The Four TOPs; Olympic deckchairs; Crypto.com exclusive podcast; On board the crypto rollercoaster; SportsPro Live got big; Maggie Murphy v Daniel Levy; ChatGPT spam, AI FFS; Loved UP Etc…
Overthinking the sports business, for money
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The Four TOPs
There’s a lot of chatter about a meeting in Lausanne next week.
The agenda is the TOP programme.
2024 marks the end of contract point for several major IOC partners.
UP sources tell me at least four partners are thought to be on the verge of leaving.
Three of these are Japanese brands: Panasonic, Bridgestone and Toyota.
Intel is another mentioned in dispatches.
The Covid-hit Tokyo Games didn’t work for them and there’s little appetite for another eight years.
So what?
This might all be just more corporate jostling at sport’s top table.
Some TOPs will fall out and other big brands will be found to fill their spots…nothing to see here, on with the show etc.
That’s certainly how the IOC will spin it.
But.
Nature, and the sports biz gossip factory specifically, abhors a vacuum.
It would be idiotically simplistic to use this moment to jump to conclusions.
So let’s do that.
The current snafu is an opportunity to ask an old sports business exam question: Is the TOP programme fit for purpose? Discuss, and show your working.
Has the sheer mountain of corporate cash made the IOC complacent when it comes to the organisation’s relationship with the future, in particular the demand for new forms of digital inventory and the changing role of the athlete-as-brand.
Whisper it, one of the tenets of Olympic marketing - logo free venues - is up for discussion in Lausanne next week. Which feels a bit 1988.
What does category exclusivity mean in 2024, when every company is - or aspires to be - a tech brand? There’s a PhD to be written on discerning the line between the exclusive rights of Panasonic and Samsung.
The enormous corporate interest in LA28 adds another dimension. As outlined to me this week:
There will be likely interesting clash between LA28 and IOC as there was in London (2012), where a good domestic sales team effectively undermines the TOP programme - and the answer then was some TOP deals ended up being cheaper than domestic ones
All of this is good inside-baseball fun.
But for the IOC there’s a bigger concern beyond sponsorship politics.
Stories are peculiar things. They compound over time.
Before long, what started as a bit of industry chat becomes a news headline and before you know it, the rumours of Toyota’s renewal are elevated to rarefied status of received wisdom about the declining relevance of the Olympic story to the next audience.
‘Olympic sponsor exodus’
Leads to:
‘Gen Z turns off the Games’
Leads to:
‘The ripple effects will be felt throughout the sports economy.’
* Cue drum roll and Tommy Vance voice over (Gen Z reference)*
Expect the IOC pr machine to act quickly to stop perception becoming reality.
Because once that balls starts rolling, it’s hard to stop.
That’s the thing about momentum, it can be a real bummer.
Hear also: our recent Buy Side podcast with James Williams, Coke’s former Olympic VP, which goes deep in to all things TOP.
Higher gossip:
Have you heard the one about Wrexham: on the verge of a very big naming rights deal, ‘bigger than a Premier League deal’…
Crypto.com and the Wild West
This week’s Buy Side podcast took us inside one of the biggest sponsorship stories in recent times, the rollercoaster ride that is the crypto category.
Alex Shapiro is the guest.
Here’s some stuff I read as homework.
SportsPro Live got big
I’ve not been for a few years.
Lots of people, very buzzy.
Congrats to Nick Meacham and his team.
A couple of highlights:
Maggie Murphy v Daniel Levy. No contest
The Lewes FC CEO was asked about Levy’s view on making the WSL a closed league.
She pointed to something I’d not thought of before. The narrowness of the footprint.
8 of the 14 teams come from just three cities: London, Liverpool and Manchester.
File under: Childish but fun
Spent considerable time trying to game the Q&A software at SportsPro Live.
Managed to get a (very good) answer from Maggie.
Will sport learn the lessons of Afghan’s women?
This panel featured Nick Keller, Kat Craig and Khalida Popal, and shone a different and very important light on the broader impact of the business of sport.
Kat Craig’s point is critical and should be heard over and over again.
Big Sport loves to tell stories of empowerment.
But the real world impact on the people at the other end is often profound and horrific.
Afghan women footballers became emblems of progress, said Craig.
Which in turn made them targets for the Taliban, who ‘hunted them down, door to door’.
AI = FFS
When presented with exciting new technology, man’s first instinct is to use it to create spam email.
Loved UP
Thanks to Martin for including us on his list. That’s some great company we’re keeping…
Till next time
