Chapter 175: The Olympics of Everything Looking at Money

175

The most significant difference between this Olympic Games and previous editions is that 'everything is about money'.

The cost of hosting the Olympics was enormous, and even more so in recent years, 1972 The 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal cost $2 billion and lost $1 billion, and the city government was close to bankruptcy, leaving 3 million residents with debts that could only be paid off in 20 years, while in 1980, the Soviet Union spent more than $9 billion in order to save face, and the Soviet Union, which was already at a disadvantage in the Cold War confrontation, put a heavy economic burden on the entire country.

Due to the huge cost of the Olympics and the interference of political factors (the attack on the Olympic Village by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics, the boycott of the Montreal Olympics by African countries, and the boycott of the last Moscow Olympics by Western countries), the number of cities bidding for the Olympics is becoming less and less. Los Angeles is the only city to bid for this Olympic Games. In 1978, Los Angeles won the right to host the 23rd Summer Olympics without any competitors.

In the past, cities were financed by three sources: government funding, lottery tickets, and donations. But when it comes to the Olympics, all three funding sources are in the way.

First, in order to avoid a repeat of Montreal's mistakes, the California State Legislature, where Los Angeles was first awarded the right to host the Olympics, quickly passed a resolution that neither the California nor the city of Los Angeles could use taxpayer money to host the 1984 Olympics. At the same time, the U.S. federal government also said that it would not give any financial aid to the Los Angeles Olympics.

Second, in California, it's illegal to issue lottery tickets, and as for donations, the crowd was shouting, "We can't embezzle a penny of our taxes," and the road didn't work at all.

Since the launch of the modern Olympic Movement, the main expenses of the Olympic Games have been paid by the finances of the host city and the country. Raising funds for the Olympic Games through commercial means is considered to be detrimental to the purity and sanctity of the Olympic spirit. But the laws passed by the California legislature, and the U.S. government's statement, make it impossible for the government to provide funds. At this point, the IOC was faced with a dilemma: either cancel the Games or hand them over to the private sector.

In 1978, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was forced to make major concessions by allowing Los Angeles to raise Olympic funds commercially. This is the first major adjustment in the operating model of the modern Olympic Movement in its nearly 100 years ago. Los Angeles, which was once at a loss, suddenly got a historic opportunity.

In this case, the Los Angeles Olympic Games Organizing Team hired an experienced businessman to serve as the chairman of the Olympic Organizing Committee, a legendary figure - Peter Ueberroth.

When Ueberroth first joined the organizing committee, he was faced with the dilemma of zero everything, not even an office and bank account. For this reason, Ueberroth paid $10,000 out of his own pocket to open an account in the bank and temporarily rented a house to settle down, which was very sad. After that, he officially started his wonderful performance.

His first move was to sell the exclusive television rights to the Olympics by means of tenders. At the time, the Los Angeles Organising Committee required each television company interested in broadcasting the Games to pay a tender deposit of $750,000. Soon, five television organizations, including the three major television networks in the United States, brought in deposits, and after depositing these deposits in the bank, the organizing committee earned $1,000 a day in interest income. By eating interest, at least the stall of the Olympic Organizing Committee is supported.

After a fierce battle among the three major television networks, ABC won with a record-breaking $225 million. Since then, Ueberroth has also sold broadcast rights to Europe, Asia and Australia, earning a total of $287 million, three times the previous sale price of broadcast rights.

After securing the rights to the television, Uberroth reached out to the sponsors. Summing up the lessons of previous Olympic Games, he found that in the past, there was no minimum amount of sponsorship funding, so although there were many sponsoring companies, the total amount was not high. As a result, Ueberroth ingeniously stipulated that only 30 sponsors would be accepted for the Los Angeles Olympics, and each industry would only accept exclusive sponsorship from one company, with a minimum sponsorship amount of $4 million, and sponsors could obtain the exclusive right to sell Olympic goods.

These regulations raise the threshold for sponsorship, but also make sponsorship more valuable. In order to compete for sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Kodak and Fujifilm, Adidas and Nike, etc., many companies have launched brutal hunts and tears, and the amount of sponsorships has skyrocketed.

In the end, Coca-Cola defeated Pepsi with a huge investment of $13 million, Fujifilm beat Kodak with $7 million, and Adidas beat Nike, making itself a legitimate sponsor of the Olympic Games and making the Olympic organizing committee a lot of money.

