Intro (00:00):

Welcome to The Taylor Ten. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

‍

Christina (00:18):

Hi, I'm Christina Merritt and welcome to The Taylor Ten. I'm here with Ricardo Fort, sponsorship marketing expert and founder of Sport by Fort Consulting to learn as much as I can about the uniqueness of the upcoming Winter Olympics in only 10 minutes. Ricardo, you were the former head of global sponsorships at Visa and Coca-Cola. I'm sure you've been following the Olympics your entire life. Of course. I'll start by asking, what are you personally most excited about when you think of Milan and Cortina in February of next year?

‍

Ricardo (00:56):

Hi, Christina. Thank you for inviting me to The Taylor Ten. And yes, I've been following the Olympics for a long time, but having grown up in Brazil, the winter games have always been alien and the winter sports have been alien to me as a kid. So I learned about it and developed a taste for it as an adult. So from all the competition, all the sports, my favorite one is the ski jumping.

‍

Christina (01:25):

Very cool. There are so many sports that I think people don't think about and the prominent ones always take over, and then there are the new ones that are coming out every so often. So let's get into it. What's interesting is that geography wise, the winter games are returning to Europe. So there was China in 2022, South Korea before 2018, Russia and 2014. And I think people are already mentioning the benefit of time zones and viewership, and I've heard conversations about nostalgia going back to 1956 and the Italian lifestyle dimensions of this, and everybody's looking to the LPs and what's going to happen over there. But where else do you see potential with the return to Europe?

‍

Ricardo (02:15):

Having the games back in Europe after more than a decade of Asian games is great for many reasons. So I'm biased because I work with sponsorships. I'm always looking at sponsorships and thinking the impact of, in this case, the IOCs decisions on the partners. So if you are a sponsor of the Olympic games, having the games in a country, in a region that is good for business is the best thing that they can ask. The IOC and yes, China's great. South Korea was great, Japan, all the games in Asia, they were good for their own reasons, but the last decade has been difficult from a geopolitics standpoint. So you got games in Russia, then you got COVID that was a curve ball to the Olympics in China, and that influenced the agenda, influenced the opinion of the public and the fans about the games. So the Milano Cortina games are the first ones that will happen where most people will be talking and focusing primarily on the sport. And that's great because that increases the interest and drives the businesses 

‍

Christina (03:37):

Of all the companies involved with the Olympics, I'm sure there will be a lot of passion and the historic dimension. I think people are also talking about sustainability and building on the legacy of the games have happened there before decades ago, and now there's the return to even some of the previous venues that are getting an upgrade. So a lot of interesting stuff to come. The other highlight of the new unique nature of next February will be that Milan Cortina will be the most gender balanced winter games in history, 47% female participation and a total of 50 women's events. Super exciting. I think we see so much momentum around women's sports in general, but what opportunities does this provide from a sponsorship perspective?

‍

Ricardo (04:28):

I think that it's important to acknowledge that the gender balance that the IOC has reached, because the same happened for the summer games in Paris last year. It is not an accident they've been planning to do. They set up to do this. So the selection of sports of teams, all the competition side of it was designed to facilitate countries to send teams that on the aggregate are more balanced. And this is part of the IOCs mission and they've been implementing this for several games. So if you look back to the last 15, 20 years, you see that there is a consistent growth in terms of female athletes participation. So I guess that's an important starting point. Now when it comes to the impact of that, and besides being the right thing to do and a reflection of the universe of pans and athletes just to have more balanced number of athletes, men and male and female in the competition, it is a very good platform for the sponsors, primarily the global sponsors, to talk about the things that they do every day in their own businesses in terms of empowering women, gender balance, diversity in general, because these are topics that are not easy or engaging to everyone.

‍

(05:57):

So when you use the Olympics to tell stories about women's empowerment and gender balance, that makes it more interesting and makes more people pay attention to the things that these companies are doing and that helps them in their everyday agenda, not only on their sponsorship agenda and adds this extra layer of content of things to talk about when they talk about the Olympic games. So I think it's very positive and very welcomed by all of them.

‍

Christina (06:28):

So let's close on some of the particular sports and what's happening. For instance, in ice hockey, what's really interesting is that for the first time since 2014, current NHL players will participate and clearly that's going to raise the bar in terms of the quality of the tournament and fan engagement and who's going to follow. So what's behind this change,

‍

Ricardo (06:53):

This push and pull between the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL is not new every couple of years leading up to the next Winter Olympics, there are discussions on whether or not the NHL players and will participate. This is particularly important because the NHL is the largest source of players that play at the Olympic Games, the high quality players that represent a ton of different countries, and when they are not represented, the quality of the sport, the quality of the competition at the Olympics is really not the same. So it's very important for the Olympic Games to represent the best of the best that the NHL players from all the countries are part of the Olympic Games, but for different reasons. Sometimes there are commercial reasons, sometimes there are calendar reasons. Sometimes in the case of the years where the league calendar was impacted by COVID, it was a little bit massive for them to let the players, the NHL players play at the Olympic.

‍

(08:00):

It hasn't happened, but I think that it's at the NHL, they are looking to their peers in the United States. So they look at the work that the NFL is doing, the NBA in terms of expanding their events internationally, playing abroad and bringing players. And they are realizing that the Olympic Games, the Winter Olympic games are probably the best platform and the best promotion for the NHL that exists. So allowing the NHL players to play at the Olympic Games is good for the Olympic Games. It's good for the fans, it's good for the players. They love to play for their countries, but it's also very, very good for the NHL who is going to benefit in years to come from this high visibility window that the Olympic games provide to every sport. So it's great that they're playing. It's be better for the tournament. Ice hockey is one of the most important, most visible sports of the Winter Olympics. And having them playing there is going to be fantastic for everyone.

‍

Christina (09:07):

Thank you so much Ricardo. I think this was wonderful. Of course. Curious, are you going to Milano Cortina yourself to watch in person in the snow?

‍

Ricardo (09:18):

Yes, I'll be there. I'll be there working and enjoying some of the sport. It's an unmissable event, so hope to see you and the listeners there too.

‍

Christina (09:33):

Excellent. Switching between city and mountains and eating a lot of wonderful food in between. Thank you so much and I hope you all have an amazing event in February of next year.

‍

Ricardo (09:46):

Thank you.

‍