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Marketing and Sponsorship

Official Olympic Sponsors Monitoring Other Brands Following Changes To Rule 40

Under Armour's sponsorship strategy around the Rio Games will be the "best case study for the changes" to Rule 40, which "ends a marketing blackout during the games for companies who sponsor athletes rather than the event itself," according to Liana Baker of REUTERS. UA has "backed a fleet of about 250 athletes ... and plans a wide range of creative tactics to connect its brand to the Olympics." UA will "rent a series of outdoor gyms on a 50-mile stretch of beach in Rio to set up marketing outposts and host daily workouts for fans during the games." Official sponsors -- "worried the rule change could undermine their massive investments -- will keep a keen eye out for potential infractions." McDonald’s Head of Global Alliances John Lewicki said that his company will use the Games to "evaluate whether to continue future Olympic deals." Lewicki: "I wouldn't necessarily say we're all happy about it. If we find rule 40 impacts the value of our sponsorship, we could always go back and renegotiate for the future." Octagon Olympic & Action Sports Managing Dir Peter Carlisle, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps’ agent, said that rule changes "help famous athletes" like his client, but more changes are needed from the IOC to "help the masses of athletes." To take advantage of Rule 40, athletes would have to "find sponsors at least six months before the games to meet the deadlines for brands to submit waiver requests." This creates an issue because many Olympians are only "finding out in the next few weeks whether they qualify." Carlisle: "This is a change for the better, but it's nowhere near where we need to get." The USOC said that it plans to "police any marketing activity that could hurt their official sponsors' investments, including on social media, but it declined to detail its enforcement plans" (REUTERS, 6/30). 

TIMES ARE A CHANGIN': The INT'L BUSINESS TIMES' Max Willens noted social media has "evolved past the text-based communication of Facebook and Twitter into a video-heavy world that is very difficult to surveil." Services like Snapchat are currently "impossible for third parties to monitor." This makes it hard for an organization like the IOC to "guarantee that the sponsorships they sell to brands can remain exclusive." With more athletes "striking their own long-term partnerships with brands to pay for year-round training, as well as planned opportunistic 'brand-jacking' by marketers, the airtight seals that the IOC promises its partners are now riddled with leaks." Some expect that the changes made to Rule 40 are the "first of many moves toward reimagining the balance the IOC strikes between the needs of its partners and the needs of its athletes." However it could also "destabilize, and maybe even devalue the Olympics' fastest growing source of revenue" (IBTIMES.com, 6/29). 

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