That perennial dinner party favourite – “what is a sport?” – popped up over the barbie this weekend with some interesting twists based around the fact that although this is not an Olympic year, it is nonetheless a big year for the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee. 

In addition to the IOC vote in October that will decide which of Rio, Madrid, Chicago or Tokyo will host the 2016 Games, there is also the small matter of which sports should be included. The IOC is due to vote “en bloc” on the 26 summer sports and can add a further two sports if it so chooses, from a candidate list of seven.

Separately, the IOC has discussed a number of objectives concerning the “refreshment” of its offer, which, summarised, mean it is trying to save money, keep the number of athletes down to 10,000, not trash the environment and make sure it includes something to excite the youngsters.

But why vote en bloc for the 26 sports already included, when some of them are quite obviously not sports? At least, not by my 3-point definition which goes like this:

First, a sport is something you can win empirically, without the aid of a judge and without there being any doubt. The opposition has to feel properly beaten. True to the original Olympic ideal of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (faster, higher, stronger) this immediately culls elegant pastimes like gymnastics and diving, thus reducing the host city’s bills and also cutting the number of athletes to more manageable levels. A subset of this rule is that anything synchronised is not a sport not only because it is not winnable, but also because it is just wrong.

Most people respond with “what about boxing?” at this point, to which my answer is simple: fight until one boxer can fight no more. Then you know who won. Alternatively adopt fencing’s model where “hits” count for points but take away the subjective element by following fencing’s example of fitting electrodes that light up when a hit is made. Heaps of fun.

Secondly, a sport must result in human sweat. The Olympics does OK at this, though I see golf on the list of candidate sports, which while doubtless skillful, is not really exercise and therefore, not a sport. It’s also terminally dull, which goes against the IOC’s stated intent to liven up the Games and attract a younger crowd.

Third, machinery is out. Humans have to do the work. Under this definition, motor-sports are not sports. I appreciate this may not be my best career move, but within the boundaries of an Olympic conversation, I think it acceptable. But what about equestrian sports? Clearly the horse does the work here. Sorry horsey types; no Olympics for you. Again, this saves huge amounts of money and solves logistical issues regarding the difficulty of transporting animals across quarantine borders.

By following these simple rules, we all know what a sport is, we create an Olympic Games that is tightly defined, obviously winnable, much more affordable and which results in a more useable legacy.

By Scott Garrett on June 1st, 2009

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You’ve heard of Q Scores… a US-based measure of popularity originally conceived to quantify celebrity (Mickey Mouse had the highest Q Score for ages) but extended to address the popularity of just about everything. I reckon Marketing Evaluations Inc., the owner of Q Scores, must be quaking in its boots because Facebook is about to steal its market.

I’ve just read an interesting piece of analysis by the very smart folks at Grip Marketing. Grip uses Facebook’s “number of fans” as a proxy for real world popularity in Formula One. Even allowing for the vagaries of Facebook’s international penetration, it throws up some interesting observations.

F1 analysts know that fans follow drivers more than they follow teams. Grip puts numbers to this: three times as many fans support drivers as support teams. The only team that garners any real support is Ferrari, a clear measure of brand strength beyond F1. McLaren is second, a long way behind. 

Looking at the drivers, we see that Hamilton has more followers on Facebook than the other 19 drivers added together. When we relate fan numbers to on-track success by weighting them against 2008 WC points, Hamilton retains his lead but Button (lots of fans relative to hardly any WC points) begins to make headway. The rest are far, far behind: seven drivers have fewer than 1000 fans each.

Some drivers dominate their teams in terms of popularity. Hamilton has six times as many fans as McLaren, Alonso nearly ten times as many fans as Renault. Vettel and Button are in similar positions of strength with Red Bull and Brawn respectively, although at much lower levels. Ferrari is nicely balanced: Massa plus Raikkonen equals Ferrari. Again at a lower overall level, Heidfeld plus Kubica equals BMW. Williams, STR, FIF1 and Toyota are in oblivion: Facebook records no interest in either these teams or their drivers.

A further piece of analysis combines fan bases and performance to generate what Grip terms a Charisma Rating, which reveals that Hamilton is the only superstar in F1 and that only Alonso and Button in addition, have “positive charisma”. The vast majority of drivers have “average charisma” but there are stern warnings for BMW and Toyota, teams that have both of their drivers in the “negative charisma” category.

