Editor’s Note 2013
January 2, 2013
2012 was a year of successful major sporting events, asthma incredible big money sponsorship deals and shocking scandals.
January was notable for the first ever Youth Winter Olympic Games, prescription which was held in the Austrian city of Innsbruck. The event was a great success, sales so said Jacques Rogge, and Peter Bayer, CEO of Innsbruck 2012, whose views of the spectacle you can read later in this report.
Super Bowl XLVI continued a year of great sporting spectacles as the New York Giants faced the New England Patriots, attracting an attendance of almost 69,000 and was watched on TV by around half the US population as well as millions of viewers around the world. With the sport growing rapidly, it is little wonder that the NFL is exploring opportunities in the UK and further afield.
The London Olympic Games, one of the major sporting events of the summer, was a great success, despite setbacks such as G4S, the Games’ Official Security Services Provider, having to be helped out by the military and the seemingly never-ending saga of the undecided future of the Olympic Stadium.
The Games cost around US$14.6 billion in public funding and the UK’s National Audit Office concluded that they were good value for money. The added tourism boosted the UK economy and deprived areas of East London were revived.
It remains to be seen what the long-term legacy of the London Olympics will be, but according to Sir Craig Reedie, who has had a rather good year having become Vice President of the International Olympic Committee, we should focus on more than the financial impact. His views on the Olympics are also available to read later in this report.
Euro 2012 was another of the year’s sporting highlights, setting records for highest average attendance and highest aggregate attendance and earning UEFA an estimated US$1.6billion from broadcasting and sponsorship revenues in the last 16-team edition of the tournament.
Twenty-four teams will compete in the 2016 tournament in France. The following competition will be played in several countries–this may benefit UEFA as it could avoid the level of spending on infrastructure needed for this year’s tournament in Ukraine and Poland, but time will tell whether such a format leave a meaningful and significant legacy.
Among this year’s sports business winners was Manchester United– the club sealed a contract with Chevrolet worth nearly US$41million per season. Another franchises that hit the headlines was the LA Dodgers after the Guggenheim Baseball Management bought the MLB franchise for an estimated US$2.15billion.
On an individual basis, Derrick Rose, of the Chicago Bulls, had a good year as he signed one of the biggest endorsement deals in sports history, by agreeing a contract extension with Adidas that could earn him almost US$250 million over 14 years. “It’s a blessing, man,” he said profoundly.
Jeremy Lin was also a major success, his rise to fame earned him major endorsement deals with Nike and Volvo. He rejoined the Houston Rockets for a contract that could be worth as much as US$29million.
Despite the many success stories, the year was not without controversy; the world’s most famous cyclist and iconic philanthropist, Lance Armstrong, was without doubt the biggest loser as he experienced one of the most dramatic falls from grace in sporting history being stripped of his medals and titles and dropped by his sponsors in a doping scandal that undermined the integrity of the entire sport and led to calls for an overhaul of the sports leading body, the UCI.
It was also a bad year for Penn State’s football programme, which had been valued at US$100 million in 2011 following Jerry Sandusky’s guilty verdict, the university was fined US$60million, its wins between 1998 and 2011 were vacated and it was banned from bowl games for four years.
Collective bargaining agreements (CBA) were the source of problems in the US. The NFL failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement with its referees to heated debates about the quality of replacement NFL referees.
The National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) failed to reach a new CBA in September and more than 500 regular-season games have been cancelled as a result.
How can the situation be resolved? Is the CBA model workable? We may find out next year along with the answers to many other questions—Will Istanbul, Tokyo, or Madrid host the 2020 Olympics? Whose stock will rise? Which fringe sports, if any, will find a place in mainstream?
At iSportconnect, we’re very much looking forward to another exciting year serving you as the world’s leading sports business platform.
Best Wishes,
Colin Robinson
iSportconnect Features Editor