In 1976, Montreal was boycotted by the Africans. In 1980, Moscow was boycotted by the USA and many other nations. Working, as I was back then, with Horst Dassler, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the election of Juan Antonio Samaranch as the future IOC president (elected in Moscow in 1980) as, with his dynamic leadership, we could significantly develop the ‘Olympic brand’. In addition to cleaning up the rights, an overhaul of the overall offering was planned, including changing the Olympic calendar to stage events every two years and adding new and attractive sports.

One of Samaranch’s immediate ambitions in building the brand was to ensure the participation of the very best athletes – both professional and amateur – at the Olympics Games. Another was to include the top ‘commercial’ sports.

It was also in the 70s that I first met an infiuential North Korean, Dr Un-Yong K im, who was an advisor to a US shoe importer. In addition to trying to promote Korea internationally, Kim was the head of the World Taekwondo Federation ( WTF), which he founded in May 1973. One of the most lasting impressions of meeting Dr Kim in those days was when my partner in Japan, Jack Sakazaki, and I were invited to the WTF headquarters in Seoul, where we were led into what we thought was a meeting room but turned out to be a hospitality box in the middle of a vast performance hall. In the hall, demonstrating for just Jack and me, were hundreds of taekwondo athletes who performed a display movement in unison that just amazed us. So many people doing a routine in perfect harmony for just two people – it was a beautiful and memorable sight.

Kim was keen to develop taekwondo and certainly wanted to get it on to the Olympic calendar. It was also in the 70s that we were working with the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF), which we located in a permanent home in Monaco.

Through GAISF, and with Kim’s Korean backing, we created the first-ever World Games in Santa Clara in 1981. The concept of the World Games was twofold – to provide a ‘shop window’ for those sports not on the Olympic programme to perform on the world’s stage, and for those same sports to promote themselves directly to the Olympic movement. It is interesting to note that following their participation in the World Games in Santa Clara, both taekwondo (initially as a demonstration sport) and badminton (then headed by Craig Reedie) were granted Olympic status. Baseball and softball, which also participated at Santa Clara, were put on the Olympic calendar for Atlanta 1996 through to Beijing 2008.

Samaranch saw the sense in working together with Kim and, on the basis Kim was to get the help for his own sport as well as others, he was instrumental in securing the important (and cooperative) bid from Seoul for the 1988 Olympic Games, which would be the first Games to show off the many new additions.

The Olympic Congress that selected Seoul was hosted in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1981, when taekwondo, badminton and table tennis (Samaranch had been a table tennis champion) were formally welcomed into the Olympic Games family. So too was tennis, a sport which was making significant strides in the professional world with collaboration between the ITF, with whom we were working on the new Davis Cup format, and the ATP, which was being fostered by my SportsPro co-correspondent Donald Dell.

There were also some interesting discussions back in the 80s about whether other sports, such as bridge and chess, could be included in the winter Olympics as a way to open up the Games beyond those nations that just participated on snow and ice, but these ideas were not taken further forward.

Since the major expansion of the Olympic calendar, we have also seen the inclusion of golf and rugby sevens voted from a list of seven sports by secret ballot in Copenhagen at the 2009 Olympic Congress, when karate came in a close third.

The problem, however, is that unlike before when there was a very specific plan to add strength to the Olympic brand, the current approach has become something of a farce. We now have a rather odd bidding process that will add another sport to the Olympic calendar but, to make room for that sport, the IOC has had to eject an existing sport – the longstanding Olympic sport of wrestling.

Eight sports are vying to be selected by the IOC for that one vacant slot. Baseball, cable wakeboarding, karate, roller sports, softball, sport climbing, squash and wushu have all invested heavily in their bid presentations and ensured that they have met the IOC’s demanding evaluation criteria. However, wrestling has also now entered the bidding race. What happens if wrestling is the sport selected?  Who would then consider this a worthwhile exercise?

Olympic sport selection was a little simpler in the Olympic movement back in the 70s and 80s when it was all about the best way to build the brand. Now the brand is built it needs nurturing, it needs refreshing, it needs to be concerned about hosting costs. Is this sport selection merry-go-round really relevant?

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For the first time at a major championship, no cards or dealers will be used.

The European Nation’s Cup will be held at the Annabelle hotel in Paphos from April 12-15. Fourteen teams of six players will take part in the 2013 Nations Cup. These include the top six teams, Estonia, Lithuania, Serbia, Poland, Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina from a recent qualifying event held in Vienna. Host nation Cyprus, Spain, UK, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Russia will also take part.

