Pascoe Gives Brands Olympic Warning

Alan Pascoe, chairman of Fast Track and a board member of the 2012 organising
committee LOCOG, has warned that brands concerned solely with TV exposure,
perimeter boards and corporate hospitality should steer clear of backing the
Olympics.

In addressing the business of sport industry audience gathered for today’s FT
Sport Industry Summit, Pascoe stated that he would ban the term ‘sponsor’ from
all 2012 sponsorship discussion if he had his way.

‘The Olympics is different from traditional sponsorship vehicles,’ he stated.
‘It’s about a business partnership and if you’re in it for perimeter boards and
corporate hospitality then you better think again.’

Pascoe supported his point that any sponsor signing up with London 2012
should be looking at how the Games can fit into their business from the first
day the sponsorship is activated as opposed to waiting for 2012 to come around.

As the panel discussion at the Summit moved on, an audience vote on what was
the greatest threat to sport maintaining its revenue levels from sponsorship
revealed that the vast amount of clutter in the market was more of an off
putting factor than anything else.