By Christian Radnedge

SportAccord president Marius Vizer has called for international federations to be given more power from the International Olympic Committee.

At the start of the 2015 SportAccord Convention in Sochi this week, Vizer used his opening comments to call for more Olympic revenue to be distributed to national sports federations and athletes.

The head of the body, which represents Olympic and non-Olympic sports, also insisted that serving sports officials should be guaranteed a majority of votes in the IOC.

Vizer had stern words for IOC president Thomas Bach’s Agenda 2020 review programme, which he said “hardly brings any real benefit to sport, international federations or athletes.

“It did not bring about more clear criteria, rules and principles. ‘You, all present, are the main constituents of the Olympic Movement’. Recommendation 9 and 10 of Agenda 2020 lead to a destabilizing of the Olympic sports.

“We must protect the Olympic sports and disciplines currently in the Olympic programme and at the same time we must encourage and support the new sports and disciplines who want to join.  We are a united world sports family of Olympic and non-Olympic sports and we must act accordingly.”

In his speech to around 200 delegates at the Sochi Expocenter, Vizer also questioned the setup of an Olympic TV channel, a key part of Agenda 2020.

“The cost of more than 450 million dollars to establish a digital channel seems exaggerated,” he said.

“Do consult us as stakeholders of the Olympic Movement regarding all the proposals, contracts and partnerships that are being signed and make them transparent!”

Bach, who was in attendance, maintained that Vizer was entitled to his personal views on the subject but did not believe them to be representative of SportAccord’s member federations.

Following his stop in Sochi, Bach will return to Lausanne on Tuesday to meet Ukraine president Petro Porochenko.

It will be the first meeting of the two since Porochenko took office in June 2014. Among the topics of discussion will be how sport can unite the country while the current unrest continues.

Meanwhile, it was confirmed that the 2016 SportAccord convention would return to Sochi.

The full text of Marius Vizer’s opening speech at the 2015 SportAccord Convention can be seen here:http://www.sportaccord.com/media/news/international-convention/sportaccord-the-international-sport-movement-needs-real-reforms/

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IndyCar has signed a multi-year official marketing partnership with the USA Today Media Group. 

The deal will see USA TODAY Sports and a marketing partner of INDYCAR in the United States.

Full story HERE.

The organisers of the 2013 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals have announce record audience figures for online and on television for the event at The O2.

A capacity crowd of 17, erectile 800 on Monday evening witnessed defending champion Novak Djokovic defeat World No.1 Rafael Nadal for the title and a record $1.92m in prize money, bringing the overall attendance across the eight days of the tournament to 261,247.

This year’s event was televised by 54 broadcasters in 193 territories and received more than 13 million visitors to its digital platforms via the new responsive-designed tournament website, an increase of 9% on 2012.

The tournament’s mobile traffic also grew more than 100%, whilst more than half a million people watched Holding Court Live presented by Barclays, the live 90-minute video show, streamed twice-daily from the Fan Zone at The O2.

Live match streaming on TennisTV.com, the ATP’s official live streaming site, received more than 4.5 million total streams, an increase of 20%.

Andre Silva, Tournament Director of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, said: “The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at The O2 have been another terrific success. We’re always looking for ways to grow the event and to give fans greater opportunities to engage with our tournament on-site, online and on television.

“We’re thrilled with the response that we’ve had and we’re very grateful for the support that the tournament has had from fans all over the world.”

Sportswear company Puma has announced it is pulling out of the sailing market in order to focus on sports such as football and running as it seeks to rebuild profits.

The German company reported a 70% drop in annual profits on Thursday and is undergoing its biggest reorganisation in two decades to restore its fortunes, prescription particularly in Europe, cialis the USA and China.

Puma will now stop sponsoring the Oracle sailing team, pharmacy who are the current holder of the Americas Cup. The brand will also not enter another team in the Volvo Ocean Race, having entered two teams previously. According to sports market research company Repucom, brands pay over $13 million to sponsor major sailing teams.

The changes will also see the closure of stores, product lines cut and an end to the companies sponsorship of rugby union.

The chief executive, Franz Koch, is leaving Puma as part of a managerial shake-up and the company will be led by Chief Financial Officer Michael Laemmermann and Chief Commercial Officer Stefano Caroti until a replacement is appointed.{jcomments on}

The NFL welcomed 84,004 fans (if not fans, the curious that the NFL hope will become fans) to Wembley Stadium for last night’s match-up between the ‘temporary tenants of Wembley Stadium’ (thanks largely to Stan Kroenke), the St. Louis Rams, and Tom Brady and his merry men, the New England Patriots.

Let’s quickly get the result out the way – a show of pure class by the Pats resulted in a 45-7 hammering of the Rams. Brady threw four touchdown passes and the Pats offense dominated proceedings.

However, the action on the field was only part of the story as the NFL rolled into town to continue its quest of growing the sport on these shores and eventually realising the ambition of a NFL franchise in London.

