CAA Sports Chosen To Be IOC's Strategic Media Adviser In U.S.

Bevilacqua, Partner Will Be IOC's "Point Men" In United States

The IOC has hired CAA Sports to be its "strategic media adviser," giving the company its "biggest media rights deal to date," according to Mickle & Ourand of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The move gives CAA a "critical role in the bidding process for Olympic media rights" in the U.S. CAA's "top media executives," CAA Sports Media Venture Chair & CEO Chris Bevilacqua and partner Alan Gold, "essentially will be the IOC's point men in the United States, meeting with U.S. broadcasters as they try to secure lucrative bids" for the '14 and '16 Olympics. The job is the "first major media assignment for CAA Sports since Bevilacqua and Gold joined the agency a year ago." The IOC's decision to hire CAA "injects an element of the unknown into the bid process" for the Games, as the IOC worked with Pilson Communications President Neal Pilson for the '10 and '12 Olympics, and Bevilacqua and Gold "are not as well known." But sources said that the IOC chose CAA "because the agency is better positioned to help explore broader media opportunities for Olympic content" in the U.S. Mickle & Ourand also note Bevilacqua and IOC Dir of Television & Marketing Services Timo Lumme "have known each other for more than a decade, having worked together at Nike in the late 1990s" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 9/14 issue).