The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race will feature a stop in Vietnam for the first time it has been announced.

The Vietnamese city of ?à N?ng will be the South East Asia host city for the forthcoming edition.

Read more HERE.

Channel 4’s 2015 broadcast of the Crabbie’s Grand National secured a peak audience of 8.8 million viewers with 60.3% share of the television audience – making it Saturday’s most watched sporting event.

The 2015 figures beat last year’s peak of 8.5million and 56.3% share.

Channel 4’s Crabbie’s Grand National Day coverage started at 8am with a two-hour special of The Morning Line which secured a 375,000 average with a 5.9% share – peaking at 445,000 with a 6.8% share. 

This was followed by a three-hour Weekend Brunch and racing live from 1pm.

Channel 4 Racing’s four-hour fifteen minute broadcast was watched by an average of 2.7 million viewers with a 25.6% share of viewing.

Ed Havard, Channel 4’s Head of Live Events and Sport, said: “The coverage was hugely innovative and compelling.  

“IMG captured the drama and excitement of the event superbly and we’re delighted that we were able to showcase the spectacle at Aintree for such massive audiences yet again.”

John Baker, who runs Aintree as North West Regional Director of Jockey Club Racecourses, said: “We’re delighted with the quality of Channel 4’s coverage these past three days.

“Channel 4’s top-class production and presentation team, innovations including JockeyCam and their creative promotion and programming in the build-up, mean they played an integral part in us staging the ‘feel-good festival’ for more than 150,000 people at Aintree and millions of people enjoying our thrilling event on television.”

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Even the most casual of sports fan cannot fail to have noticed the increasing influence technology has on sport and for people at the sharp end of the industry, this influence is even more significant.

The coaches, referees, sports agents, broadcasters and athletes who are immersed daily in sport, prosper hugely from technology’s offerings and so it’s only right that the people behind the innovations are justly recognised.

In a year that has seen a World Cup, an Olympics, a Commonwealth Games and a Ryder Cup as well as the launch of new initiatives such as Formula E, there have been some stand-out uses of technology.

The introduction of goal line technology at the World Cup finals caused headlines before the tournament, whilst vanishing foam captured audiences’ attention during the contest. Socchi’s LightRail Zippers attracted positive comment whilst the speed skater skins delivered some great results despite drawing tough criticism.

When the Ryder Cup starts in a fortnight, spectators will receive a RFID (radio frequency identification) wristband, giving them a shortcut to social media and sponsors as well as a myriad of activities around the course.

When the Sports Technology Awards launched in October 2013, it was with the aim of celebrating a flourishing sub-sector of the sports industry; the organisers expected the first year to be relatively small, largely domestic within the UK and that the winners would be from ‘the usual suspects’ of leading brands – how wrong they were on all fronts.

Last April over 400 senior managers from 15 different countries and 130 clubs, brands, governing bodies and sports marketing agencies sat down for the inaugural awards in Central London.

Whilst the major brands of the industry were well represented and picked up their fair share of silverware, one of the truly exciting aspects of the day was how many shortlisted and winning companies were virtual unknowns.

Small yet burgeoning businesses were taking on industry giants and devising technology that will undoubtedly play a key part in sport in the very near future.

Now returning with the 2015 event the awards, a British creation, are the only initiative worldwide dedicated to championing and celebrating innovative and inspiring advances in sports technology.

The sector is vast and the awards reflect this, with categories spanning training and playing equipment, software, apps, apparel, broadcasting and nutrition as well as team and performance management.

The awards deliver tangible benefits for the winners, as well as an excellent international PR opportunity, as John Wilson, Marketing Director at Wattbike which won Best Training Technology at the 2014 awards, explains, ‘Winning the award gave us a huge boost knowing we have global recognition for creating something unique and special.

‘It has strengthened our brand by giving us highly-valued, independent credibility and has provided a platform to create new sales opportunities, including accelerated acceptance within Olympic and professional sports globally.’

Judging this year are Olympic athletes, international referees and officials, coaches and clinicians as well as specialists from technology, business and national governing bodies. Joining this year’s line up are football legend, David Dein, world champion swimmer, Karen Pickering and international referee, Howard Webb.

The ceremony will be held in central London on 27^th March 2015. Those interested in entering should visit www.sportstechnologyawards.com, email Victoria Hughes at victoria@ensltd.com or call 020 7118 1288.

