Robert Datnow, Joint Managing Director, The Sports Consultancy hosted a panel at Sports Pro Live today, Wednesday 29th March asking a group including former IOC Marketing Director, Michael Payne, Paula Stringer, Head of Production, BBC and Hilary Atkinson, Head of Event Delivery at the FIH ‘Is this the end of mega-events as we know it?’
A lively debate covered events from Summer and Winter Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, the FIFA World Cup, the Euros 2020, and the European Games and European Sports Championships.
The conversation came around to the Commonwealth Games 2022 and Durban’s recent withdrawal, the Olympic Games 2024 bidding process and its two remaining bidders following the withdrawal of Boston, Budapest, Rome and Hamburg-Kiel as candidate cities; the challenges faced by broadcasters and the need to use new technology and innovative partnerships in the context of the proliferation of new mega events, multi-city hosting, new and complex host markets and the increasing costs of staging mega events.
Michael Payne’s view was that ‘the IOC is facing a perfect storm and the whole bidding process has become toxic and is requiring significant change – the principle reason for this change, social media.’
Datnow, whose personal experience of Olympic bidding dates back to his time at the British Olympic Association, and who has been involved in mega event bidding, securing major cities and the commercialisation of some of the world’s most recognised events over the past 20 years, concluded that whilst this is by no means the end of mega events as we know them, the IOC and other mega event rights holders have more to do: to communicate the benefits of hosting and bidding, the positive social and urban impacts and the other legacy benefits; to nurture host relationships; to listen to broadcasters and hosts’ needs, strategies and perspectives, to simplify and streamline bidding; to evolve formats and content to ensure sports performance remains relevant and engages with established and new audiences alike.