The details of the tournament were disclosed at a press conference held at the Annabelle hotel in Paphos by the International Federation of Poker (IFP) founder member Patrick Nally. He said that the IFP has developed the unique format of ‘match poker’ to demonstrate the level of skill involved in the game which he describes as a “mind sport”.

“We are making history in Cyprus through the use of technology. The smart phone and iPad are now integral part of our lives. Many people around the world come into contact with poker through their smartphones.”

Nally said no cards would be used. Instead, each participant will have their own smartphone and their cards will appear on their screen.

To read the rest of the article please click this link http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/cyprus-first-showcase-new-poker-technology/20130316

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We entertained the great and good of the international sports world at that house – Juan Antonio Samaranch, Primo Nebiolo (who was particularly impressed), Tommy Keller (who almost moved in!), Un Young Kim, João Havelange and many others all commented on what an enjoyable experience it was and on the important link between enjoying the event and the hospitality surrounding it.

West Nally’s Montreal experience was an attempt at ‘one-upmanship’ to rival the extraordinary Auberge hotel and restaurant at Horst Dassler’s Adidas HQ in Landersheim, France, but it was from Montreal that hospitality started to become a significant part of our strategic thinking, and providing sponsors with a ‘package’ of exclusive rights needed to include ‘exclusive hospitality’.

This strategy led to West Nally helping the newly formed Sportsworld in its plans for hosting ‘official sponsors’ at the World Cup in Spain in 1982, and to the success of the sponsorship package for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) at Twickenham where the newly built corporate hospitality boxes in the South Stand became an integral part of the sponsor offering. Indeed, nowadays quality corporate hospitality facilities are a key component in successful fundraising for new stadium and arena builds, like the new Wembley Stadium. The downside, however, is the tiers of seating that suddenly become empty post half-time. Hospitality is understandably important to venue owners and sponsors but swathes of empty seats at events are damaging the image of the very sport sponsors have chosen to support.

Back in the 1970s, the tented hospitality village concept being developed for official sponsors by Wimbledon and IMG was also gathering momentum, and the inclusion of hospitality for sponsors at other international events started to become the norm. Athletics, golf, tennis, cricket, and horse racing all benefited from hospitality being an integral part of the sponsorship offer.

Initially the hospitality village format was restricted exclusively for the use of official event sponsors and seemed to be a good-value component of a sponsor’s package. However, conflicts began to arise as more specialist agencies emerged wanting to sell hospitality to any company as well as to the general public.

With events becoming more popular, a ‘grey market’ evolved and we started to see a significant growth in new companies offering hospitality outside of an event’s official sponsors’ village. Many tented villages popped up in car parks, fields and even private homes. At first, there were no rules or strategy to these activities but events like the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and the Olympic Games saw that corporate hospitality could become a major revenue generator outside of the official sponsor offer.

With different providers subscribing to different standards and values, hospitality has never really outgrown its ‘grey’ image. Increased activity in the hospitality market has harmed the integrity of some events and has given rise to ambush marketing. Despite attempts to put controls in place and police hospitality offerings, there are still many cases of ticket scalping and pirate operators.

Indeed, the whole question of event corporate hospitality seems to be a double-edged sword – a major fundraiser on the one hand while creating negative perceptions on the other. This conflict is particularly noticeable in the Olympic movement where the survival of many National Olympic Committees depends heavily on the revenue they can generate from ticket and hospitality use at the Olympic Games, which clashes directly with Olympic and LOC sponsors.

If the Olympic Games are to continue to make a positive contribution to both the physical and practical legacy of the Olympic movement, it is my view that the approach to hospitality needs to change. No longer can the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allow the conflicts that corporate hospitality currently creates to continue.

After London won its bid to host the Games, I joined a consortium bidding – unsuccessfully – for the 2012 hospitality rights which felt that an innovative and imaginative new plan was necessary. Our thought was to create a London 2012 Citizen Charter to galvanise everyone who participated at the London 2012 Games, especially through ticket purchase and hospitality offerings, to become an ‘Olympic Citizen’ linked together by social media and encouraged to support and promote the ‘Olympic Ideals’.

Although our concept was innovative, the decision on the selected hospitality offer was ‘romantic’ – what generated the highest revenue! Locog’s role was not about the future – that is for the IOC – but for meeting financial targets.

The ability to protect official sponsors, police standards, control pricing and the use of prestige tickets at venues has become a significant challenge. Seeing some of the complexities now surrounding both the Fifa World Cup and the Olympic Games and their hospitality and ticketing expectations, clearly change is needed to turn hospitality into a more credible way of supporting wider sporting ideals and help bring about positive change for everyone.

