THE sport sponsorship arena has been fascinating these last few days: Joey Barton's 18-month suspension for 1260 bets placed over 10 years has triggered cancellation of a £4m-a-year FA deal with Ladbrokes. And McDonalds – one of the Olympic movement's most loyal backers – has terminated its 41-year marriage to the IOC with three years of a $25m annual contract still to run.
These are both game-changing events.
It seems the majority of footballers may bet on matches – some even wagering themselves into bankruptcy. The self-evident potential for corruption forced the hand of the FA, even though Barton backed his own club only twice to win matches in which he played. And they lost!
One cannot switch on TV without being deluged by sport-related gaming adverts. There's current uproar in Australia over a sport betting company using disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson to promote their mobile phone app. How long before betting promotion is restricted by legislation akin to tobacco and alcohol?
With sport increasingly fixated on healthy lifestyles, fat and sugar are the new tobacco. Restricting sugary drinks and addressing obesity have moved up the agenda. Which brings us to burgers. Divorce between two global brands does not happen lightly. You can be sure that the IOC is hating it, and wondering where this might end.
McDonalds were such an Olympic icon that the Atlanta cauldron which Parkinsons-ravaged Muhammad Ali ignited so memorably in 1996 looked disconcertingly like the company's cardboard fries carton.
No more. It's unloved, atop a tangle of girders overlooking a car park.
Before London 2012, when they renewed sponsorship, the then IOC president, Jaques Rogge, reportedly challenged McDonalds and Coca Cola, to help address the global obesity epidemic. He told the Financial Times that renewing the burger deal had not been "an easy decision". It resulted in introduction of healthier meal options and zero-sugar drinks in an effort to convince the IOC they were serious about their health obligations.
Yet now McDonalds have called the Olympic bluff, perhaps seeing an opportunity in the recent IOC decision to lift a marketing ban on sponsoring individual athletes, rather than the Games themselves – more cost effective.
The next three Olympics are in Asia, less attractive to US markets and American TV. The US Olympic Committee has also lost sponsors ahead of next year's Winter Games in Korea.
Yes, Omega have extended their Olympic relationship to 100 years, despite a reported near-doubling of the asking price to $200m every four years through to 2032; and Korea's Intel Corp, has signed up to 2024 to bring virtual reality, 360-degree video, and artificial intelligence and drones to the Games.
But since Beijing in 2008, US TV audiences have fallen while social media alternatives have risen. Rio viewing figures were down 8.6% compared with London 2012, according to media monitoring sources. Hence the increasing corporate view that IOC sponsorship at the highest level has less impact than formerly, and is poor value.
What next? The movement under pressure to ditch airline and car sponsors because of the adverse environmental impact? Perhaps kit and sports shoe manufacturers with Third World sweatshop reputations?
It's a short step to a sponsorship and marketing crisis.
And waiting in the wings will be a regiment of ambush marketing experts with even less principles. Like Nike. They made an art-form of generating free publicity which rivals could not match despite having paid $100m. Their aggressive tactics in Atlanta were characterised by the US Olympic Committee marketing chief and Nike's chief "fixer" challenging one another to a square go. They could have sold tickets for that one.
My father was one of Scotland's earliest sport sponsorship consultants, in the early 1960s. He was involved in launching Scotland's first sports awards, backed by Usher Vaux whose reach in sport ranged from pigeon racing to motor sport, shooting, darts, golf, and the turf – even the now near-extinct sport of quoiting, in the back-yard of pubs in mining areas. Tobacco sponsors also featured among his employer's clients. The Drybrough Cup was another of his projects, conceived to circumvent an SFA rule that no existing competition could have a title sponsor.
Moral discussion soon rose around our dinner table: should drink and tobacco companies be sponsoring sport? That was more a mischievous wind-up of the old man, predating any serious public debate. He'd say sport would implode without such backers, and how restricting them would be economically detrimental to society.
And soon it was out there: the hypocrisy of products detrimental to health being used to promote activities that exemplified a healthy lifestyle. The younger generation was being deliberately wooed by the cool notion of smoking and alcohol.
Sponsorship in the pre-Lottery era was perceived as the panacea for all sport's ills. Now, ethical sources of funding are diminishing, and sport sponsorship often promotes society's ills.
How much of this reaction is triggered by the IOC's ambivalent attitude to Russian doping? Some of it, for sure. Rising costs are also a factor. Tokyo 2020 is four-times over budget, and the crumbling venues of Athens 2004 and Rio 2016 have eroded enthusiasm.
Global confidence in the Olympic brand is in decline. Six cities withdrew from the 2022 Winter Olympic race, leaving just two to select from. Boston, Hamburg, Rome, and Budapest have opted out of the 2024 Summer Games, leaving a two-horse race.
Salvaging the Olympic image is growing harder by the day.
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