Let’s have a look at a few things we noticed on a weekend we forgot about ‘soccer’:

1. The Fan Rally was held in Trafalgar Square, an impressive location to welcome 45K people and give them a taste of what to expect the following evening – it also catered to those who missed out on match t tickets. The following pic gives you a flavour:

2. The Tailgate Party was a great opportunity for Budweiser to engage with fans and taking one look at the size of the marquee, they invested heavily – a smart move, particularly as the punters were all drinking Carlsberg in the stadium. I took the following image at the end of the party:

3. Much like this blog title, the NFL know how to maximise sponsorship platforms – last night I witnessed the Pepsi Max replay, Visa booth review, Ford first down and even better, they alternate sponsors per quarter – it was the Gatorade replay in the third

4. There are a lot of breaks in a NFL game and these breaks are filled with various entertainment from cheerleaders to mascots shooting merch 50ft in the air – all great opportunities for brands to get involved and potential lessons to be learnt for football and rugby

5. American’s are fans of Boris Johnson if the rapturous applause he received welcoming the two teams last night is anything to go by. Boris pledged to bring more NFL to the UK in years to come – a nice endorsement and vote of confidence for the sport’s future in the UK

6. The ‘thank the fans’ video that broadcasted out to Wembley Stadium consisted of only American fans, in the US, and I wasn’t the only one scratching my head wondering why a tailored vid including UK fans wasn’t used to give us all an ‘aw-shucks’ moment.

In summary, the NFL in London provides a great platform for brands to capture not only a passionate group of US expats, but also tap into what will surely be a burgeoning number of UK fans.

I, for one, look forward to the party rolling back into town next year…

 

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By Byron McCaughey, Senior Account Manager, Generate Sponsorship

 

Byron McCaughey’s {jcomments on}

Customer relationship marketing or CRM is often described as a journey and not a destination. However, all too often the CRM journey is plagued by long delays at check-in, turbulence on take-off, poor in-flight service and a bumpy landing. Indeed, research suggests that more than 50% of all CRM installations fail. Even the minority that are successful carry a high risk of unfulfilled expectations in terms of:-

• – Costing more than anticipated
• – Taking longer to implement than planned
• – Delivering less functionality than specified

So given the unhappy history of CRM installations in this country, why are so many progressive marketing-led organisations eager to risk their finances and their reputations on another expensive CRM disappointment? One of the major factors in explaining the current state of play with CRM is the general lack of understanding among marketers and non-marketers alike of what exactly CRM is and just as importantly, what it can and cannot do.

CRM is not a marketing technique like one of the ubiquitous 4Ps that can be applied to leverage a business. It is a process that encompasses the management and organisation of legitimately held customer information and its intelligent use in order to present the right offer to the right prospect via the right channel at the right time.

Another common misunderstanding about CRM is that it requires only the most sophisticated and expensive computer technology. Certainly for businesses with many products distributing to customers in several countries and communicating through a variety of marketing channels, some form of IT system is required (but it need not be costly). The trick is to have a good understanding of your CRM ambitions and needs before you hand over your cash to the slick IT salesman. The system used by Tesco with a footfall of 25m and a product inventory of 1000 stock units or by Amazon with call-centres primed to handle 50m customer orders on 4 continents are certainly at the leading and cash-hungry edge of technology, but is unlikely to be necessary or appropriate for a local retailer.

Even one of the most forward thinking, enlightened and professionally managed of our Premier League football clubs has fallen headlong into the CRM IT money pit. So from personal and bitter experience, I offer a check-list of dos and don’ts to sports clubs contemplating the lemming-like leap from the CRM cliffs of uncertainty into the IT sea of despair and disappointment

1.    Prepare well. Set out your strategic objectives for CRM in terms of the end result(s) you wish to achieve and the budget you are prepared to commit.

2.    Ensure that your effort is optimised across your business and that a company-wide perspective and consensus is achieved among key staff.

3.    Clearly define your business going forward in terms of the scale of your marketing effort and the volume of data you are prepared to collect.

4.    Set rules to govern the use of your customer data in terms of primacy, recency and frequency and apply them to each of your marketing channels.

5.    Take professional advice to ensure your data management regime complies with data protection law in all of the territories you operate in.

6.    Consider an IT solution only once all the above steps have been completed and you have developed a comprehensive business requirements schedule.

7.    Use a tender process, request proof of concept and never, ever agree to adopt an untried big box IT solution in lieu of a sponsorship fee!

A graduate of Manchester University, Steven started his career in the motor industry before taking an MBA at Warwick University Business School. There followed progressively senior roles in the Marketing and Commercial departments of Astra Zeneca; United Utilities; Great Universal Stores and MBNA, latterly as Head of Affinity Marketing. During this period, he worked on a range of UK and international assignments. In 2001, Steven joined Manchester United as Director of Financial Services. Following the successful launch of the MU Finance business promoting a range of club-branded FS products to fans worldwide, Steven was promoted to Marketing Director. In this role he added Sponsorship, Brand Marketing, CRM and Club Pre-Season Tours to his existing Affinity FS responsibilities. He was a member of the Executive Committee of Manchester United and a board director of Manchester United Foundation the club’s charitable trading arm. In January 2010, Steven launched Star Sports Marketing, a specialist sports marketing consultancy. Details at www.starsportsmarketing.com The business focuses on the key sports marketing disciplines of:- -Brand management and development of company vision and image -Sponsorship activation, relationship management and retention -Affinity marketing including development of own-brand financial services -CRM including data management, organisation and event marketing -Loyalty and membership programmes -Touring and friendly match organisation To comment on this article or for an informal chat about how Star Sports Marketing can help your business, please contact Steven directly by email at steven.falk@starsportsmarketing.co.uk

Steven Falk’s

If you have any questions or comments, please post it below

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