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The economic downturn has coincided with a time in which the media are being revolutionised by changing technologies and dictatorships are being swept aside by popular uprisings. This time it feels as though power structures are being turned upside down.

Under the title “Communication, Engagement, and Effective Economic Reform: The IMF Experience,” Dr Nemat Shafik, Deputy Managing Director of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) discussed the importance of openness and engagement, and how these lessons are being applied throughout the world.

Core to her presentation was the iRevolution which has transformed the way policy is shaped and the communication strategy. But this hyper-democratic world has opened up risks, especially for organisations such as the IMF, traditionally unused to dealing with any stakeholders other than governments.

Gone are the days, Dr Shafik said, when all documents were confidential and the teams never spoke to the press. The IMF learned some hard lessons around the world and now fully acknowledges the role of communication which has to be an essential and early partner in policy development.

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By Nemat Shafik
Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
London, March 7, 2013

As prepared for delivery

I am honored to be with you today to deliver the 2013 Maggie Nally Memorial Lecture, and would like to thank the Chartered Institute for Public Relations for inviting me.

Maggie Nally was ahead of her time in many ways, and became the first woman President of the Institute of Public Relations in 1976. As a woman I am grateful to the barriers she overcame to clear the path for women like me who came afterwards. She also embodied the values that we at the IMF aspire to achieve in our communications—honesty, integrity, and professionalism. It’s nice to have her children here in the audience.

I would like to start by looking at the forces that shape the way we communicate today, before turning to what this means for institutions that are involved in shaping economic policy. I will end with a few examples that illustrate what these sweeping changes have meant in practice for the way we at the International Monetary Fund engage with our member countries to support economic reform.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts as communications professionals.

A Hyper-Connected World

Something big has happened in recent years. In just a few years, the world went from connected to hyper-connected in a way that is impacting every job, industry, and institution, as discussed by New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman in his book “The World is Flat” and other recent writings. Basically, we have seen an iRevolution, which means that virtually everyone, everywhere has access to a handheld computer, tablet, or cell phone, which can be activated by voice or touch to work, entertain, learn, protest, and collaborate.

Today, there are 1.5 billion global social media users. If this were a country, it would be the largest in the world. There are over 3 billion mobile phone subscriptions, with some of the highest penetrations in India and Africa. So this is not just a phenomenon in rich countries. Even the poorest countries of the world are hyper-connected.

This hyper-connected world is, in turn, transforming the world of influence—and how policy is shaped. A 2013 poll by Edelman Trust showed that less than 1 in 5 people trust business or political leaders to tell the truth.

The old top-down pyramid of authority, which includes governments, business, academia, and elite media, is losing ground. A new bottom-up set of influencers are gaining fast: coalitions and networks of civil society organizations, activists, and youth. Via technology (especially social media), their messages can go viral––at great speed.

Let me give you a few examples: The Indian woman demanding dignity, justice and women’s rights via the internet. The people in Egypt who via Twitter galvanized the Arab Spring. The bloggers in Beijing demanding anti-pollution reforms—that succeeded in passing legislation. The atrocities of Kony and the rebel army in Uganda, which went viral on You Tube—and prompted military intervention by the African Union. And then there was my own experience this morning when I gave a speech on health and fiscal policy, which was quoted in a blog by the Guardian just 15 minutes after I had walked off the stage.

So what we see is that the old pyramid of authority is giving way to a new “diamond of influence”. It is not just that the old elites are being challenged by a new group of influencers. Because of technology, both groups have to reach out to much broader constituencies than before—because they are connected. The sphere of influence is no longer vertical but, increasingly, it is flattening out. It is horizontal.

In this new world of horizontal trust, the connections transcend geographic and political borders. They are global. And they are human. So while people may no longer trust banks or bureaucrats, they do trust their peers—in this case their Facebook “friends” all across the world.

Let me now turn to another theme that is shaping the world of communications and policy.

Rise of the Virtual Middle Class

There is another trend at work as well—one that is closely linked to the emergence of the hyper-connected world. Thanks to technology and the spread of education, more people are empowered at lower levels of income. They think more as the “middle-class”—demanding social justice, equality, and above all “voice”.

This rise of what Friedman has termed the virtual middle class represents a tectonic shift: the industrial revolution was 10-million people strong; this revolution is several billion people strong.

In some ways, it is good news: a world that can be a much more democratic—perhaps even “hyper-democratic”; a world where everyone has the potential and means to express his or her views, be heard, and feel included.