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Rebecca Hopkins is Managing Director of ENS Ltd, a London-based sports agency tasked with promoting and protecting brands in sport. They specialise in sports PR, crisis management and online public relations.

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With the World Cup winding down brands and sports agencies must look elsewhere for new ways to engage audiences and harness sport’s infinite popularity. How convenient then that saddling up in Yorkshire this week were 200 of the globe’s elite cyclists for the start of the Tour de France – as buzz levels go, this was off the charts. Crazy crowds, colossal coverage and suicidal selfies are three themes that can summarize the British leg of the Tour. As the riders set off it is no surprise therefore that not far behind (ok maybe quite far given the average speed of the peloton is 40kph) were the brands, embarking on their sports PR pursuit.

First Sky, whose marketing took on a grander scale than most. Leveraging the Grand Depart in Leeds, the broadcaster unveiled a giant jersey, the size of two tennis courts, to promote its work within cycling and its support of Team Sky, the current holders of the yellow jersey.

Sky weren’t the only ones in the race, with Jaguar looking to exploit the event’s popularity with a new film. ‘Cycling Under the Sea’ shows defending champion, Chris Froome, become the first man to cycle through the Eurotunnel. The car manufacturer had been building expectation for the film through teasers and behind-the-scenes content via the #KeepPushing hashtag. Jaguar, a sponsor of Team Sky, is using the 2014’s Tour to promote its XF Sportbrake luxury marques, which appear in the film. The creative continued Jaguar’s tradition of attempting to associate its brand with popular moments and memorable achievements, building on last year’s Artic Circle challenge, ‘Coldest Place on Earth’.

Coming out of left field, official sponsor, Skoda, produced the digital campaign, ‘Your Team’, based on a fantasy cycling game. The initiative allows participants to compete against one another for the chance to win VIP tickets and Skoda cycling equipment. It’s an example of brands using social media and mobile platforms to interact with audiences. This is marketing in the 21^st century.

If you thought Tour engagement was limited to big names, think again. Enter Yorkshire Water, which capitalized on Welcome to Yorkshire’s Tour celebration by sponsoring the Yorkshire Festival. With a huge number of their customers enjoying the event it was important for them to engage these groups. The Tour’s strong geographical links make it key for local businesses to grasp the opportunity whilst the nation’s attention is briefly on them.

Watch the Sports Marketing Show on iSportconnect TV

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Rebecca Hopkins is Managing Director of ENS Ltd, a London-based sports agency tasked with promoting and protecting brands in sport. They specialize in sports PR, crisis management and online public relations.

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Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics have agreed a 10-year lease agreement to stay at the Oakland Coliseum.

The agreement was struck between A’s owner Lew Wolff and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority.

The deal will run through to 2025 but is still subject to approval by the Coliseum Joint Powers Authority, which is scheduled to take place on Friday.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said: “I continue to believe that the Athletics need a new facility and am fully supportive of the club’s view that the best site in Oakland is the Coliseum site.”

“We very much appreciate Commissioner Selig’s support for Oakland to be the home of the A’s,” coliseum authority Chairman Nate Miley added in a statement. “We also agree, and we believe the A’s do as well, that long-term the Coliseum is the best site for them in the East Bay.”

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan however said that he was surprised by the announcement.

“We are still negotiating, so were surprised by the announcement of an agreement,” Quan said. “We plan to meet tomorrow, continue negotiations, and hope there will be an agreement soon.”

I remember the “next big thing”. His name was Wayne Harrison and when he moved from Oldham Athletic to Liverpool in 1985, aged 19, he became the world’s most expensive teenage footballer. He was Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish rolled into one, a young successor to two previous kings of Anfield.

But Harrison never played for Liverpool’s first team. In fact, a series of injuries meant he retired from football at just 23 years old.

I also recall one of Liverpool’s later “next big things”: Roberto Martinez. Remember Martinez and the 2012 photograph of him sauntering along a Miami street with the Merseyside club’s owner, John W Henry? Dalglish the Liverpool legend had returned, spent big, and failed to manage the club back to success. Enter Martinez; a man without any notable trophy successes, being actively courted by a millionaire US businessman as the person to succeed Dalglish and bring the glory days back to Liverpool.