There are implications here for F1 team principals as they consider driver selection for the 2010 season. Do they want a big personality with lots of Facebook followers that can potentially dominate the team brand? Or do they prefer the team to be always bigger than its component parts? Only Ferrari is capable of always being in the latter position, although if Hamilton drives in red, he’ll run it close.

Recently, however, Hamilton’s popularity has lagged others. His fans have dwindled since “lie-gate” and have perhaps moved on to Button, whose rapid rise on the back of recent results will cause Brawn to move ahead of Red Bull in the Facebook popularity stakes after this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Who says Formula One isn’t exciting any more?

By Scott Garrett on May 6th, 2009

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 Campaign reports the demise of Sport magazine, concluding that this unfortunate event is the result of the recession. There is no doubt that economic conditions played their part, but they are not wholly responsible. The reason for the fact that general sports titles fail in the UK lies not in the fact that we are, in the words of Sport’s MD Greg Miall, facing “the worst recession in 80 years”, nor in the free distribution model adopted by the magazine, but in the psyche of the UK sports fan.

To illustrate, I draw a comparison between Britain and America. Across the pond resides the great grand-daddy of all general sports titles, Sports Illustrated. This publication carries regular news on all four major US sports and strong coverage of – er – minority sports like NASCAR, golf, football (soccer), tennis and so on. With an audited circulation of around 3m per week, it’s a successful model that many have tried to emulate on this side of the Atlantic. 

Some UK attempts to create a general sports market have been truly outstanding from a journalistic and publishing perspective.Total Sport in the 1990’s was a publishing triumph, a general sports fan’s dream, a commercial disaster. Though constructed very differently, I put Sport in the same high quality category. 

Both magazines failed for the same reason: there are simply not enough “general sports” fans in the UK to sustain a general sports title. This is not the same in the USA, where almost every sports fan is a general sports fan. Britons and Americans consume sports in very different ways.

To illustrate: the American sports fan follows a baseball team, a football team, a basketball team and probably an ice hockey team. This gives him lots to cheer about, all year round. He supersizes his intake by following NCAA teams in all four sports too, so there’s something to watch on telly every single night. Because of the franchise model adopted by most American sports, there’s no promotion or relegation, so he can do this for ever. His interests are well catered for by Sports Illustrated, which knows this market well. 

Contrast this with the UK sports fan. While many of us are perfectly able to observe multiple sports, we generally reserve our passions for only one. We are football fans, or rugby fans, or cricket fans and respectfully observe the breaks between seasons as a rest period in which we allow our enthusiasm to recuperate. To try to address such a collection of individual (and, socio-demographically speaking, quite different) audiences with a single general sports title, is a challenge that so far has proved insurmountable.

Sport in the UK does not unite us; it divides and defines us. It’s unfortunate for Sport magazine, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Scott Garrett on April 28th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, American football, Football, Golf, Media

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Regular readers will know my views on the state of Formula One, commercially speaking, and that it currently represents a potentially very sound investment.

I am not quite as bullish as Kevin Eason of The Times who sees “Sponsors rushing to join Branson on board the Brawn express” but I am certainly more optimistic than Mark Kleinman, City Editor of The Sunday Telegraph, who claims “The F1 formula is failing”.

Kevin Eason’s arguments are easy to follow:  a new British team wins (and takes second place too) in its first ever race, becoming a magnet for sponsors in the process. The story is given added spice by the fact that the car is essentially devoid of sponsor logos with the exception of one, that of the ever-prescient Richard Branson and his Virgin Group, who made what now appears to be a visionary investment in sponsoring the team before its first race when, presumably, the price of doing so was cheaper than it is today.

Irrespective of the detailed facts of the story (other sponsors are present, though less visibly; the actual amount of money paid, if any, by Branson) it’s a feel-good piece, a story of British success in a highly competitive field. I like it.

Mark Kleinman’s comments are harder to understand, though I presage criticism with the caveat that his piece was written before the Australian Grand Prix won by Brawn GP. He sees a mass exodus of sponsors in the sport, led by ING and RBS whose forthcoming departures were recently announced. There is a clear implication that other sponsors will follow. I do not agree.

F1 commercial managers understand that it can appear irresponsible for publicly-owned financial institutions to engage in high profile sponsorships just now, maybe for ever.  This is exactly the same situation that the industry faced when it realised it would be irresponsible to continue to court tobacco sponsorship. Formula One will reinvent itself in the seasons to come, as it reinvented itself seasons ago, in order to remain relevant to the environmental conditions that prevail at the time.