But there are risks. When the wisdom of the cyber crowd rules, policy can swing in volatile ways, and be influenced by sudden “digital wildfires”. There is also the danger of cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. Above all, the access to almost unlimited information provided by the internet can amplify the frustration of those who feel left out, as they become aware of how other people are able to live their lives. Social media is very effective at protest or bringing systems down as we saw with the Arab Spring, or with the challenge that the Occupy Wall Street movement was to the financial industry, or the rise of web based protest parties like the Pirates in Germany or the Five Star movement in Italy. But social media is less good, it seems, at rebuilding an alternative system.

Adapting to a Changing World

So what is the bottom line? The world of the next 10 years will be hyper-connected, and is also likely to be hyper-democratic. This development has major implications for intergovernmental organizations such as the IMF, which have traditionally been focused on interacting mainly with governments, and which are part of the old pyramid of authority.

To stay relevant, we have to adapt and embrace this new world, but do so in a way that does not undermine our role as trusted advisor to governments. So what does that mean in practice?

The IMF’s Role

The Fund’s main purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system. We are a cooperative of 188 countries who pool their resources to support each other in times of economic distress. We support our members by offering policy advice, extending loans to countries in economic difficulty, and by providing technical know-how and expertise. If I were to attempt a summary of the IMF’s role, it is to speak inconvenient truths when they need to be spoken, put the numbers on the table, and make objective recommendations about what needs to be done. This is not often a recipe for being popular.

For most of its history, the IMF believed it was most effective working behind the scenes as a discreet advisor and letting governments talk to the public. There was also a view that governments often needed someone to blame for tough decisions and if we had to take the blame, that was a good price to pay for getting the right things done. We accepted that sometimes the messenger had to be shot for the common good. So all IMF documents were confidential, our Board meetings were secret, our teams who traveled to countries never spoke to the press. One of our resident representatives in an African country was reprimanded by his boss for his name appearing in one of the local newspapers.

This approach failed miserably after the Asian crisis in the late 1990s. The Fund made policy mistakes in Asia; but they were compounded by a failure to communicate the rationale for those policies that were correct. The IMF learned some hard lessons from the Asia crisis—what to say, how to say it, who to say it to. It ushered in the first steps to modernize our approach—today, virtually all of our reports are now published, our Board’s deliberations are reported on the web, our teams are mandated to do outreach when they visit countries, our resident representatives are trained and encouraged to communicate.

As the world has become more democratic and connected, the Fund has had to learn more about politics. One particular challenge for the IMF, as a largely technocratic institution, has been to understand the importance of electoral cycles in modern democracies and how they interact with the ability to implement reforms. In politics (as in so many domains of life), timing is everything and we have had to learn to be sensitive to when there are political opportunities for reform and when they have to wait. The rise of non-state actors and the trend toward hyper-democracy makes this an even more challenging task.

Communicating During the Great Recession

The global economic crisis and its aftermath have compounded the difficulties of navigating a hyper-connected and hyper-democratic world. The Fund found itself in the epicenter of responding to the crisis—designing rescue schemes for many countries in Europe, mobilizing resources to strengthen our war chest to a trillion dollars, trying to support countries in the Middle East after governments were toppled there, and advising countries across the world on how to cope with the crisis. We advised many countries to spend, if they could, to avoid the risks of a depression and to make sure that the poorest were protected. This was in stark contrast to our earlier reputation of always advocating austerity, but as Keynes said “when the facts change, I change my mind.”

In this difficult economic, political and social context, the Fund has been treading a fine line: engaging with governments to nudge reforms along, speaking out publicly when it has felt it was necessary and engaging—where possible—with opposition leaders, trade unions, civil society organizations, and other groups that often disagree with the policies of their government.

Let me briefly describe four recent examples that illustrate how our approach changed during the Great Recession—Iceland, Jordan, Greece, and central banking.

Iceland

Iceland was the first country to experience the full force of the global economic crisis. The banking sector, which had grown to five times the size of the economy, collapsed and the IMF was called into help in November 2008. The government was very much in the driver’s seat in designing the program. We worked with them to design a reform program that was very unorthodox—it included capital controls, an initial fiscal easing followed by a tough consolidation, and a substantial increase in welfare spending to protect the poor. The trade unions were important partners as was parliament. We also worked alongside the government to explain the program to the public—in print, in broadcast, via twitter, and by blogging.

By the first half of 2012, growth had recovered to 2.4 percent of GDP and unemployment had come down from a peak of over 9 percent to 6 percent. Because welfare spending was protected, income distribution was actually more equal at the end of this painful adjustment program. At the end of the program, the IMF and Iceland’s government organized a conference to take stock of what had been achieved. The conference was streamed live, and more than 11,000 people watched it online, most of them Icelanders, who participated actively in the discussion by tweeting their questions and comments. A good example of how to engage the forces of hyper-democracy and hyper-connectivity.