Whatever deal might have been in the offing, it failed to materialise and Henry instead turned to Brendan Rodgers as manager. Rodgers was no Bill Shankly, nor a Bob Paisley. In fact some might have argued that he was not even a Martinez. But with Rodgers’ appointment came the final and ultimate death of the famed Liverpool “boot room”, even if Rodgers’ appointment now seems to have brought the club some success.

The “boot room” was the internal club organisation that groomed managerial successors and created a culture whereby Liverpool always knew what was coming next, thus ensuring continuity in the way the club functioned. Most notably, over decades the club’s management seamlessly changed from Shankly to Paisley to Joe Fagan and then to Kenny Dalglish. Yet this happened without a change in direction and generally without a significant decline in levels of performance.

This was textbook succession planning.

And so it was to be at Manchester United: from the Busby Babes to Ryan Giggs and the Class of 92 via Sir Alex Ferguson. The incomparable Ferguson was inevitably going to retire and would need replacing. We could see where United was heading, although many of us assumed his eventual departure would be carefully planned and managed.

After all, Ferguson had given ample warning having first announced his retirement a decade ago (only for him to go back on this decision). Moreover, United is not simply a football club it is a global corporation. Like any other such corporation, one might therefore have thought that the recruitment of a replacement would be a strategic decision, a mixture of art and science, overseen by wealthy entrepreneurial owners and instigated by highly-paid professional executives.

Alex Ferguson to David Moyes was supposed to be the managerial equivalent of a Rooney to Van Persie pass – clear, well-directed, appropriately paced and with guaranteed success at the end of the move. Yet Ferguson to Moyes was not even the equivalent of a misplaced pass, it was completely the wrong move. Result: Moyes sacked after just ten months.

Succession planning involves identifying and developing employees so that they are able to replace outgoing senior managers or executives. The success of Liverpool’s “boot room” highlights the importance of such continuity and stability.

But formal (and effective) succession planning is important for other reasons too: it helps in identifying those people who can assume greater responsibility at some stage in the future; it exposes such individuals to key learning and development experiences; and it promotes the need for a better understanding of an organisation’s workers, their capabilities and their potential. It builds employee commitment, and minimises the need for expensive external recruitment.

With these things in mind, it seems that Manchester United had its chances: under Fergie, the likes of Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Steve McLaren or Roy Keane could have been nurtured as potential future managers, and yet all came and went. That such players and coaches left United to pursue careers elsewhere suggests either that there was no succession plan in place at the club, or else that it was not a plan that could motivate and retain existing employees.

One unintended consequence of Ferguson’s long tenure was that other employees inside United clearly perceived too few opportunities for progression (in other words, Fergie wasn’t going anywhere) and so left for pastures new. Over the years Fergie’s assistants left the club to manage Blackburn, Middlesbrough and even Real Madrid. The club failed to stop this drain on resources, presumably having concluded that Ferguson was something just short of immortal, his tenure seemingly unending.

Once the managerial switch eventually came, much was made of the fact that David Moyes is from Glasgow, just like Alex Ferguson. This connection is telling as well, from the perspective of both club and manager.

Research shows that, when succession planning is handled too informally and is thus unplanned, a job incumbent tends to identify a successor whose background, appearance and values are similar to their own. This can result in the creation of what some commentators have called a bureaucratic kinship system, where a manager selects as their replacement someone who looks and behaves in broadly the same way as they do.

That United ended up with Moyes implies something about the possible absence of formal succession planning practices within the club, about Ferguson’s pervasive power at United or maybe a combination of both.

Succession planning is not just a challenge though for Manchester United and its owners, nor even just for football. It is relevant to players, to off-field management and to other sports as well. Indeed, as we head into the summer, football clubs and sports teams across the world will be grappling with the task of recruiting their next coach or identifying a player who can be the “next big thing”.

Liverpool didn’t succeed with Harrison and Martinez but seem to have got it right with Rodgers. Manchester United got it wrong with David Moyes, and now the club has to find a new manager; is Louis Van Gaal the correct, albeit delayed, successor or was Ryan Giggs the right choice in the first place?

Only time will tell whether United and their new manager are made for each other. But whoever the successor is, the club, football in general as well as other sports should be watching carefully and reflecting upon the lessons of the failed Moyes succession.

