COMMERCIALISATION AND THE OLYMPICS

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COMMERCIALISATION AND THE OLYMPICS
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In the Name of Sport- Commercialisation of Sport
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THE EVENT
TV- MEDIA
SPONSORS
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An Amateur Philosophy

• When modern Olympics began in 1896, Amateur
  Status depended as much on social class as it did
  on being free from the so-called professional
  taint of earning money from sport.
• On the one hand this kept out the declared
  professional but it also excluded many who were
  simply not high enough up the social ladder.

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• Certainly in England in the early years of the
  C20th, many of the recently formed governing
  bodies had clauses in their constitutions that
  interpreted Amateurism in the most exclusive
  manner.
• This kept out would be participants not only on
  the basis on whether they had competed for
  financial reward but also on the basis of how
  they made their living.
• Many athletes in various sports found themselves
  in difficult situations over the question of
  their Amateur status. The pressure of being able
  to train and compete at the highest level made
  its demands in terms of time and expense.

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• Tempting offers of financial support became more
  enticing. The US Scholarship System ensured that
  to some degree its own athletes were immune from
  such pressures, as were the countries of the
  former communist bloc with their centralised
  economies and State Funding of sport.
• Marketing people were excluded from the 1980
  Moscow games due to state funding of the games.
  However by the 1984 Los Angeles games, it was
  clear that commercial interests were well to the
  fore. The Marketing mans day had come.

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Uberroth and Los Angeles

• Ironically, it was the IOC, so often penalising
  athletes who played sport for money, that turned
  to the market for help.
• Peter Uberroth was appointed to the task of
  making the 1984 games viable, for the city and
  the IOC. He made such a success of the job that
  it set the mould for the financing of future
  games.
• Uberroth charged 225 million for the TV rights
  and more than double that for radio rights. He
  persuaded Private Enterprise to build the major
  facilities, including the olympic pool, and
  charged everyone for just about everything else
  he could.

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• The overriding aim was that the games should not
  cost the citys public purse one cent.
• It is now generally acknowledged that Uberroth
  saved the games- at least in the financial sense.
• It demonstrated that big business tied to an
  attractive package such as the olympic games
  could ensure the future of De Coubertins dream.
• From this new courtship with the world of big
  business came the IOCs development of the system
  of payment for athletes.

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• The IOC baulked at officially allowing open
  competition but it side stepped neatly around the
  direct acknowledgement of such payments by
  leaving the matter in the hands of the
  international bodies of individual sports.
• Forms of payment through Trust Funds were
  approved but in many sports full professionalism
  is now the norm.
• Having agreed to accept money for their own
  product, the IOC could hardly stand in the way of
  the athletes doing the same.
• Los Angeles benefited from the form of additional
  sporting facilities to be used by a range of
  local institutions after the games. A clear
  change from the Montreal games where facilities
  were either never completed or had been built at
  a critical cost to the city.

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The Globalisation of Sport

• Following the financial success of the Los
  Angeles games, the organisers of the next games
  in Seoul simply followed the Uberroth method but
  were a little too ambitious.
• Accordingly, costs had to be cut in order to trim
  budgets to a more realistic level.
• Almost overnight Olympic Sport had become
  Globally Financed.
• It also gave birth to a media market that was to
  become an advertising executives dream. The new
  communications network, made possible by
  satellite technology and fattened by subscription
  viewing, put out continuous live broadcasting of
  major sporting events.

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• TV executives warmed to the task of portraying
  sports as gladiatorial contests to an
  increasingly Global Audience.
• The floodgates that Avery Brundage had spent most
  of his 20 tears as IOC president trying to keep
  closed, were well and truly open.
• Multi-National organisations were keen to get a
  piece of the Olympic Action. Now each games
  sees a long line of would be sponsors willing to
  line pockets and write fat cheques in order to
  ensure their place at the head of the queue.
• Of course there are two sides to every strategy.
  Multi National corporations mindful of their
  markets and of maximising returns on their huge
  outlay, are keen to get the most of the IOC in
  return.

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• The sale of the five rings, as it has become
  known, carries a price for the seller as well as
  the buyer.

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The Influence of Sponsorship

• We have not yet gone as far as the Ford motor
  company Olympic games, with one company using
  the games to promote their goods exclusively.
• There are however, a range of official Olympic
  stockists and exclusive Olympic suppliers
  selling their wares on the back of their
  association with the Olympic flag or flame.

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• The Atlanta games generated 34 sponsors and
  licensed 97 companies to sell products carrying
  the olympic logo.
• The influence of the licence holders on the games
  are minimal. Companies pay their licence fee and
  sell their goods for profit.
• However, the major sponsors, want their pound of
  flesh in return for their millions. It is not
  unusual, nowadays, for schedules to be altered to
  fit in with prime time broadcasting, or an event
  delayed until the news broadcast finishes.
• The media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has already made
  inroads into the organisation of some sports
  around the world, either by buying clubs or
  developing exclusive contracts for televising
  their fixtures.How long will it be before this
  tactic is tried with the IOC.

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Brand it like Beckham
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The Olympic Programme (TOP)

• The olympic programme (TOP) was created in 1985
  following the Los Angeles games. This insures
  that the main TOP SPONSORS are unchallenged in
  their category of merchandise and are guaranteed
  exclusive world marketing rights.
• All the TOP sponsors are multi national concerns.
  They have use of all olympic symbols and
  exclusive hospitality opportunities at the games
  itself. They also have direct advertising
  opportunities and preferential access to
  broadcast advertising.
• The TOP sponsors are supported by a world wide
  advertising and public relations programme.

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• TOP sponsors for the Sydney 2000 games were Coca
  Cola, IBM, John Hancock, Kodak, McDonalds,
  Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, Swatch, Time
  International, UPS and VISA.
• There were also more localised, National
  sponsorship deals. These are negotiated by the
  various national olympic committees.
• This is in addition to the sale of Broadcasting
  Rights and the revenues from Tickets.
• The size of the potential market for advertisers
  becomes apparent with the viewing figures for the
  Atlanta games of 1.2 billion per day from 214
  countries.

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Corruption

• Sadly, corruption and sport are not complete
  strangers to each other. Most of us like to think
  of sportsmen/women as upstanding models and in
  the majority of cases this is certainly true.
• Some athletes, however, cheat and that is
  corrupt. We will see later on in the section on
  Deviance in Sport how this is done.
• The IOCs investigations into itself in 1999,
  revealed the practice of some commissioners,allege
  dly, accepting ,material rewards, including cash,
  in return for their vote at the appropriate time.

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• There have been various other allegations, that
  medals could be bought and that drug test results
  were deliberately lost or mis-placed.
• Assurances that safeguards are now in place to
  prevent undesirable activity in future, await the
  test of time.

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KEY WORDS

• AMATEUR STATUS
• US SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM
• STATE FUNDING
• PETER UBERROTH
• PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
• TRUST FUNDS
• GLOBAL AUDIENCE
• TOP SPONSORS