Say it isn’t so, McDonalds. You’re a 41-year old sponsor and you cut the strings to the Olympic sponsorship program three years before your latest contract was up. Humph. Guess you wanted to make a statement. You did. And, thank you for being bold, brazen, smart, and strategic.
For the world that doesn’t revolve around the sports economy, don’t go in to panic mode about all things Olympics, just take a deep breath. Instead of a pull back on corporate partnerships spelling the d-e-a-t-h of the modern Olympic Games, view it for what it is: a strategic business move. Harsh as it may appear, the Games are a large corporation with lots of customers, partners, and analysts meaning you have a license to make moves without checking in with the fourteen billion people who have ordered a Big Mac meal.
Simply, the move benefits the Games. It’s the start of the detoxification of the “Olympic System.” Mired in gunk for years the slimming effect of losing McDonald’s and other key sponsors is, in the long run, healthy.
When big events get expensive, boring and lose their media appeal, it’s time for the property owner to detox; hit re-fresh; and take sips of the magic elixir called re-imagineering.
Shaken not stirred by sponsor’s moves, the Games will continue. They still have the world’s attention every two years. What they do with that presence is at the crossroads of important and impactful. One possibility is embracing a triple bottom line model. Sport is a perfect platform to showcase how competition, politics, and sponsorship can thrive beside justice, humanity, and sustainability.
There’s still value in hosting the biggest multi-national event where the true stars are the athletes who train, prepare and compete as if their life and the future of their sport depended on it.