For the first time in decades, Anheuser-Busch’s Tony Ponturo sits at the head of a global media and sports marketing division in flux. InBev recently completed an agreement to purchase the American beer company, which is expected to bring changes to Anheuser-Busch.

Ponturo spoke to SportsBusiness Journal staff writer Tripp Mickle about those potential changes and the impact of the 2008 Olympics while he was on the ground in Beijing.

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What events did you go to in Beijing?
Ponturo: I went to two USA Basketball games and spent one game in the box with Tim Chen, CEO of NBA China, and Heidi Ueberroth. … I also went to the men’s individual gymnastics and swimming (the day Michael Phelps won his sixth gold).

You said you’ve been going to the Olympics since 1984. How does this one compare?
Ponturo: This one obviously had very high expectations. … It had this real intrigue and interest above some Olympics in the past. They blew everybody away with the Opening Ceremony, and as I’ve gone to events and out on the streets, it’s been running pretty smoothly. The competition, from the U.S. perspective, with Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson and others, made for a good story and good ratings on NBC.

What will the legacy of the Beijing Games be?
Ponturo: It’s the awakening of a country that a lot of people didn’t know a lot about, and maybe even intimidated people a little bit. It’s going to sort of open the eyes of people who came and visited that it’s a very viable, very real, …very formidable country with a sense of leadership and commerce and future that will probably platform off these Olympics.

What about the legacy of Beijing 2008 for the Olympic movement?
Ponturo: There’s been a debate for a while — somewhat whispered — are the Olympics a dying art or dying sports form? Is it relevant to the younger generations coming through? I think what it’s proving is that not only in the U.S. but around the world — it’s still very viable.

You’ve been around this business for a long time. When you look at the Chinese sports marketing landscape, how would you characterize that for people who aren’t here?
Ponturo: I actually think it’s a blank page. It’s wide open to what can develop. I don’t think it has to be a mirror of what happened in the U.S. Competitive sports and maybe bringing some Western sports into China has potential. Those of us marketing our products here … will look at that.

Are sports a viable way to market your brand here?
Ponturo: Sports, at least from our perspective, is the thing that transcends across regions, age groups, male and female, language barriers and nations. … Sports is a great common denominator and should work in a country like China the same way it does in the U.S or Europe and South America. It’s just a matter of what will be the sport that triggers their fancy.

And what’s your bet right now?
Ponturo: Basketball has a great chance. It’s fairly universal, pretty straightforward and obviously can go back to the peach basket and basketball to play the game. All of us, as we grew up sports fans, had idols and people we wanted to emulate. The NBA has a head start with that. You go to 15-year-olds in China and they know who Kobe (Bryant) and LeBron (James) are.

Relative to your investment in China, did the BOCOG investment meet expectations?
Ponturo: When it was announced the Olympics were coming to China, a market that’s important for us, we were very aggressive in initiating a deal. I call it an ad hoc TOP sponsorship. We did both Torino and Beijing as well as 30 countries (or national organizing committees). We’re very pleased with it. … As you try and establish Budweiser as an important brand in China and a premium brand in China, what better platform to shout from than the Beijing Olympics. All 1.3 billion eye balls are focused on this one event.

How does the Tsingtao relationship impact that?
Ponturo: Even though Budweiser’s brewed in China and we consider it a local beer, we understood we’d be looked at as an international beer. We also understood that having a Yangjing, a local Beijing beer, was important to BOCOG. We thought that maybe there was a nice compromise there. We said, “We’ll allow this so-called domestic beer in, but how about two so that our partner, Tsingtao, which we own a percentage of, and the city of Tsingtao can benefit by hosting all of the sailing for the Olympics.” The collaborative effort … between Tsingtao and us is helping elevate sort of what is the premium image of beer by sponsoring that. I think it’s worked well. … Our people told us at the Opening Ceremonies that we had at least half of the concession that was actually purchased.

Has this deal opened up new distribution channels for Budweiser?
Ponturo: The answer is yes. We’ve added 65 markets in China this year. We’ve been sort of focused along the coast in China and now we’re starting to spread out. As you have the Olympics marketing, (you) can build displays and work with retailers with tickets and hospitality, it gives our sales people a tool to build that distribution.

What do you expect the net impact of these Olympics will be on sales in China?
Ponturo: The big thing is, we’ll get this blip for two weeks, now can you sustain it. If you get a 30 percent increase for two weeks, it will come down somewhat, but can you ride it a little bit.

So what do you do to sustain it?
Ponturo: It’s really up to the people who work in this market. You can say, from the corporate level, “We brought you this asset to stand on. Now take that momentum and work the market every day and take some of that imagery and build on that as well.” Any product you can change your decision on every five minutes, you have to work hard every day.

Tell me about the U.S. Are you seeing things pay off there?
Ponturo: The ratings alone mean people are seeing our commercials, which are the exclusive alcohol company commercials. Leading in, point-of-sale was fine. We put a lot in the U.S. in the TV. … Public relations is also a marketing tool, so people talking about Club Bud and what’s going on at Club Bud is all value. It’s certainly more valuable than if your competition had all of those stories.

The InBev purchase, how might it impact and affect what you’re doing in China?
Ponturo: The biggest change is the scale. We’ll be twice the size. In China, if you put together our ownership of Harbin and Budweiser and Tsingtao, we’re about 18 percent of the market and InBev has another 11 percent, so you’re about a third of the market. That’s huge in the largest-by-volume beer market in the world.

Have you gotten any sense of what the InBev relationship means for Anheuser-Busch and sports marketing going forward?
Ponturo: Nothing specific. What I do know specifically is that they believe strongly in the marketing that we do. They’ve said to us what works continue to do. I think they’re going to trust our input strongly, particularly in North America where we have built a 50 market share. … Until we sit down, it’s hard to know, but I think we’re going to stay extremely aggressive in sports because that’s where the consumer is.

When you look at global sports properties out there, how might the more global nature of an A-B/InBev company impact what you’re doing?
Ponturo: We will have to start wearing a collective hat. Let’s take the Olympics in 2014 in Russia, for example. We have no business in Russia, so up until a month ago it didn’t mean a lot to us, but InBev has 30 percent share in Russia’s beer market. Now all of a sudden you go, “Hmm. Interesting proposition.” Does Formula One now make more sense because Formula One goes into (regions where) there’s a different market share penetration than we had with just Budweiser? As we develop our existing business in India, is cricket something we look at? And they obviously know the whole soccer phenomenon of Brazil. That’s why I think the global potential is pretty intriguing.

How would that impact what you do with the World Cup?
Ponturo: Right now Budweiser is on the perimeter boards for every (World Cup) game. Let’s say it’s Germany and Brazil playing. You could maybe put Brahma there for the Brazil fan. You can use Germany playing Turkey and use Becks (on signs). These are things that weren’t even part of our thinking in the past. GE and Coca-Cola have used different brands based on nationality interest.

What’s been your most memorable Olympic moment?
Ponturo: The reason I know this is the business I like to be in was that I was sitting in my seat at 9:15 (a.m.) for a 10 o’clock swim meet. I wanted to get there early because I didn’t want to be late. I wasn’t exactly sure when Phelps would swim in the rotation. To say, here’s my ticket where I saw gold No. 6, … you have to say that’s it because he is a part of history.