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Professor Simon Chadwick holds the position of Chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School, where he is also the founder and Director of CIBS (Centre for the International Business of Sport). Simon is the founding Editor of ‘Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal’, is a former Editor of the ‘International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship’ (he continues to serve as an editorial board member for several other sport journals), and has authored and published more than 600 articles, conference papers and books on sport. His academic research has appeared in journals including Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Advertising Research, Thunderbird International Business Review, Management Decision, Marketing Review and Sport Marketing Quarterly. Simon has co-edited the books ‘The Business of Sport Management’ and ‘The Marketing of Sport’ (both Financial Times Prentice Hall), ‘Managing Football: An International Perspective’ (Elsevier), ‘Sport Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice’ (F.I.T.), and ‘International Cases in the Business of Sport’ (Routledge). Alongside his books, Chadwick has created a Sport Marketing talk series for Henry Stewart Publishing, is Editor of a Sport Marketing book series for Routledge (Taylor and Francis), and is a visiting academic at IESE and Instituto de Empresa in Spain; the University of Paris, France; the Russian International Olympic University in Sochi, and the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

Follow Simon on Twitter @Prof_Chadwick

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The Clipper Race has just left China for the 5,800 mile race across the mighty Pacific Ocean to the United States and a finish line set under the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The focus over the past month for our partners has been on developing business, profiling consumer brands, attracting investment and tourists from South East Asia and China – where some of the world’s strongest economies are to be found with growth forecasts up to 7.5 percent per annum.

The Clipper Race operates a unique business model which creates a platform for consumer brand building, promotes international trade and tourism, and even extends to social and community engagement. The Chinese ‘Sailing City’ of Qingdao has been a partner of the race for ten years and hailed their sponsorship and hosting of the Clipper Race in five consecutive biennial events a huge success, not only for building international trade links and growing tourism, but also as a powerful legacy from staging the sailing competitions of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games – developing a sustainable sailing infrastructure, competitive calendar, youth training, leisure industry, marine business, boat building and associated supply chains.

It has worked extremely well for Qingdao and they credited the Clipper Race with providing a unique platform from which they have been able to achieve a wide range of objectives. Over the last ten years we have become part of each other’s stories. We have grown stronger together. We have made Qingdao famous around the world as China’s sailing city and they are now our longest consecutive race partner, having already committed to the 2015-16 edition of the Clipper Race, their sixth.

In the 2013-14 edition of the race other partner destinations that are sponsoring teams in addition to Qingdao include Switzerland, Jamaica, Invest Africa, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK government has been particularly active in association with the GREAT Britain yacht and its team partners such as Land Rover.  The participation of the High Commissioner to Singapore, the Ambassador to China and ministerial attendance sends out a very strong message that they are serious about developing trade, attracting investment and boosting tourism.

The British Ambassador’s visit to our Chinese stopover was very well received and the UK brought a taste of Britain to Qingdao through its GREAT British Brands Showcase which also profiled our visit.  He told me that as the links between Britain and Qingdao grow through these sorts of initiatives, British brands and companies will be able to reach more consumers and develop more business-to-business opportunities. He also reinforced to the Chinese media the importance of the people to people exchanges and country to country communications facilitated through such initiatives as the Clipper Race

The Clipper Race attracts many UK and international brands and businesses that also activate in Asia and around the world, including Old Pulteney, Henri Lloyd, Garmin, PSP Logistics, Rockport Shoes, Rotary Watches and ARM Holdings.

In Singapore we had a new red Routemaster London bus on display, causing quite a stir; it’s built by Wrightbus in Northern Ireland, which is also developing an export market in Asia. The mayor of Derry-Londonderry reinforced his city’s commitment to telling their ‘new story’ to attract trade and tourism with Singapore and China. They are building on their success of participating in the 2011-12 edition of the race over the next four years.

Councillor Martin Reilly, told me how the city is moving forward after becoming the first UK City of Culture last year, growing their legacy with the Clipper Race to develop the local economy through the international reach and ‘door opening’ opportunities we create.

The Clipper Race has built a strong track record in this regard by hosting high level networking receptions; providing credible positioning in a major international event, including access to our partners and their guests; plus extensive and high profile media exposure.

If you want to sell your city you have to market it as if it is a brand, and that’s exactly what Derry-Londonderry is doing.  Here we have the Mayor getting in front of people and selling what a great place it is to invest, do business and visit and all these other things that help to excite the world to recognise the Derry-Londonderry brand, and that will bring business.

This is what you have to do if you want full employment in your city. They’re also enthusing our sponsors and the nations we visit to come to Derry-Londonderry for the festival that’s being planned when the Clipper Race arrives there in June when I know from our last visit, it’s going to be incredibly good.

