sport Beach, where I listened to a panel about how sports leagues and organizations like the NBA, International Olympic Committee, and International Cricket Council use AI for a variety of tasks like translating broadcasts into different languages and improving fan experiences.

This afternoon, I’m looking forward to a couple of meetings around the Croisette, and in the evening, I’ll be having dinner on the beach with the folks at Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment. I’ve also RSVPed to approximately 1 million concerts and welcome parties, but TBD how long I’ll be able to fight the jet lag. If you do catch me out and about, though, please don’t hesitate to say hi!

I’ll be spending the week running up and down the Croisette—quite literally, in the case of my morning jogs, and also as I try to make it to all the meetings and panels I’m eager to attend.

MVP of the day: Stagwell, for providing me with my first and much-needed iced coffee of the day. (Fine, I had two.)

Least valuable player: My airplane seatmate, who slept through the entire flight. I’m jealous.

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