Jordan and Energy Subsidies

Last year, price subsidies in the Middle East and North Africa cost around $210 billion, more than 7 percent of regional GDP. Besides being very costly, such subsidies do not do a good job at supporting the poor. For these reasons, the IMF has been advising governments to phase out general food and fuel subsidies with more targeted cash-transfer programs aimed at the most vulnerable. But reform has eluded many countries in the region because they fear a backlash from their populations.

Jordan, where I was yesterday, is one country that has struggled with how to implement subsidy reform. Late last year, the government announced that it would convert general fuel and electricity subsidies to targeted ones after having reversed similar reforms in the past. While the measures did spark protests, a concerted effort to explain how and why the subsidies would be phased out, and what would replace them, helped mitigate the political fallout. Essential was the design of a targeting scheme so that only the better off would face full market prices. Cash transfers were provided to 70 percent of the population to protect them from rising prices.

In this case, the IMF’s role has been to provide Jordan and the dozens of other countries that subsidize energy with convincing empirical evidence that shows why getting rid of subsidies is better for the poor and for the environment and creates space for more valuable investments in education, health or infrastructure. We also understand that phasing out subsidies takes time and it is important to give countries the space to build a political consensus for reform.

Greece

Let’s turn to one of the most challenging cases—Greece—which has been going through wrenching adjustment for the past five years. The crisis in Greece is rooted in a loss of competitiveness and a massive fiscal deficit caused by unsustainable increases in pensions and wages.

Take wages, which have outpaced productivity growth for years. Unit labor costs—a key measure of competitiveness—increased by over 35 percent in Greece during 2000-10, compared to just below 20 percent in the eurozone. Since the start of the drive to make Greece’s economy more competitive, unit labor costs have dropped by 15 percent from their pre-crisis peak.

On pensions, it’s a similar story. Greece was spending 17 percent of its GDP in 2012 on pensions compared to the euro area average of 12 percent of GDP. Reforms under the program will reduce pension spending to about 14 percent of GDP in 2013. Pensions below €1000 per month have been left untouched, to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected.

This speaks to a more general point: The Greek program has been designed with a particular emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable social segments, both in terms of spending and tax measures.

The Fund has also insisted that tackling tax evasion to improve fairness and burden sharing is a major plank of the program. We have had mixed success. Progress requires simplifying the tax code and improving tax collection, particularly for the better off who are not paying their fair share. But we understand that asking a society to make such major sacrifices is only possible if the burden is shared fairly.

Central Banking

One of the most interesting developments in this crisis has been how the previously boring and highly secretive world of central banking has moved to center stage. As fiscal room is limited, central banks have tried to do all they can, including some unconventional things, to support economic recovery. When I was an economics student, our textbooks taught us that central banks implemented monetary policy through “open market operations” of buying and selling government paper.

Today, one of the most important tools of central bankers is communications—what we now call “open mouth operations.” Central banks often don’t have to buy anything to move markets—they just have to say something. Perhaps the best example of this is Mario Draghi’s statement last summer that he would “do whatever it takes” to preserve the euro. The statement alone, without a single euro being spent by the ECB, reduced the interest rates paid by Southern European countries.

Challenges and opportunities

Let me conclude by noting that in taking this new approach, we have also learned that many people don’t really know very much about the IMF. Opinion research shows that the more people know about us, the less negative they become—at times, they even think that we are doing a good job and that we should do more to push governments! So we have also made it a priority to better explain what the Fund is—and what it isn’t.

Here, social media, including Facebook and Twitter, have helped us reach new audiences, in particular young people. More than 100,000 people now follow IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s on Twitter. On Weibo—the Chinese equivalent to Facebook—she has more than 2 million followers.

Whenever possible, the Fund also tries to speak to people in their own language. Since 2007, much of the material posted on the IMF’s website is now routinely translated into six priority languages, which include Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian. The Fund has also launched Spanish and Arabic blogs, which features posts by senior staff and management on key issues facing those two regions.

We have also faced the challenge of speaking with one voice. In the past, when only the Managing Director of the IMF spoke to the media, it was easy to ensure we spoke with one voice. Now we have to spend a lot more time internally debating what our messages are on key global issues and making sure that key staff are equipped to deliver those messages in a consistent way wherever they are on the planet.