Ueberroth's third trick is tickets, which is to sell tickets at a high price. He priced each ticket at $50 to $200 and made the word that even the president of the United States would have to pay for his own tickets.

In addition, Ueberroth even hit the idea of the torch relay with a stipulation that anyone who was willing to contribute $3,000 could become an Olympic torchbearer.

In addition to opening up the city, Ueberroth has made great efforts to reduce expenditures, make full use of existing facilities, and try not to build stadiums; he does not build new Olympic villages, rents two dormitories in California universities for athletes and officials to stay; and recruits unpaid volunteers to volunteer for the conference.

Ueberroth has worked so hard to achieve remarkable results, and so far, the Organising Committee has raised a total of $800 million, which is more than enough to cover the events and events. The latest American magazine "Time" commented: "Before the competition began, the first gold medal was born, and Ueberroth deserved it." ”

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With Fang Jianhui's popularity, many companies have long approached him and wanted to ask him to be the brand spokesperson. But Fang Jianhui is not short of money, and has not been very interested in it.

But after enjoying the tsunami-like cheers on the sports field, and considering the task of the proof of the hegemon, Fang Jianhui suddenly changed his mind, as long as the brand image is healthy, it is not impossible to endorse a few. After all, having the vigorous promotion of endorsement merchants is also very beneficial to the improvement of his prestige.

Among the companies that have been chasing Fang Jianhui, the most obsessive is the Hundreds of Coke Company.

PepsiCo Headquarters, North Carolina, USA.

Vice President Jeremy Cohen walked into the president's office excitedly: "Fang Jianhui finally relented and said that he was willing to endorse up to three brands!"

President Donald Kendal was overjoyed to hear this, and walked back and forth in the office hurriedly, waving his hands: "Three brands!

No wonder Kendal is so out of shape, asking Fang Jianhui to be the spokesperson is a plan set by the company early on, but because Fang Jianhui is not short of money, he has always been not interested in endorsement products, which has made Pepsi repeatedly hit a wall.

In the beverage market in the United States and the world, if Coca-Cola is the leader, then Pepsi is the follower and challenger.

Prior to the seventies, PepsiCo was basically a follower, but with the arrival of its new president, Donald Kendal, the role shifted more to that of a challenger. Take the initiative to challenge Coca-Cola:

The first major challenge was that in 1975, PepsiCo implemented a marketing strategy called the "PepsiCo Challenge." PepsiCo did a blind test: the subject was blindfolded to identify two cola drinks. As a result, the ratio of those who liked Pepsi to Coca-Cola was 3:2. Since Pepsi tastes 9% sweeter than Coca-Cola, the first taste is favorable for Pepsi. The results of the trial were eventually publicized in television commercials.

The advertising campaign did exactly what PepsiCo had intended: to get consumers to reconsider their loyalty to the 'old' Coke and compare it to the 'new' Coke. Coca-Cola is helpless about it, and has no choice but to accuse it of being more immoral. As a result, PepsiCo's sales skyrocketed, and the gap with Coca-Cola narrowed significantly.

When the time came to this year (1984), Pepsi implemented another major strategy, changing the company's slogan to "Pepsi - the choice of the new generation", targeting the younger generation, flaunting its 'new', and highlighting Coca-Cola's 'old', using 'new' to attack Coca-Cola's 'aging'.

The core of this strategy is to find a new generation of super idols to be the spokesperson for the product, and after internal evaluation, everyone unanimously locked this person as Fang Jianhui. Fang Jianhui is young, handsome, talented, and the most outstanding representative of the American Dream, with extremely high popularity and influence all over the world, which perfectly matches Pepsi's strategy.

After contacting Fang Jianhui several times and being rejected, Pepsi did not change its mind and still kept chasing him.

After Fang Jianhui participated in the Olympic qualifying competition and really qualified for the Olympic Games, in addition to the titles of movie star and king of pop music, as a sports star, he invisibly added a layer of enterprising and positive aura. In addition, he failed to compete with his old rival Coca-Cola for Olympic sponsorship, and saw his opponent take advantage of the Olympics to launch a huge propaganda offensive, which made Pepsi even more haunting him, and he was willing to succeed.

This time, I heard that Fang Jianhui actually relented, how could he not make President Kendal ecstatic! Although only three brands are endorsed, which doubles the difficulty of competition, it also greatly increases the gold content of the final winner.