An expensive experiment takes shape

Author Rob Plasmark (front row left) attended the first TOP workshop held in Seoul in 1987. Joining him will be Visa's Jan Soderstrom (front row right), 3M's Jim Radford and Charles Eldridge, OCO88's Bill Wardle, ISL's Bill Breen, and the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee. Mr. Beom Il. Kim, Jim Millman of Millsport, and local executives from FedEx and Panasonic.

Editor's Note: This excerpt is from “Don't Use American Express for the Olympics: The Birth of Mega Sports Sponsorship” by Rob Plasmark (Page Publishing, February 2024). The story begins in 1985. Plasmark and Bill Breen (newly resigned ABC vice president of news sales) arrive in Lucerne, Switzerland, for a meeting with the IOC and the ISL, which had acquired global rights to the Calgary and Seoul Olympics. did.

Jurgen Lenz is one of my lifelong mentors. He had a strong desire to succeed, and although he had a cheerful side, he could turn serious at the slightest thing. In 1981, Lenz, along with Klaus Hempel and Horst, he was selected by Dassler to be the founder of ISL Marketing.

Mr. Lentz The appointment was the culmination of decades of marketing. Here's a brief history: During World War II, Adolf Dassler was a German shoemaker who manufactured shoes and boots for the German army. After the war, he founded a company called Adidas. Adolf had one son named Horst and four daughters. Realizing that there was great potential in the sports shoe market, Horst focused his company on sports (primarily soccer) and track and field. Throughout the 1960s and his 1970s, Horst built the Adidas empire by giving away shoes to athletes. He noticed that when winning athletes wore Adidas shoes, Adidas sales exploded. Adidas quickly became a global brand due to its complete dominance in soccer and track and field.

in In the late 1970s, Horst entered into a sports marketing partnership with an Englishman named Patrick Nally. Together they secured a marketing agreement with FIFA to help emerging international brands such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Fuji and Gillette with the marketing of the World Cup and European Championship. Just before the 1982 World Cup in Spain, a disagreement arose between Dassler and Nally. The night before the event, Nally was sent packing. Frustrated, FIFA and president Joan Havelanger instructed Horst to resolve everything. In an attempt to end the marketing nightmare, Horst poached two of Adidas' best marketing men, Klaus Hempel and Jürgen Lenz, from Adidas' marketing department to solve the problem. With this, ISL was born at the end of his 1982.

of The 1982 World Cup was held by a provisional team and was a financial success. Hempel and Lentz then took over the program under ISL management.

probably The biggest international sports event is the Olympics (some say the World Cup). Unfortunately for everyone involved, the International Olympic Committee has been plagued by organizational turmoil and politics for many years. The 1968 Mexico Olympics sparked protests by the Mexican public in response to the pre-Olympic riots, and the birth of Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their Black Power Salute. Munich left an ominous cloud over the Olympics. In addition to being a financial disaster, the 1976 Montreal Games also involved a train disaster. The United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games, the Soviet Union retaliated by not participating in the Los Angeles Games, and the IOC realized that the success of the Games was entirely dependent on television rights fees. The entire Olympic movement was in trouble.

as IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch watched the FIFA World Cup final from the tribune section of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid, Spain, and felt a solution to his despair. Immediately after the World Cup final, Samaranch called his friend Horst Dassler to a meeting and asked if Horst could focus on Olympic matters.

in At the same time, Coca-Cola's Gary Hite was becoming frustrated as he tried to launch his own international Olympic program. Gehry had received worldwide rights from Peter Ueberroth and the Los Angeles Olympics, but to begin promoting the Olympics in other countries he would need permission from those countries' National Olympic Committees (NOCs). was not recognized. All NOCs demanded more money from Coca-Cola, and overall logistics were disrupted. Gary has been on the roads and in the skies forever, eventually ending up in Lausanne. In Lausanne, Gary had Samaranch and Horst present and signed him to the Dream Team.

Gary “Ladies and gentlemen, the Olympics are a global brand, and we are a global brand, but we have too much effort, so much time and energy to deliver a global Olympic platform. We have no power to negotiate all these rights. If you understand it, we will buy it. ” This offer combines earth, wind and fire.

If Mr. Horst can marshal all the rights and launch a global marketing program, he could attract companies that will pay large sums of money to the IOC over the long term. Over time, this will solve long-term financial problems for the IOC, including reducing its dependence on television revenue.

horst He was more than just a marketing guy for ISL. He was also a banker. He pioneered the concept of purchasing intellectual rights and paying an upfront deposit. Adidas is a global brand and Horst knew the power the IOC had in its Olympic brand. By the fall of 1983, Horst had divided Klaus and Jurgen into two groups. Mr. Kraus will continue to be in charge of the World Cup, while Mr. Lenz will be responsible for the Olympic project.

