December 21, 2025 • 36 mins
This week, Amit and Mihir are joined by a special guest, Michael Payne. Widely credited as the architect of the modern sports marketing model, Payne offers a ring-side view into some of the biggest Olympic deals and explains how the mega-event was transformed into a commercial colossus. The former marketing director of the International Olympic Committee -- who recently published his third book, _Fast Track and Dark Deals_ -- also explains what India must be wary of as the country mounts and aggressive pitch to host the 2036 Olympics.
Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar
Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to Express Sports podcast. You're listening to
Game Time with Mimihi Vasavada. Ami Kama is here with
us as always, and this week we are joined by
a personality who for the last five decades or more,
has had a ringside view of the Olympic Games, watching
it blossom into a billion dollar enterprise from what was
(00:24):
once the modest operation, even struggling for survival. His recently
released autobiography, Fast Tracks and Out Deals, How Sport Became
Business and Business Became Sport, provides a fly on the
wall account on some of the juiciest and remarkable sporting
tales of our times, some of which will be touching
upon today. Michael Pain, it's a pleasure to have you
with us.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And it's great to be with you, and hopefully we
can have some colorful stories to reveal of the history
of the business of sport.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
If even we can go by what four or five
pages of a book, we will be done with an
hours and hours of recording. I guess it's remarkable. I
must compliment you on that had the pleasure of feeding it.
It's your third book, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It is. The first book I wrote twenty years ago
was called Olympic Turnaround, and it was really the business
story of how the Olympic Games evolved from bankruptcy to
billion dollar brand. The second book was very different, called
Tunin and it's a collection of the world's greatest cartoonist
(01:28):
some two thousand cartoons and tells the history of the
Olympics through the political cartoon. And then the third book,
it's semi autobiographical but really tries to document the history
of the business of sport. I joined the industry in
the mid seventies when the sports business was really a
(01:51):
cottage industry. Sponsorship was just beginning, broadcast rights were in
their infancy, and it's the story of how, not just
with the Olympics, but with Formula one more recently, you know,
with the IPL, how sport has exploded into a big business,
(02:12):
and how business has seen sport as a very very
strong driver of their goals.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Before I passed it on to Amit this book is
very different to the earlier two books you have written.
Tune and I mus say again it was one of
the fascinating reads I heard of the Tokyo Olympics. Was
it that you published that one?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That was my COVID project because I had spoken for
years about wouldn't it be fun to pull together a
collection of cartoons. It's one of these things you talk
about never actually get round to. And the moment, you know,
like everybody they were grounded at home, couldn't go out.
I thought, well, why don't I stop talking and actually
see if I could try and do it. And nine
(02:53):
months later released from COVID, and the book was published.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
And now you have your tobuiography as purely someone who
also writes for a living, very interested to know just
the detailing of some of the things that you've written,
right that some of the incidents took place way back
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. How hard was it
to kind of, you know, recollect the time, the place,
the location, the people in the conversation. Or are you
(03:20):
one of those who've maintained a diary and you just
had to kind of go back and revisited great question.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean I didn't maintain a diary, and I was
surprised in someonechs how the brain works in that if
you would take yourself back to a particular moment in time,
you find yourself suddenly talking about people who you hadn't
thought of for thirty or forty years, and it all
(03:47):
came tumbling back. There was a little bit of research
that I needed to do because I really wanted the
reader to feel as if they were a witness in
the room, you know, and a participant in negotiations. And so,
you know, for example, when I talk about negotiating with
Rupert Murdoch, you don't just say, well, we did a
(04:09):
two billion dollar deal. I wanted to describe what was
it like walking into his room, what does his office
look like? So there I would sort of call up
one or two friends, I mean who worked for Murrock
and said, remind me what is his room look like?
His office and that level of color, you know, of
that detail I think makes a great story for the reader.
(04:31):
It makes it a lot more interesting and makes them
involved in the story.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It right, Michael, thank you so much for doing this.
I wanted to understand, you know, you spoke about all
these levels of details that you've gone into. One of
the first things that struck me was I was reading
this anecdote that you mentioned about, you know, back in
the day, Arnold Palmer most exciting athlete in America. Back
in those days, he signs an endorsement deal with Heinz.
