 |
Tim Hadzima
|
TIM HADZIMA is the general manager of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, the int’l racing series which hosts events in Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and N.Y. Shortly after the announcement that global healthcare company Abbott would become the series’ title sponsor beginning in ’15, Hadzima was appointed to manage the circuit’s business and marketing. Hadzima previously held the role of SVP of global sponsorship marketing at Bank of America. He spoke with SBD Global about partnering with Abbott, expansion and the series' new anti-doping practices.
On the partnership with Abbott …
Tim Hadzima: As a property, when you can find a sponsor that is really truly endemic to the sport and has the same overall goals as your organization, in terms of promoting healthy lifestyles, that fit is absolutely perfect. They’ve come on and built a great partnership. Even though it’s only been one year, it’s great to see the progress that we’ve made for the Abbott World Marathon Majors, for the individual races and for the ability to celebrate with our runners. They’ve been a huge driving force as a part of that family of races and family now including Abbott.
When you position yourself as a property with a brand like Abbott, a brand that’s been around for a very long time, a solid company, a very world renowned company, a true global company, that fits well with what we are as a brand. ... In this first year, what we’ve been able to do together is to truly expand the goals and really try to prove through the goals of the original intent of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, which is to elevate the sport, athletes and runners and be able to have those celebrations with the almost 250,000 runners who cross our finish lines each year.
On anti-doping practices …
Hadzima: The anti-doping and our stance on dopers and cheating in the sport, that goes back to our inception 10 years ago. That was one of the reasons and one of the founding principles of our organization. Not only was it to elevate the sport, elevate the profile of our athletes, but also understanding the place that we have within the industry to be able to impact things like having a clean sport. We have announced recently some new pieces that we’re helping to drive, but it really does go back to our original founding principles. Two impactful things that we’ve done are: 1. to extend our payments. Our male and female winner each receive $500,000 for the series championship. So we’re making those payments now over five years, which with the recent technology and the ways that the anti-doping pieces work is that you find out over a period of time. It protects us and it protects the athletes. It’s just another driver of a clean sport. The other piece is, we want to make sure that everybody that toes up to our starting line has been tested. With the IAAF as our partner, in terms of the anti-doping protocol, we’ve expanded our testing to where our testing pool, if you’re running as an elite athlete at one of our events, we’re making sure that those folks are tested at a really good clip, so it’s not just during the actual race. It’s out of competition testing which is hugely important to keeping the sport clean.
On expanding the circuit …
Hadzima: It’s definitely always a possibility. I think for us it’s a decision that we make that does take time, because when you look at the six events that are included in the series, they have very similar characteristics. There’s a great history in each event. The city and the backdrop for our runners is really truly a global city that you can celebrate. The level of elite athletes, the level of operation, anything going down to the volunteers, it’s all at the absolute highest class of any of the events in the world. So when it comes to expansion, when we plan for and talk about it, it’s definitely including all of those factors. An emerging market, if you will, that we obviously have on our radar, is China. The middle class in China is running at an unbelievable clip in terms of the popularity of the sport. So obviously, other markets in Asia are ones that we continue to watch. The India market and the Middle East is a market we continue to watch. For us, we don’t have these specific plans right now to expand, because the races that we have as a part of the series do give us that great global celebration. It’s not just for the cities that we’re in, but for the runners that are coming from those markets, which is truly from across the globe.
On the future of the series …
Hadzima: The biggest thing truly is to expand our programming. I talked about the wheelchair series, but when it comes to the general runners, it’s being able to celebrate with them as well. We want to treat everybody that crosses our finish line, whether it’s the first or the last as a true champion, because of the dedication and the work that they obviously put in. When you look at the stage that our races are on, so you have the elitist athletes in the world, and they’re on the same street and curb to curb that our general runners run, we want to treat those runners as champions as well. What you’re going to see from us is more programming and ways to celebrate with those general runners. … We now have a new program for a six star finisher medal. If you’ve run all six events, you now get a medal to commemorate that. … It’s always elevating the profile of the elite athletes, that will always be a tentpole of what we do, but it’s also now including the wheelchair athletes and really expanding the story and expanding the celebration with our general runners.
Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.
