Sponsorship Games

CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - By the Chinese calendar, this is the year of the dragon but by another standard this will be the year of the fish and the flash, better known as Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt.

Their presence will only grow over the next several months and that’s because this is an Olympic year when sports like swimming and track suddenly reappear in the public consciousness after going into unwanted media hibernation once the last national anthem has been played.

As this column reaches a global audience, let me say that I’m writing this from an American bent, knowing full well that there are other continents and many countries that not only pay attention to but understand sports such as swimming, athletics, and so many other pursuits beyond the temporal boundaries of the Greek-inspired sweat fest.

I’ve also seen that countries like Germany, Great Britain, Australia and others that appreciate the so-called niche sports also tend to give a greater mainstream value and respect to Paralympic sports and athletes. For that I salute you all.

The reason I bring this up is that as the fervor for London 2012 begins to ratchet up, the official corporate sponsors of the games and participating national Olympic/Paralympic committees have started announcing and launching their marketing activation plans.

Themed advertisements, contests, promotions, athlete tie-ins; the full gamut will be unleashed as we drive towards the lighting of the first caldron on July 27. As I’ve read through the various news releases coming my way, I’ve been noticing not so much what’s in them but what’s not.

And that’s basketball.

Looking at five major companies in the U.S. and Canada, three of whom are IOC or London 2012 marketing partners, there was a noticeable lack of basketball players represented in the lists of Olympic and Paralympic athletes associated with these sponsors. (Note that none of these companies are sponsors of USA Basketball or the NBA.) Of 81 athletes, only one, Dwight Howard, is a basketball player and, now injured, he won’t be in London.

Given the global interest in the game with 450 million players worldwide according to FIBA – second only to football – I’ve been trying to sort out why.

Perhaps it’s because scarcity (at least on U.S. TV sets) makes athletes like Phelps and Bolt, as well as gymnasts, wrestlers, fencers and kayakers novel and exotic while basketball, professional and amateur, is pervasive to the point that March Madness lowers national productivity in America.

One would think that a sport with consistent annual coverage and recognition would have added value and that those athletes could offer brand equity over the long term. Do sponsors think basketball players are overexposed? Or is it that they’re too expensive.

On the Olympic side where the entirety of the USA team and a good bulk of many other national teamers will come from the riches of the NBA where sponsors are plentiful and payrolls flush, players don’t come cheap. To be honest though, neither are Phelps or Bolt at this point but even though basketball is a big deal at the Olympics, there is something more, for a lack of a better word, “Olympian” about swimmers and runners for whom this is without equal in their potential accomplishments.

Specifically though, since this column is about wheelchair basketball, where do the Paralympic Games fit in to all this? Save for a transcendent athlete such as amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, wheelchair basketball players and all Paralympic athletes fit in with the sponsor/athlete economics of the majority of Olympic athletes who struggle to support their training and competition costs with little in the way of professional compensation.

For the same five companies I referred to above, 19 of their total 81 athlete relationships are Paralympians, just over 24% which may be considered very good given the complete ignorance of the true spending power of the disability market by most companies. This percentage may also be influenced by the unfortunate lack of mainstream media coverage given the world’s second largest multisport event in the U.S. where many corporate marketing decisions are made.

Oddly, though it’s the most pervasive of disability sports, none of the 19 are wheelchair basketballers.

This is yet another area where the American audience lacks global perspective. While the basketball competition of the Olympic Games demand attention, the FIBA World Championships are still working to gain status in the U.S., something that the FIFA World Cup now has only recently attained. For the IWBF World Championships, there’s the double media whammy of being international and a disability sport.

Ten years ago, I wrote a white paper for the Salt Lake Olympic & Paralympic Organizing Committee on the value of reaching the untapped disability market segment where I cited U.S. Census and other research figures of more than $1 trillion in income and over $220 billion in discretionary spending power by Americans with a disability.

The market that can be influenced by Paralympians in general and wheelchair basketball players in particular is far larger, far more lucrative and far more accessible than they know, yet a decade later few have heeded the call.

At least one has. Four of the 16 North American athletes sponsored by IOC global sponsor Visa are Paralympians and two of those – Alana Nichols of the USA and Richard Peter of Canada – are wheelchair basketball players.

There should be more across the board.

Domestically through the NWBA and CWBA, as well as internationally via the IWBF and other domestic leagues around the world, wheelchair basketball is the oldest and largest sport specific organization in disability sports with consistent competition and global presence.

Nichols, also a world class skier, and Peter, who has played professionally in Germany and Italy, can give their sponsor not only London but consistency in play for the years leading up to Rio de Janeiro. There are so many more out there who can help you deliver your message and sell your products and services.

Olympic and Paralympic athletes want everyone to know that they compete not once every four years but every day. For basketball, that awareness is already there; the game is big time all the time. When will that be reflected in the athlete sponsorships?

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.