It was also an historic moment in Anglo-Irish cooperation with the British Government the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive staging their first joint trade mission, combined with the Clipper Race.

Northern Ireland Trade Minister Arlene Foster said that the city’s ‘continued participation in the Clipper Race is providing an unrivalled opportunity to raise the international profile of the city around the world.’

From past experience, the conversations started in Asia will seed developments which will grow over the coming months and years, but now, as the Clipper Race fleet passes below Japan and prepares to head out across the largest ocean on the planet, our sponsors’ thoughts are already turning to the United States and the hi tech and creative markets in the San Francisco Bay area.

So next month, in the April instalment on the 2013-14 edition of the Clipper Race for iSportconnect, I’ll take the opportunity to look at how new technology and digital media are changing the perception of sailing as we reach the waters which hosted the America’s Cup last summer to such great acclaim.

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It is 45 years since Sir Robin Knox-Johnston set off on his record breaking solo, non-stop circumnavigation in 1968-69. In 1995, he established the Clipper Race, to give everyone, regardless of sailing experience, the opportunity to discover the exhilaration of ocean racing.

Now the world’s longest ocean race, 670 amateur sailors representing more than 40 nations will compete in the Clipper 2013-14 Race. They set sail from London on September 1 and will travel 40,000 miles on twelve Clipper 70’s in 15 races across all six continents, not returning to London till July 2014.

Youcan follow the Clipper 2013-14 Race at www.clipperroundtheworld.com and on Twitter via @ClipperRace. Follow Sir Robin on Twitter @SirRKJ.

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What we anticipated might happen in Sochi, in the end did not. Following bomb attacks in the Russian city of Volgograd a couple of months prior to the Winter Olympic Games, several governments issued grave warnings about terrorist threats.

Such was the seriousness of security concerns, that the Australian government advised its citizens not to travel to Sochi. Meanwhile, the British government warned terrorist attacks were “very likely” at the Games, while the US Homeland Security Department predicted toothpaste bombs on aeroplanes.

One can speculate on the geopolitical, strategic and security reasons why such an attack did not take place but the furore about terrorism suitably illustrates the growing importance of risk management in sport.

Further up the Black Sea coast, the fast-emerging confrontation in Crimea has created some equally pressing challenges for Ukraine’s football authorities.

Given the stand-off between pro-European west Ukranians and their pro-Russian counterparts in the east of the country, the nation’s Premier League was suddenly thrust centre-stage. With potentially explosive games ahead – such as Arsenal Kiev against Metalurh Donetsk (in essence, west versus east) – the league was temporarily suspended although it tentatively recommenced at the weekend.

It is not difficult to understand why the league took such a decision under the circumstances: large groups of football fans moving around the country, some of whom have a reputation for violent behaviour, many motivated by regional loyalties, and at a time that is era-defining for the Ukrainian nation.

Gazprom

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is likely to have ramifications for sport that run much broader and deeper than this. One of the issues fundamental to relations between Western Europe and Russia is gas. Among those at the heart of the matter is Gazprom, the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and also shirt sponsor of the German football club FC Schalke 04.

Schalke games have already been targeted by Greenpeace activists in protest at Gazprom’s exploration for gas in the Arctic Circle. But some have suggested that the club could become the focus for further action, not just from environmental pressure groups but next time also from groups opposed to what is happening in Crimea.

Whether the management of Schalke realise it or not, they are rapidly ascending into the eye of a geopolitical storm and will need to consider very carefully what risks their association with Gazprom poses for the club, and how to manage these risks.

World cup of terror

And there is still more to come; in simple terms: Brazil 2014. As if any further proof of risk was required, one need only think of last summer’s FIFA Confederations Cup competition, which Brazil also hosted.

Whether or not local organisers and FIFA could or should have foreseen what happened in 2013 is an issue in itself, but the toxic mix of tax breaks for FIFA, domestic bus fare increases, a spluttering economy and a population with a predisposition towards social media activism created the conditions for what ultimately took place.

There is little doubt, Brazil will again be a flashpoint this year and we should anticipate more mass protests. The level of risk will be heightened by the start of Brazil’s 2014 presidential election campaign, which is scheduled to begin mid-tournament.