We also face challenges coordinating messages with our partners. For example, on the key European crisis cases we work closely with the Eurogroup composed of 17 finance ministers, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. In the midst of delicate negotiations, the IMF is pretty happy to be boring. Our spokespeople will repeat ad nauseam that “We are negotiating with the authorities on a macroeconomic framework that will deliver a sustainable path for the economy” until the journalists get fed up with asking us. But for politicians, it is hard to be boring when a journalist shoves a microphone in your face. Maintaining message disciple can be hard but avoiding a cacophony of messages is key during a crisis.

Final Thoughts

I have tried to give you a sense of how we see the current communications landscape and how our own approach has evolved in response to our experience, especially with the recent global economic crisis. We are an inter-governmental organization that has to work with non- governmental actors in a hyper-connected and hyper-democratic world. We have to explain what we do and choose our media strategically for different messages and audiences. We have to get many people to speak with one voice. We have to coordinate with our partners to make sure that we are in harmony. And we have to do all of this while working on highly sensitive issues in the midst of crisis.

In trying to balance all of these priorities, the one lesson we cannot ignore is that we need to listen and reach out to make sure people understand what we are trying to achieve. Communication is a two-way street. Friedman put it well in his book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”: “No policy is sustainable without a public that broadly understands why it’s necessary and sees the world the way you do.”

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As we start 2013 and look to the year ahead it got me thinking that it’s some 40-odd years since the extraordinary team at West Nally was established and brokered the partnership between FIFA and the Coca-Cola Company.

Coca-Cola’s subsequent $10 million investment in soccer and the 1978 FIFA World Cup was announced with simultaneous press conferences in London and New York and marked the biggest-ever sponsorship at the time. It was a turning point in sports marketing – heralding the first co-ordinated package of sports marketing rights.

As we stand now 40 years on in 2013 it struck me that sport has never been higher profile and the sports marketing industry has never employed more people or generated more revenue.

Yet sports marketing remains a very disorganised business. It’s sold badly. It’s unaccountable.

Forget the current industry debate around ticket prices and sustainable football. Forget the industry debate around engaging fans and wireless stadia for a minute. As sponsorship consultants, from our perspective the key single barrier to getting sports marketing to be taken more seriously by marketing and procurement executives is to make sports marketing more professional. More easily accessible. And more accountable.

These buyers are listening.

They know all about the large attractive audiences sport delivers via live events, the media and digital platforms. They know it because they enjoy it themselves, because their friends talk about it, because their colleagues talk about it and because their kids talk about it. They know sport dominates these platforms. They know from real world interaction that the draw of sport has never been greater, that revenues flowing into sport have never been greater. And they know that sport and football specifically dominates the national debate.

They understand that sport can provide marketing utopia; a platform through which you can really communicate with your target audience at a time when they’re more likely to be interested in the product you’re selling.

And at the same time they know that fragmentation is destroying traditional advertising – particularly on TV, which is sponsorship’s real competitor for client’s money – because nobody is watching advertising breaks.

But as an industry we need to step up and be more professional, accessible and accountable.

If there was one initiative we would like to see that would make giant strides towards this, it would be the creation of a gold-standard industry approach. At the moment too many rights-holders and brands are off doing too many different things and as a result there is confusion in the marketplace around media evaluation, let alone any tangibles around the basics of reach and frequency.

In 1981, not long after West Nally delivered that ground-breaking 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina for Coca-Cola, UK broadcasters the BBC and ITV and the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) got together with less fanfare to form BARB (Broadcaster Audience Research Board) – a not-for­profit venture to provide the industry- standard TV audience measurement for
broadcasters and the advertising industry.

For the uninitiated, BARB then commissions research companies to provide the services that users want including the production of audience-viewing figures, but also crucially related services that allow planners and buyers to estimate in the planning stage and accurately record, on campaign completion, the effective reach and frequency of their investment versus their target audience. Similar planning and measurement tools exist for all other mainstream media.

If there was one initiative we would like to see to transform the perception of sports marketing as a professional investable channel, it would be rights- holders (our media owners), the IPA and the ESA (European Sponsorship Association) members getting together to invest in something like this to underpin marketing investment in sport for the next 40 years.

Matt House
Founder and CEO, SportQuake

SportBusiness International • No.186 • 02.13

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Bookings for our annual Maggie Nally Memorial Lecture and Buffet Supper at 18.15 hrs on Thursday 7 March 2013 are now open. Places are limited so do book in good time.

We are extraordinarily lucky that this year’s lecture, ‘Building public support for economic reform’, will be given by the internationally respected Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Nemat Shafik.

