The Times Newspaper in London broke the story this week of restrictions that are being placed on the sponsors of individual athletes and how they will be prevented by celebrating achievement or wishing good luck to those they are backing during the course of the Olympic Games in Rio later this year.
A subsequent clarification from the British Olympic Association says that the rules are not new and that special dispensation can be granted to brands who wish to use an Athletes image or social media campaigns through the games.
The wording of the rules are blunt:
“Deemed consent will not permit advertisers to create an association with the Games, Team GB and/or the Olympic movement; retweet any Team GB tweets at any time, or retweet athletes’ posts (which relate to the Games) during the Games period; and/or reference athletes’ participation in the Olympic Games, including by way of congratulatory messaging during the Games period.”
The games period is a lock down time period from just before the games start to their conclusion. The rule is there to prevent ambush marketing though it is likely to raise questions among sponsors as to whether an investment in an athletes 364 days of hard work and preparation is worth it if you are excluded from the party on the one day in the spotlight.
In Ireland the sponsorship rights to Team Ireland are held, as they were in 2012 by Electric Ireland who are activating a smarter living message throughout their campaign.
Athletes including Katie Taylor and Rob Heffernan both have deals with brands including Bank of Ireland, Toyota, Aramark and Nissan which will be activated in the run up to the games and in the hopeful celebrations afterwards.
Sport for Business will meet with both of those athletes later today and determine what their view on what sponsors can and cannot do with them through the games.
In theory it could also apply to Nike and Rory McIlroy or Allianz and Paul McGinley which would potentially put Irish athletes and how Ireland applies the sponsorship rules onto a world stage.
Not being permitted to post a message of congratulations seems a bizarre overstepping of the need to protect, particularly when no such imposition can be applied to brands who have no association with an athlete.
“The rule is primarily there for the protection of athletes, the Olympic Games and its official partners from ambush marketing activity whilst ensuring that the BOA – a privately funded body – is able to fund Team GB’s participation in the Games,” said the British Olympic Association in a statement.
“We always work with sports, individual athletes and third-party sponsors to ensure they are able to maximise their commercial interests in line with these rules. We have consulted widely, but if individual sports do have any concerns we would be happy to speak with them and assist where we are able to.”
The Olympic Council of Ireland was asked for a comment on the story but had not yet responded at time of writing. We will update this story when a comment is made.
