Stormy Days for Sports Sponsors
Corruption is hardly new to the sporting world. Ever heard of the Black Sox Scandal? Money-centered players and team owners ruining seasons have become part of the fabric of the American sports quilt. Remember no World Series in ’94?
What is signaled by more recent turbulence in the Olympics and the National Basketball Association is an attainment of maturity.
Sports have ridden an accelerated life cycle in the U.S. Little but a barbaric sideshow in the 1940s, professional football is now the nation’s most popular sport. Before Peter Ueberroth laid out a model for a profitable Olympics at the ’84 Los Angeles games, municipal hucksters bribing IOC officials to land the games would have been comical. And where did the NBA figure in the corporate promotion firmament before the arrival of the crack marketing team of Jordan & Stern?
Yet over the course of little more than a decade, the sports market has begun to settle. Outrageous $100 million-plus contracts in the NBA have bitten the dust as players accede to a maximum salary cap in a post-Jordan world. Greedy Olympic honchos caught in the worldwide media spotlight will stem the spiraling cost of sponsorships, and give sponsors a greater voice in what they can demand for their millions.
Brands will continue to flock to sports, because fans continue to flock to them. But like fans, brands will be more wary and a little less quick with the buck. The heady days of youth are over; sports marketing has grown up.
How have marketing sponsors for the scandal-plagued Olympics and the lockout-addled NBA reacted to their respective storms of controversy? Turn the page for an in-depth look.