Mark Kleinman would be quick to point out of course, that the environmental and financial conditions that prevail today are more challenging than those of yesteryear, and he would be right. But he underestimates the resilience of the industry and the moves afoot to change it from within.

Regulations are radically different this year and if Australia is indicative, it will be an exciting season on the track (how can you say, Mr Kleinman, that “…the 20 cars gathering on the starting grid in Melbourne for the first race of the 2009 season will look much like those that finished the last campaign…”? The cars are clearly different and the racing will be more exciting.

Away from the track, we are starting to see F1 teams talk with one voice via FOTA, begin to take environmental concerns seriously with KERS, and recast their operating cost models to comply with the FIA’s proposed £30m limit.

This may not be enough to keep motor manufacturers in the game, but no matter. Under the new cost models, the price of entry into the sport will be radically reduced, opening the field to private individuals or automotive companies beyond the household name brands.

In this way, the recession will be good for Formula One, driving the sport to be different, vibrant, more accessible, more relevant to a cost-conscious, environmentally sensitive society. 

By Scott Garrett on April 2nd, 2009

Tags: Formula 1, Jenson Button, Media, Sponsorship

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Nearly there now. The new Formula One season is almost upon us. Is everyone okay for sponsors, or could you use one or two more? All the teams can always fit another logo on the car, another few hundred guests in Paddock Club, but generally it looks to me as if most teams are reasonably well catered for.

That’s because most sponsorship agreements are multi-year, and the law of averages militates against a mass exodus at any one time. These contracts are strong enough to withstand recession-driven legal scrutiny. Otherwise I suspect we’d be seeing a number of cars more logo-free than logo’d up, or worse, fewer cars altogether.

This would be a tragedy because right now, F1 sponsorship looks like being pretty good value as a marketing investment. I know it’s an unfashionable view but hear me out.

At a time when budgets are being cut, particularly affecting short term discretionary (read “above the line”) spend, there is a huge danger that the pendulum will over-swing and residual brand awareness will decline to levels that make it very difficult – and expensive – for a brand to advertise its way out of the trough when the money flows again.

Maintaining a base level of brand awareness is critical for any brand with ambition, even if that ambition is temporarily held in check by lack of cash flow. For my money there is no better way of maintaining residual awareness than a well-crafted sponsorship, especially just now when F1 teams are happy to entertain offers that they may not do in a rising market.

Some teams are going into the activation business, so brands don’t even have to spend cash on advertising their partnership; the teams will do this for them, often bundling together promotional activities for a number of sponsors to maximise the impact of their activity. This seems smart from the teams’ point of view, and it also adds value to a brand investment.

All of which means that there’s great value in the F1 sponsorship market right now. Brands can cut ad spend, reduce loss-leading sales promotions and value engineer their products to cut costs, while still maintaining a brand awareness platform from which to launch a renewed assault on the upturn when it comes. 

By Scott Garrett on March 10th, 2009

Tags: Formula 1, Sponsorship

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Senator Kerry said recently that sponsorship is an “idiotic abuse of taxpayer money” and proposes legislation to ban financial institutions that receive state bail-outs from spending any money on sponsorship. This makes me angry, not because I disagree with him (I do, but I’m with Voltaire on the subject of democracy: I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it), but because it displays ignorance of staggering proportions and undermines my personal faith in the democratic system. Nobody wants to believe that they elected an idiot.

First, Sen. Kerry is wrong to single out sponsorship. If he has issues with brand investment per se, then the whole marketing establishment should be the subject of his proposed legislation. Which opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms, because then he’d essentially be saying “let’s ban failing companies from enhancing their competitive position in the marketplace”.

Secondly, he’s actually doing sponsorship a favour by asserting that it is the very visibility of sponsorship and its activation that draws attention to these failing institutions. Visibility is an objective of most sponsorships and publicity campaigns generally, so thank you Senator for elevating sponsorship above other disciplines.

Third and most damaging of all, for the good of the nation and the economic world generally, it is a job of a government to support failing institutions by giving them every possible chance to get themselves back on their feet. If anything, I’d argue that the US government should be paying for their sponsorships and marketing activity – particularly when these are likely to be focused on restoring public confidence – rather than cutting them off at the knees.

Makes me mad, this does. And I’m not even American.

By Scott Garrett on March 3rd, 2009

Tags: Brand marketing, Sponsorship

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