Author Rob Plasmark attends the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.Duomo

in In May 1983, Horst and Lenz presented the “Olympic Program'' to the IOC membership and Executive Board. At the time, the IOC's 80 members knew that Horst Dassler was a miracle worker, but they weren't sure if Captain Planet's powers could handle it.

rear A brief introduction by President Samaranch, Mr. Horst and Mr. Jürgen activated the videotape. The tape explores the current challenges of the Olympic movement, including funding for sports development programs in disadvantaged countries, rising Olympic costs, concerns about boycotts, and complete dependence on television rights fees coming from the United States. It touched on the issue. state. The video, now called the “New Delhi Tapes,” was intentionally written and spoken in a European tone. In conclusion, the tape he strengthened the power of the five Olympic rings and emphasized the commercial potential of the Olympic brand. Companies will pay top dollar for access to the ring. The need for on-field commercial branding will remain purely as dictated by the Olympic Charter. Commercial branding is not allowed given television coverage.

“The time has come for the Olympic Movement to develop alternative sources of income while it can. On the other hand, while the Olympic Movement can dictate the terms, if we wait until the Olympic Movement is desperate, the terms will not dictate to us. Because they will be given instructions.” written on the tape.

of The plan was to consolidate the assets of the Summer Games, Winter Games, and any national Olympic committees (NOCs) that wanted to participate, and give companies the right to use the Olympic rings for marketing. This was a much more complex task than simply deciding to do something and doing it. The Olympics were the IOC's holy grail. It was never used for commercial purposes. Dassler and Lentz expected the group's stunned reaction.

of The tape continued to persuade. IOC plans to only recruit “like-minded partners with a strong trading track record.” Images flooded the screens of underprivileged African youth being trained in very basic (to say the least) conditions. The light went on and the room fell silent. Mr. Dassler and Mr. Lentz opened the door for questions, and as expected, the questions all focused on money: who, how, and for how much.

Lentz explained that each NOC has the right to participate or not, and that a formula for calculating revenue sharing will be developed in the future. After internal discussions, the IOC Executive Board approved the next stage of the plan. ISL could begin contacting the parties and try to finalize global rights, but would not be allowed to enter the market until it returned to the IOC and satisfied all questions. In the end, the IOC, not the ISL, was responsible for the program.

This plan required huge changes, universal agreement, and a huge amount of work. Dick Pound could not overcome these obvious difficulties and, along with Samaranch, was convinced that it would not work. By the end of 1983, the naysayers' whispers seemed to become reality. Lenz traveled the world looking for help, but he didn't have much luck. In the spring of 1984, with his tail unable to fit between his legs, Lentz broke the news of his defeat to Dassler, but Dassler refused to hear anything about the difficulties and immediately sent Lentz back on his way.

good thing. Barriers began to fall during the Los Angeles Games. NOC suddenly found itself in need of cash. Seoul, Calgary and the United States Olympic Committee thought they could raise the money on their own, but problems still existed. We don't need a stinky global program. The USOC agreed, but was not satisfied that most of the potential customers were American companies.

Rob Plasmark was the 2011 Sports Business Awards category presenter.Shanna Wittenweiler

by In April and May 1985, solutions to two major obstacles were found: money and markets. Horst shelled out $5 million (a ton of gold at the time) to guarantee the nine-month experiment. The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC), the 1988 Olympic Games Organizing Committee (OCO '88), and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) have partnered with 18 global companies representing 44 product categories, including everything from soft drinks to ISL was given the authority to market to commercial industries. For insurance and food. Automobiles are a very national business, and in some countries very emotional, but they were not part of this deal.

and Here I, the naive, impressionable, unreasonably ignorant lump of clay, return to this world. When Bill Breen hired me, he conveniently left out the word “experiment.” I may have been young, but I wasn't completely crazy. By the end of March 1986 he said that if ISL had made no progress in securing partners in these categories, I would have balked at the idea if each party knew that they could take back their partners. I might have done it. If I had known that each party could voluntarily withdraw from the program at its own discretion, I might have questioned Bill Breen's proposed career change. Fortunately, I didn't know any of these things.

Return to Lucerne. When Bill Wardle and George Miller finally got to the right place with the right documents, the Marketing Committee Meeting (MCM) was finally able to restore order. First, Dick Pound, who has just taken over marketing and television duties, explained the IOC's recent housecleaning. Then George Miller reminded everyone that the clock was ticking. It was July, and the program was scheduled to explode, implode, expire, and be obsolete at the end of March. I heard it for the first time.

what! I looked at Bill and he was sitting right next to me, and for the next hour he wouldn't let me see anything but his right ear. The thought that my fledgling career might come to an abrupt end led to intense anger. Bill betrayed me, big man. Only when he was 31 years old did he realize how much he didn't know and how much he didn't know he didn't know. Koreans, Japanese, Americans, Canadians, Germans, Swiss, this was the United Nations with skis, javelin throws, bobsleds, and ice skates. The only two people who wanted this project to succeed were the ISL and the IOC. Everyone else was part of this shotgun mariage spirit and were there for the evening's cognac and Cuban.

On the plane back to JFK, Bill apologized for his “inaction.” As a high school girl, I was giddy about the potential of this plan, but I forgave it, celebrated with free beer, and dreamed of the prospects for 44 product categories. I was able to get used to this life by swapping out the free grapes and cheese for fries and ketchup. I thought.