Also, people are unhappy with the continuing economic burden that hosting the World Cup is imposing upon Brazil and many are dissatisfied with the way in which FIFA organises and runs its tournaments. Trouble seems inevitable

At the same time, a São Paulo crime gang – the Comando da Capital (PCC) – has promised a “World Cup of terror”. With over 6,000 members in jail and 3,000 members on the street, the PCC is a potent force that constitutes a tournament threat both in terms of its drug-related activities, and also its organised and cyber-crimes.

Factor in Rio de Janeiro’s major criminal gangs – Comando Vermelho, the Terceiro Comando and the Amigos dos Amigos – and there is clearly a notable degree of risk surrounding football’s premier international event this summer.

Brazil has already implemented one part of its risk mitigation strategy in the form of “Operation Pacification” (OP). This strategy has been enacted almost to the point of industrial efficiency, targeting organised crime gangs in Rio’s favelas. For instance, in a recent intervention the Brazilian police killed six people during a pacification raid.

Notwithstanding the very serious moral issues around use of such force and the deaths associated with it, OP nevertheless highlights how seriously risk is being taken by the organisers of sport events, by teams and clubs, and by event owners and governing bodies.

Keeping up standards

While the general nature of event risk might seem obvious, the ramifications of it may be less apparent. Clearly there are security risks and as we witnessed at the FA Cup game at Hillsborough in 1989, failure to identify and manage them can have catastrophic human consequences.

But there are economic and technological risks too: for example, the PCC’s apparent threat to Brazil raises the spectre of impending cyber-crime, which could potentially lead to anything from ticket sites being hacked and brought down, through to online fan forums being infected with damaging viruses.

There are also geo-political and image risks too; one recent commentary identified sporting mega-events as being “coming-out parties” for emerging nations. Part of the logic for such nations to host the likes of the World Cup is for them to demonstrate their competence in delivering major projects in a timely and appropriate fashion.

Failure to do this can result in reputational damage, a nation’s power being undermined and the creation of an image that highlights a country as being ill-equipped to be a global player (in sport at least).

A poor image can also impact upon the benefits of hosting a sporting event; many studies show that tourism often accounts for the largest proportion of expenditure in host cities and nations. When there is talk of aeroplane toothpaste bombers and drugs cartels wandering the streets, this inevitable threatens travellers and such expenditures.

For those wanting to understand the nature of risk, there is an international standard that defines it: ISO 3100. It is important to note that the standard is set in the context of good management practice and safeguarding the well-being of stakeholders. In sport, this means people, groups and organisations such as fans, the media and commercial partners.

But good management practice is significantly different to protecting a population’s civil liberties, allowing people the democratic right to protest and affording groups their online privacy. As such, this summer’s events in Brazil are likely to provide us with some interesting insights into the effective, and indeed appropriate, management of risk.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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Professor Simon Chadwick holds the position of Chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School, where he is also the founder and Director of CIBS (Centre for the International Business of Sport). Simon is the founding Editor of ‘Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal’, is a former Editor of the ‘International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship’ (he continues to serve as an editorial board member for several other sport journals), and has authored and published more than 600 articles, conference papers and books on sport. His academic research has appeared in journals including Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Advertising Research, Thunderbird International Business Review, Management Decision, Marketing Review and Sport Marketing Quarterly. Simon has co-edited the books ‘The Business of Sport Management’ and ‘The Marketing of Sport’ (both Financial Times Prentice Hall), ‘Managing Football: An International Perspective’ (Elsevier), ‘Sport Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice’ (F.I.T.), and ‘International Cases in the Business of Sport’ (Routledge). Alongside his books, Chadwick has created a Sport Marketing talk series for Henry Stewart Publishing, is Editor of a Sport Marketing book series for Routledge (Taylor and Francis), and is a visiting academic at IESE and Instituto de Empresa in Spain; the University of Paris, France; the Russian International Olympic University in Sochi, and the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Follow Simon on Twitter @Prof_Chadwick

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Jacques Rogge, the Olympic president who developed saying nothing meaningful into an art form, did not break with personal tradition as he bade a formal farewell to the media in Argentina. Of course the media was slightly disappointed but not surprised.

The hallmark of Rogge’s 12-year leadership of the International Olympic Committee has been one of solid understatement: never treating a potential earthquake as anything more than a minor tremor and always trusting his fellow workers to deliver on their responsibilities.

Some observers have described him as ‘lucky’ in the latter sphere but he should be given credit for a subtle skill to ensure that, by and large, he had the right people around him. After that it was a question of working with the sort of precision which served him in the ‘real world’ as an orthpaedic surgeon.