(04:57):
It involves five hundred dollars in cash and all the
catchup that you can eat. That kind of stood out
for me. I wanted to understand from you besides that,
are there really hilarious contracts that you've seen over the
course of your career for high performance athletes that if
athletes today would hear, they would just fall on the
(05:17):
floor laughing maybe or would not believe that. You know,
back in the day, those were the kind of contracts
that we were talking about.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, it's a great example because that was the point
I was trying to make that back in the early seventies,
these were the sort of endorsement contracts that athletes were making.
And along came a gentleman, Colemarck McCormack, who was a
lawyer Dolfer, and he said, these athletes should be treated
(05:44):
like Hollywood stars. If you're in Hollywood, you were being
paid a fortune. And so that was the beginning of
the industry. There's transformation of media companies starting to if
you want, respect the potential and power of the athletes.
But athletes didn't understand what their value or worth was,
(06:06):
and so the Arnold Palmer and you know, the enormous
summer five hundred dollars and all the catch up he
could eat that sort like a good deal at the time. Now,
of course everybody would fall about laughing. And it's that
journey over the fifty years of how sports transformed itself.
I mean, when I joined the IOC, the European television
(06:31):
rights were worth around eight million dollars, which was seen
as an enormous summer money. When I left the IOC,
the deal I negotiated was over eight billion dollars just
for Europe. And I'm sure you would see you know
the same story in your country with cricket. I mean,
what was the earning of cricket in the seventies or
(06:54):
eighties or even nineties until you had the likes first
maybe Kerry Packer come along and transform cricket, and then
later on laalat Modi with the IPL. So I suppose
it's like any industry. You look at an industry when
it begins. You look at how the Internet started out,
or the electronics industry, and if you're able to sort
(07:17):
of document that and you look at where we stand now,
they think, no way, how is it possible? And you said, well,
that's how it used to be, and I think that's
always it's an important history lesson to understand, you know,
where we've come from. It might provide some guidance and
insights to what the future has in hold. But particularly
(07:41):
in sport, which is something that everybody is so passionate about,
whether it's their team, their individual athlete. They're held up
as you know, demigods. And yet you go back and
how it all began, you know, it was a very
different world.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Michael, talking about beginnings, I think it will be impossible
to cover all the things that you've written in the book,
and we wouldn't want to do that. There has to
be an incentive for the reader to purchase your book
after listening to this. But I'd like to focus on
one section, one period that you've spoken about extensively, and
that is getting one of the earliest big sponsors through
(08:21):
the top program for the IOC and the hustle that
went on behind the scenes. I was just staggered that
I think it must be the mid eighties when you,
through isol were trying to get first MX as the
sponsor as the top sponsor, and then the whole visa
deal happened the fact that during that period there weren't
(08:42):
companies who were willing to put their money on the
Olympic Games. How tough was it to a convince them
to buy into the project, make them relevant, the games
relevant for them, and then to part their money with
you guys, how that period to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
With Well, it's a great point. You look at sport
today and you think, well, there must be companies lining
up and queuing for the opportunity to associate themselves with
the Olympics or sport. It wasn't like that. In the
early eighties. Companies understood that there was some benefit in
having their advertising sign on the side of the pitch
(09:22):
or on the athlete. But at the Olympics, we had
no advertising in the stadium, and we didn't want to
introduce advertising in the stadium in order to maintain what
made the Olympic special. And so companies the Los Angeles
Olympic Games did have some sponsorship development, and so we thought, right,
we will build off that and develop a worldwide program.
(09:45):
But all the companies the reaction. American Express is a
good example. No, we're not interested in worldwide marketing. We
have interest in a few key markets and we don't
think a worldwide marketing program will fly. And we spent
two three years touring the world talking to all of
the companies and with the exception of Coca Cola and Kodak,
(10:08):
nobody was interested. And it really looked like the top
program was going to fail. And the deal we eventually
made with Visa was a major turning point. And interesting.
Visa had no history in sports sponsorship. They didn't come
with any preconceived ideas. All they understood was here was
(10:32):
a platform, the Olympics that could transform the image of
their business because they were having this credit card war
battle with American Express, and their advertising agency came up
with an idea, what if you could run a campaign
(10:52):
that said, if you're going to the Olympic Games, and
everybody knows the Olympic Games is the biggest event in
the world, the most prestigious event in the world, if
you're going to the Olympic Games, don't forget to take
your visa card because the Olympics doesn't take American Express,
meaning on the venue, the tickets and everything, if you've
(11:14):
got an American Express, you'll shut out in the cold.