The focus of her lecture will be IMF’s role as a trusted advisor and its effect on different groups in society, especially during crises. She will consider the importance of openness and engagement, and how these lessons are being applied in Europe and the Middle East. Her lecture will be followed by a Q & A session.

The lecture (free to CIPR members) begins at 18.15 hrs sharp and will be followed at 19.15 hrs by a reception and buffet supper at the prestigious One Whitehall Place.

Originally the home of the National Liberal Club, it is now part of the Royal Horseguards Hotel and makes a magnificent setting for our flagship event. The high ceilings, grand marble staircase, glittering chandeliers and spectacular views over the River Thames and the London Eye are just the beginning.

Those attending the supper will be entertained to drinks in the Churchill Bar where, as well as Churchill himself, Liberal Prime Ministers including Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George, and writers HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw have met, debated and relaxed. The buffet supper follows in the beautiful and atmospheric River Room.

CIPR International wishes to encourage as many of our members as possible to attend and you are therefore able to book just for the lecture or for both lecture and supper.

This year we have managed to reduce the cost of the evening slightly to £60.00 per person for CIPR members (£70 for non-members) for the reception and supper, which also gives priority booking for the lecture (free to CIPR members and £10 for non-members). 

Places are limited so do book your places in good time by visiting Eventbrite.

You can also reserve your place for the Lecture and / or reception by sending a cheque to Eva Maclaine, Maclaine Communications, 60 Ulleswater Road, London N14 7BT. Don’t forget to provide your name, address, email and telephone number together with your CIPR number.

Please note you will need an Eventbrite confirmation or a letter of authorisation to attend the event.

We look forward to welcoming you!

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday 7 March 2013

Time: 18:00

Venue: One Whitehall Place

Cost: Lecture – Members free, non-members £10.00. Supper – Members £60.00, non-members £70.00

Contact: Eva Maclaine

Book online

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She will also look at what the Fund has learned from the Asia crisis in the late 1990s about the importance of openness and engagement, and how these lessons are being applied in Europe and the Middle East. Her lecture will be followed by a Q & A session.

Ms Shafik, who has been in post since early 2011, was previously the youngest-ever Vice President at the World Bank and between 2008 and 2011 was the Permanent Secretary of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

The lecture, which is free to CIPR members, will be followed by a buffet supper. Details will follow shortly but should you have any urgent queries please contact Denise Norman or Eva Maclaine denise@westnally.com or mail@maclainecomms.com

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Chess is the only sport in which I can claim any form of personal success. Having been a schoolboy champion, I have no doubt that my chess skills have been of considerable help to me in my chosen career.

Andrew Paulson, a 54-year-old entrepreneur born in Illinois, has recently bought the rights to develop and market the World Chess Championships for the next 11 years from the World Chess Federation (FIDE). At his launch event – The World Chess London Grand Prix at Simpsons in the Strand, from 20th September to 3rd October – he announced he has plans to turn chess into a sexy spectator sport and unveiled a new striking logo with the tagline, ‘The Best Mind Wins’. He also announced that he was going to invest in a cable TV magazine programme with technology that will allow him to screen coverage of over 100 events a year, as well as creating a new ‘cockpit’ to see chess being played in a gladiatorial environment where heart rates, blood pressure, perspiration levels and even eye movements are tracked and presented on screens.

It is interesting that Andrew’s launch of The World Chess London Grand Prix follows not long after the launch last year of the Match (duplicate) Poker Nations Cup by the International Federation of Poker (IFP), a Swiss-based federation which has grown from seven founder members in April 2009 to 50 national members today.

Match Poker championship events incorporate a notion adapted from duplicate bridge, in that identical cards are dealt simultaneously on all tables. Teams are therefore given exactly the same opportunity to win, no longer affected by the random dealing of cards. Many regard this format to be the purest test of poker ability where skill most certainly beats chance. The IFP is currently developing Match Poker for online and mobile use, enabling its members to train and compete in poker’s most progressive variation.

The impact of the first IFP Match Poker Nations Cup held in London in 2011 attracted great interest from national poker federations for this form of skill poker, and December 2012 saw 12 European nations battling it out in a qualification event in Vienna for six places at the European Nations Cup final event to be held in March 2013, with Estonia winning top spot followed by Lithuania, Serbia, Poland, Hungary and Bosnia.

Research commissioned by Andrew’s company, Agon, revealed that over 600 million people worldwide play chess regularly while another report calculated that 285 million play chess online. Poker itself also claims in excess of 600 million people play regularly online, and poker has joined the ranks of other mind sports within the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as an observer. Poker, therefore, in all its variants is being presented as a game of skill fully equal to the intellectual rigours and challenges of chess, bridge, go and draughts.