The staging of his fade-out matched the occasion. His executive board skated so deftly through its work ahead of the IOC’s 125th Session in Buenos Aires that the business was wrapped up with a day to spare: hence the delegates had more time to devote themselves to lobbying ahead of the votes on the 2020 city and ‘new’ sport as well as, most important, Rogge’s successor.

Treatment

Rogge thus emerged in front of the media, ahead of schedule, like a doctor whose treatment had worked faster than even he had expected.

The Belgian who has appeared older than his 71 years in recent times, is looking forward to freedom from the shackles of style which sports leadership in the modern media world imposes on its prisoners.

“It will be an emotion not to be in charge of the International Olympic Committee but I’m going without any nostalgia,” said Rogge.

“I’m not looking at the past; I’m looking at my future life going forward. I will continue to be associated as an honorary member and I will be attending Olympic Games and events so it’s not farewell, and it’s not adios, as they say in Spanish.

“I did my duty. I did what I had to do. If it has benefited the International Olympic Committee, I’m happy, but don’t look at me as a miracle doctor . . . Have I enjoyed it? Not always. Was it exciting? Definitely.”

Not that he ever dared let slip any such suggestion until now.

His worse moment was the death of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili  at the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. At a far less important level the one irritant of the role was a lack of sleep from the weight of responsibility and busy travel schedule.

The one-time rugby international also had to tackle a need for a guarded self-awareness, keeping his personal thoughts to himself and remaining outwardly restrained and diplomatic – “not having to do that will be a big part of my joy.”

Grassroots needed

In this, for the media, he was entirely and frustratingly, excessively successful. The modern media model, like it or not, demands outreach and – in particular – if the Olympic family wants to make an impact at grassroots level rather than within its own private circles on the exclusive pinnacles of Olympus.

Rogge would not, of course, be drawn on the candidates for the three elections coming up over the next five days (“With the cities there are three very good bids and and any one of them would stage very good Games”).

He was satisfied that his mission to put athletes at the centre of the Olympic Games had been fulfilled, stating the moments which plesed him the most was that he could declare “very good Games” at the close of six Olympic and two Youth Olympics.

To that extent, he did not view the task ahead of the next president as anything more onerous than the one he took on in Moscow in 2001.

“I think it will be the same challenges that [Juan Antonio] Samaranch had, that I had and that my successor will have,” said Rogge. “It’s not easy to organize good Games. I think that the challenges will not differ very much.”

One such challenge is always justifying the vast cost in money and time and disruption imposed on a host city (and country) in bringing the Olympic circus to town. If he hinted at an objective he might not quite have managed it was justification.

Satisfaction factors

The Games, he insisted, should be perceived as “a win-win situation” but that meant “indicating and proving that there is a good legacy after staging such events.”

He drew satisfaction – ‘pride’ would not be his way – from the progress effected in the fight against doping. This was “far more difficult today was 10 years ago.” The Olympic sailor from Gent also believed that he had steered a diplomatic political course on the ocean of clashing cultures and customs which the IOC sails.

“We have clearly on various occasions expressed our view on situations and countries,” he said, “but we are restricted. We are staging the Games in a sovereign state, and the IOC cannot be expected to have an effect on the sovereign affairs of a country.”

Those comments were about as close as Rogge went to delivering a view on the storm cloud which hands over next year’s Sochi Winter Games concerning Russia’s anti-gay legislation.

Apart from that, Rogge reported scantily on the latest updates that the IOC was optmisticc for Sochi 2014, confident that Rio 2016 knew what had to be done and that PyeongChang 2018 was “no problem.”

In all, just one more business-as-usual day in the life of Jacques Rogge, Olympic president but not for much longer.

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Keir Radnedge has been covering football worldwide for more than 40 years, writing 33 books, from tournament guides to comprehensive encyclopedias, aimed at all ages.

His journalism career included The Daily Mail for 20 years as well as The Guardian and other national newspapers and magazines in the UK and around the world. He is a former editor, and remains a lead columnist, with World Soccer, generally recognised as the premier English language magazine on global football.

In addition to his writing, Keir has been a regular analyst for BBC radio and television, Sky Sports, Sky News, Aljazeera and CNN.

Keir Radnedge’s Twitter: @KeirRadnedge

Keir Radnedge’s 

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