Leadership, lessons and laughter

The people of Brazil could be forgiven for questioning who the true beneficiaries of the Rio 2016 Olympics will be. As the biggest show in sport burst into life on Friday 5th August, there were mixed emotions about the costs and benefits. Unlike Sochi 2014 where an estimated $8.7 billion alone was spent on a 31-mile railway connecting the Black Sea resort of Adler with the ski resort of Krasnaya Polyana, the total bill for Rio Olympics organizers is a modest $4.1 billion. This is mainly due to private investments covering other essential city infrastructure costs.

Never mind the sad state of affairs surrounding the partial exclusion of the Russian team for doping offences, all is not well in the ‘House of the IOC’. Once the most prized of all sporting events, potential hosts are now seriously questioning the ROI. Putin scared off several future hosts having spent $51 billion in Sochi 2014. According to the Said Business School in Oxford, only two Olympics have avoided negative economic consequences: Los Angeles in 1984 and Barcelona in 1992. All others exceeded their initial budget and nearly half exceeded targets by more than 100%.

In 2004, IOC leaders launched one of sport’s most iconic advertising campaigns: Celebrate Humanity. According to the original brief ‘Celebrate Humanity engages our deepest emotions, reminding us that we all share equally in the Olympic values and that the Olympic Games embody the ideals to which we all aspire.’ As the saying goes, something got lost in translation or the IOC appears to have lost their moral compass.

As the party in Rio kicked-off, many of the participating nations opened the doors of their ‘national houses’ including the famous Holland Heineken House. With facilities and services fit for a King, there is little chance of any Cariocas stepping foot inside these palatial houses. Indeed, the HHH has lived by the motto of ‘Home away from Home’ as a place to eat, meet and celebrate Dutch sporting success for 24 years. Perhaps more importantly, for the first time there is an ‘Olympic Experience’ in the Netherlands at Scheveningen beach. A great idea to provide all the ‘home fans’ with an opportunity to experience Olympic events via live screens and kids with the opportunity to play lots of different sports. Who knows, the next Anna van der Breggen may discover a talent for cycling on the beach in Scheveningen….

It is easy to become the armchair critic and dismiss leaders and organizers as commercially driven psychopaths with no thought given to the local inhabitants or future generations. The IOC is not the only institution struggling to balance the commercial and moral economics. Wimbledon, another institution steeped in history with only 500 members delivers £35 million profit each year for the English Lawn Tennis Association from ‘only’ 14 days of tennis.

In the US, the game known locally as ‘hoops’ has just started a new broadcast deal for the NBA with ESPN and Turner Sports paying $2.6 billion a year, a 180% increase on the previous deal of $930 million. The net result? The salary wage cap has increased from $70 million to $94 million per season per team and owners of the basketball teams have to spend 90% of the budget to avoid holding onto the revenue! With only 30 teams and 15 players per team in the NBA, the average player salary is now $4 million per season. However, Mike Conley (yes, who?) just signed a five year $153 million deal which equates to $588,000 per week. Go figure…..

If this summer of sporting madness does not make sense, you can always rely upon adidas to bring some perspective to the party. According to Eric Liedkte, responsible for global brands, adidas is ‘re-setting’ their brand strategy. He said “We believe we are the ‘creator’ brand. Our founder Adi Dassler was a cobbler. And he invented the sporting goods industry. He created the industry that we now play in. So ‘creator’ as a positioning is not just rich to who we are today in a very crowded market place; it’s authentic to who we have always been.”

And if you take a look at the latest email that popped into my inbox featuring adidas’ partnership with Manchester United, you can understand why brands like adidas are successful and still around today competing with the best. At adidas words are backed up with action that delivers results.

In these heady times of self-reflection, perhaps the IOC could review the legacy of Michel Platini, former President of UEFA. It was Platini’s romantic notion to spread the 2020 UEFA European Championship across 13 different host cities to celebrate 60 years of UEFA. At present, there are only three cities bidding to host the 2024 Olympic Games: Los Angeles, Paris and Budapest. How about a joint bid from the European cities? Paris would be celebrating 100 years since it last hosted the Olympics and Budapest would be a first timer… Spread the legacy and share the cost and benefits? There have been crazier ideas!

When you are looking for true leadership the International Paralympic Committee has taken a brave stance against doping by banning the entire Paralympic Russian team from competing in Rio.

And, in my opinion one of the best campaigns to celebrate humanity was launched in the UK by Channel 4 TV network as a trailer called ‘We’re the Superhumans’. Check it out on YouTube https://youtu.be/IocLkk3aYlk with 3.7 million hits since launching on 14 July.

If you don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the efforts of our sporting leaders, check out Samsung’s ‘School of Rio’ campaign with comedian Jack Whitehall.

According to Samsung, fans want to be moved emotionally and they will engage and share content if you reward them – in this case with good old fashioned humour.

When you host the biggest party on the planet the key lesson is pretty simple: make sure every guest leaves with a smile on their face and they might just come back again. With stunning views like this Rio could be laughing all the way to the bank for many years to come!