The Olympic Legacy Sports Problem

How Olympic legacy sports can become modern sports businesses and how the IOC should propel that change

BMX, Skateboarding, Surfing, Sport Climbing, Breaking. New(ish) sports at the Olympics that bring much needed fresh air, via appealing to youth. The presentation, vibe and the surrounding culture of these new Olympic sports seem to fulfil their purpose very well. They do make the overall event more youthful and they are a step in the right direction in the International Olympic Committee – IOC ’s effort to revitalise the Games and become more attractive for younger generations.?

What happens to the traditional, legacy Olympic sports though? Will they look any fresher just from putting a BMX competition beside them? I am thinking now about sports like fencing, wrestling, pentathlon, even some of the aquatic sports, and the list goes through the Olympic palette.

Roger Mitchell argues in his book “Sport’s Perfect Storm” that sport itself is losing what is called its “product market fit” with younger generations. I think this is certainly true for traditional legacy sports, who do not innovate. There are examples though, for both new and old sports properties elevating themselves via creating modern media products - think what is happening in martial arts, or darts. Or look up Supertri for triathlon. Want something more radical and super popular with youth? Look at Kings League in football. Youth appealing sports products can be created. So I tend to believe that the difference comes down to the media work being done, or not.?

The cultural and media landscape surrounding sports has dramatically changed over the last decades. Today, the media environment is totally different, there is a lot more competition for people's attention. Anyone wanting to have people’s attention, needs to work for it, harder and more actively than ever.

The work to be done includes working with external media, building up owned media, creating a digital-first, data driven culture, improving the broadcast experience, creating distribution strategies, working on PR and with journalists, planning the media appearances, building stars, building brands, creating the right social media presences, own web and app presences and most importantly video strategy.?Overall, building a media organisation, employing media professionals and exporting know-how with them into the sports organisation, allocating resources to present the sport better and to reach more people. See my earlier recommendations for waterpolo - applicable to all smaller sports.

Basically what top sports properties have done in the last decade or so, while building out their capabilities.

So if there is a blueprint to follow, why do traditional, legacy sports organisations seem to be either unable, or rather paralysed to act and reinvent themselves? This comes down partly to the archaic federation structures that on one side are truly worthy of respect for keeping traditions and legacy, however on the other side are interwoven with old habits from a previous world, traditional thinking and powerful circles counter-interested in change. The nature of sports financing in many countries is also acting against change, not forcing its donor sports to work for their own popularity.?

One promising trend from recent years is external investors coming in and not only bringing capital, but making the sport spend that capital on modernisation and value creation ( CVC Capital Partners in LALIGA or Silver Lake in New Zealand Rugby ). This model can not work across all traditional Olympic sports though, as it requires an already high level of development and an already strong brand to be “investment worthy”, and moreover a strong will from the sport to change, which we often lack for above reasons.?

So if the traditional, legacy Olympic sports organisations will not save themselves and external investor push will not be available to most of them, how will they survive?

I believe the entity that is both deeply interested in the success of these sports and is at the same time powerful enough to initiate change is the IOC. Bringing in new fresh sports to the Olympic Games is a great direction, but not enough. The whole of the Olympic Games, including every sport, needs to be elevated and made appealing for youth. Pushing out a great media product of the traditional sports once every 4 years is also not enough. These sports need to be developed every day on an ongoing basis for many years to come.?

The IOC, through its member NOC’s should directly get involved and run a global initiative to empower all of their associations with digital transformation and enhance their commercial and marketing capabilities. Provide training, know-how (look at FIFA 's Digital Skills program), resources, capital and a centralised, overarching, global plan, to revitalise it’s own traditional sports, making them more appealing for the modern viewer, saving the sports that have been at the Games for over hundred years and contributing so much to it’s legacy and heritage.

The author is Gergo Szabo, consultant, business owner and investor in the sports technology and media space.?

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