To quote Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson:

“Poker, of all the strategic mind sports, is the best training ground for the conceptual thinking involved in behavioural and financial economics, and for emotional skills involved in legal advocacy and negotiation. I have used poker play both in my coursework and extra-curricular activities. No strategic game better links logic and emotion. None offers more powerful metaphors for the interplay of worldly rhetoric and power.”

Despite the significant educational benefits and tremendous online support for poker and chess, it is my view that neither of these mind sport colossuses will ever become a spectator sport.

The future for chess, poker and other mind sports, in addition to being massively supported online, is to combine together into multi-sports events. This is a view shared by SportAccord, the umbrella organisation for 107 international sports federations and organisations, which launched its own annual World Mind Games in December last year in Beijing, when it took the world’s best players from chess, bridge, draughts and go to deliver a top-level performance.

It is anticipated that poker will participate at such events in the future, and although I believe passionately that mind sports are going to become much more relevant and acceptable on the global stage, I feel their success will be driven largely by the digital media.

We have seen the recent development of a Mindsports Research Network at the Harvard Berkman Centre for internet and society, which is building experimental frameworks to better understand all human strategic thinking and intuitive thinking of top competitors, and explore potential educational, emotional, intellectual and economic bene.ts for students who cooperate and compete in mind sports.

It is interesting, therefore, that both top educationalists and top sports marketing entrepreneurs are galvanising together to see how mind sports, especially chess and poker, can be better presented.

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However, my interest in sport and education goes way beyond the business of sport marketing and physical education itself. I believe there is so much more that sport has to offer in all sorts of areas of education and social improvement, and the potential to realise new possibilities is substantial. Indeed, one of the most crucial challenges of our time is to exploit information technology and the multimedia and social networks for educational purposes and sport is perfectly placed to do this.

The ‘social amnesia’ which is spreading among the younger ‘techno-savvy’ generations is causing a catastrophic loss of our cultural and social heritage, and each generation’s greatest sporting heroes, memorable events and moments are being lost. Yet there is something for each generation to learn from what has gone before and what may come afterwards.

We are fortunate that technology available to us nowadays gives us the ability to connect the life of any sport today with its past. We can create a bridge between younger and older generations.

Consider the educative potential of the history and heritage of the world’s most popular sporting events, such as the Olympics (International Olympic Committee) and football (Fifa), being brought to life in entertaining, interactive multimedia programmes, programmes that teach us not only about sporting legends and events but about the cultural and social history of those sporting legends and events in the context of their time – the political landscape, the artistic and scientific achievements, the prevailing lifestyle, fashions, music and other accomplishments.

Sport is more than just physical education. It is part of the cultural and social fabric of man, which should be integral to the educational process of every nation around the world.

For some while, I have had the privilege of working with the Social and Human Sciences Sector of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Like me, UNESCO does not look at sport in terms of education alone but in a social sense as well.

As the lead agency of the United Nations for physical education and sport, UNESCO provides advisory services for governments, non-governmental organisations and experts, and expertise in the design and implementation of development programmes. UNESCO seeks to mobilise partners from civil society and, in particular, from the private sector for the achievement of its strategic goals and programme priorities. It accords high priority to protecting and fostering the role of sport and physical education for sustainable development, social inclusion, education and cultural diversity.

The key global platform for dialogue between UNESCO and its member governments is MINEPS – a meeting of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport – which provides an opportunity for bilateral and multilateral exchange to initiate international partnerships and support development and establish agreement. The next MINEPS meeting will take place in Berlin in May 2013 and amongst other agenda items will be a focus on major sporting event legacy.

The opportunities to use sport in an educational and social context are wide and varied. It has been hugely satisfying for me personally to be able to work with UNESCO in their partnering with the IOC at the past three World Forums on Sport, Education and Culture. The forums have addressed the critical role of sport in education and culture and making an effective and positive contribution to the harmonised development of young people’s physical and psychological upbringing and wellbeing. They have brought into focus the role of sport in promoting world peace and its contribution to the international community’s struggle to build a harmonious world.

With UNESCO I have also been involved in the creation of the European Athletics UNESCO Young Leaders Forum, which aims to promote youth leadership and civic engagement through the development of community projects linked to the sport of athletics. The events bring together participants aged 18 to 26 in plenary sessions and discussion workshops, featuring inspirational guest speakers and presentations from young leaders who have launched successful projects in their communities.

The opportunity to use sport not only in physical education but as a broad educational and social catalyst is only just beginning. I think we will see some substantial developments in this sector over the next few years.

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