Sponsors Challenge Asian NOCs to "Think Bigger"

(ATR) Leaders from Asian National Olympic Committees met with large companies for a sponsorship seminar during the Asian Games.

International consulting company IEG was hired by Sportsart+ in running the "OCA Partnership Summit" Sunday, which aimed to teach NOCs how to sell sponsorship packages to grow sport in Asia.

IEG made two presentations under the theme "How to Increase the Value of Your Olympic Opportunities," which taught NOCs to selectively target and package sponsorship opportunities to make them attractive.

Representatives from Coca-Cola, Lloyd’s Baking, BP, Ogilvy, Heineken, and Aon discussed what their companies look for when purchasing sponsorship packages.

Preparations for the summit have been ongoing for the past six to seven months after Olympic Council of Asia president Shiekh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah suggested that Asian NOCs had trouble attracting sponsors.

"The sheikh had made a comment that the NOCs needed to diversity their revenue sources, and this is where it started," Lesa Ukman, chief insights officer at IEG and one of the event organizers, told Around the Rings.

The summit concluded with a panel discussion between the NOCs and sponsorship representatives.

NOCs who participated expressed frustrations with the lack of sponsorship opportunities for small NOCs, while the sponsors discussed how different NOCs can diversity their positions to make themselves stand out.

Gabriel Ken Gadaffi, an advisor to the Cambodian NOC, talked to ATR about how smaller NOCs have limited participation on a global scale, which drives major sponsors away.

"So many countries go with only 10 [athletes], so they must develop a platform to grow. Let them be there, and if the numbers increase, [sponsors] will see the attraction," Gaddafi said in an interview.

Sieh Kok Chi, secretary general of the Olympic Council of Malaysia, said a lack of exposure hurts smaller countries.

"[The sponsor’s] focus is on champions," Chi said to ATR.

"The major challenge is you don’t have champions, so it’s difficult to get sponsors. [Sponsors] who are involved in sports will always support sports, but to get sponsors who are in corporations that are not in sports to come is quite difficult."

Ukman believes the challenges are not fully with global sponsors, but with the NOCs not thinking bigger.

"Anyone that thinks that their Olympic Committee is a small property, even in a small country, doesn’t get it," Ukman said.

"The value and power of that Olympic brand is a major property in every country in the world. Having myopic vision, seeing through your side and what you need, is both amateur and frankly criminal because the athletes from their country are not going to generate the revenue you should be generating."

Next year, the Association of National Olympic Committees will give six or seven seminars on the topic of generating sponsorship, secretary general Gunilla Lindberg told ATR.

"We have already started, and we will work with the IOC also because this is a large program that will be benefit everyone," Lindberg said in an interview.

"We want to divide the countries in different groups and next year have seminars with smaller groups similar not only by continents but gather them intercontinentally."

Written by Aaron Bauerin Incheon

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