Red Carpet Welcome for AIPS in Baku -- On the Scene

Always-eager sports event host Baku coddles world media this week for the annual AIPS Congress.

Nearly 250 delegates from 112 countries made the trek to the far eastern edge of Europe, 80 percent of them making their first ever visit to Azerbaijan.

It’s a chance to impress.

Host city for the inaugural European Games in 2015 and twice bidding for the Olympics, Baku is not shy about its ambitions to stage larger and more prestigious events. Two years ago, Baku was on the minds of millions across Europe as it staged the Eurovision Song Contest.

The visiting journalists got clear indication that sport is important to the development of Azerbaijan at a dinner on the eve of the Congress. The speaker was the president of the country, Ilham Aliyev, who spoke unaided by notes for the better part of 40 minutes. And then he stopped at each table to mingle with the AIPS delegates who he had called "important" in his remarks.

The Congress is the 77th for AIPS, the organization representing the international sports press to the IOC, FIFA, IAAF, and other key sport bodies. AIPS is celebrating its 90th year and much has changed in the industry of sport journalism in that span.

A panel on new media underscored the different world journalists face. The group spent more than 90 minutes addressing issues involving new media. Economics, accuracy of reporting, and the new demands on reporters all figured into the conversation.

AIPS president Gianni Merlo, astounded by some of the numbers being tossed around regarding web traffic for the IOC and others, remarked that the time has come to give an award to the first sport website that reaches 1 billion users per month. He said he sees it coming.

A notable absence was any presentation from Rio 2016, which needs all the good press it can get right now. But with the World Cup just weeks away in Brazil, the attention is on football and not the Olympics. Alain Lieblang, head of media operations for the FIFA World Cup, reviewed what’s ahead without any alarm or worries.

The Congress was the first in many years not to include an IOC member. The usual candidate is the chair of the IOC Press Commission, but that position changed in the past month, switching from Kevan Gosper, now retired from the IOC, to Larry Probst from the United States. Merlo says there wasn’t time to extend a proper invitation to the new press commission chair.

Next year though, Probst should be checking his mail next year for an invite to South America, where AIPS will head to Montevideo, Uruguay for the 2015 Congress.

The IOC was represented at the meeting by chief of staff Jochen Faerber, who took part in the new media panel and briefed the Congress on Olympic Agenda 2020, the program for change being pursued by his boss, IOC president Thomas Bach.

Faerber noted that by the April 15 deadline for public email submissions, some 40,000 had been received by the IOC. He observed that the numbers are inflated by mass email campaigns launched by advocacy groups for gay rights or other causes.

Awards for best press facilities of the past year went to the IAAF for the Moscow world championships and Sochi 2014 for its well-regarded press operations during the Winter Games.

One of the more unusual moments in the proceedings came on opening day with a presentation on the still-obscure martial art sambo. A couple of fighters jumped and tumbled on some matts tossed into a corner of the Congress ballroom, unseen by most in the room. The Russian-based sport seeks a wider following but the sambo federation appears to have disputes among the membership, especially with FIAS president Vasily Shestakov, who spoke to the Congress about dreams and not division.

Delegates took a tour of venues for the European Games to wrap up the Congress. For Baku, it’s a chance to make one final impression. Among the stops will be the newly-built national gymnastics arena and Crystal Hall, the venue built on the shore of the Caspian Sea for Eurovision, in use next year for the games.

"This is a great responsibility, big challenge," said Aliyev in his remarks earlier this week about the European Games. "We plan to organize these games at the level of Summer Olympic Games."

Baku 2015 has scored points already with AIPS with plans to provide Wi-Fi and cabled Internet services at no charge to journalists. Merlo is leading a campaign by the association and its continental groups to overturn the fees being charged for Internet services at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this July.

Written and reported in Baku by Ed Hula

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