Nobody had ever used sports sponsorship like that, and this
became a real wake up call one to the industry
that actually, if you have the right strategy in using sport,
it could be an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And Visa,
(11:38):
with this campaign, which was very aggressive, completely had American
Expresses lunch. They didn't take one or two percent market share,
they took twenty to thirty percent market share off American Express.
And the CEO of American Express, James Robinson, who had
(12:00):
turns me down on the opportunity to sponsor the Olympics,
called me up after this campaign had started and said,
you've won. Okay, how much money do you want? I
give you a blank check in order now for American
Express to take over from Visa. And we say, look, sorry,
you turned us down. Visa is our partner. We're going
(12:21):
to stick with our partner. And forty years on, Visa
is still the partner of the Olympics. And the chairman
of American Express went on to say possibly the worst
professional mistake of his career turning us down, but it
was transformative to the industry way beyond the Olympics in
(12:42):
people beginning to understand, oh, so that is how you
could use sport, and it was a turning point because
I think without that deal, the top program would probably
have collapsed.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Without that deal, or perhaps even the top program of
the IOC, how different would the Games have looked Overould
they even exists? Because there's also this point that the IOC,
when one summer ranch took over as the president, had
what two hundred thousand dollars in liquidity, And you have
this wonderful line where Sammarran wrote, I felt so alone
that I couldn't cope with all these job demanded. It
(13:15):
even crossed my mind, how might d I withdraw? Would
the Games even be what they are today?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think you make the point would they even exist again?
You know, when you're looking at the billions of dollars
that are at stake today, at the competition that is
taking place between countries and cities led by their heads
of state, I mean you look at the focus that
India is now applying to potentially bid and host the
(13:43):
Olympic Games. It is a massive business, political, geo strategic adventure.
But in the late seventies early eighties, the Olympics were bankrupt.
You couldn't give the games away. For nineteen eighty four,
there were only two hosts, one was Tehran and the
other was Los Angeles, and Tehran had a slight change
(14:07):
at the top politically, and it probably no longer felt
a good idea by the Aya tollers to invite the
world to Iran and Los Angeles. The Americans said, we
love the Olympics, but we don't want to pay for them.
We don't want to bankrupt the city, and so they
had a vote. Ninety four percent of the people said no,
(14:28):
so effectively it was game over. There were no hosts,
there was no revenue, and even if you could put
something together, odds on that one of the superpowers caught
up in the middle of the Cold War would say
boycott and half the world wouldn't turn up. So a
lot of the media commentators at the time were writing
(14:50):
the obituary of the Olympics, saying, yeah, it was wonderful
for the twentieth century, but it's become too big, too political.
We move on, and it was came over. Fortunately, Sam Ranch,
you know, didn't hand the presidency back. He rolled up
his sleeves and focused on how to save the Olympics,
(15:12):
which was both a political strategy in order to bury
the concept of Boycott's and a financial strategy of well,
nobody's going to pay for the Olympics. There isn't a
queue of governments or politicians waiting to step in, so
we better get on our own and find a way
(15:35):
with what was the beginnings of the growing industry of
media broadcast rights. What is this funny business of sponsorship
going to look like? And that's when I was hired
at the IOC to help, you know, begin to develop
a strategy that was in the early days very hit
and miss. There was no master plan, Michael.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I wanted to understand, you know, some of the things
that you mentioned that the IOC movement or the Olympics
as a whole were facing back in the eighties, that
there were obituaries being written about it. People are saying
that it is too big. Those are kind of complaints
that we even hear now about the Olympics year stories
about you know, cities trying considering a bid and then
(16:19):
pulling out things like that. How do you see the
IOC kind of marketing itself evolving in a sense to
try and become something that cities will still want to
bid for.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, again, a great question, and it is a evolving place.
There has been there's a lot of debate about this,
and you know, there have been cities coming forward and
saying let's host the Olympic Games and then having a
public referendum and pulling out. These public referendums are strange
(16:55):
beasts that often they have very little to do with
the subject at hand, and often they get completely hijacked
to one or other local political interest. Prior to London
winning the rights of hosting the twenty twelve Olympic Games,
the Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, said we're going to
(17:17):
have a referendum whether this is a good idea or not.
And the president of the bid committee, Lord said Coe
said if you do that, I'll resign. And it wasn't
because Coe was opposed to democracy, not at all. But
the bid would not have ended up being about the Olympics.
It would have been a popularity campaign on the mayor
(17:40):
and all the taxi drivers would have voted against it
because they didn't like or agree with the zoning on taxis,
and on and on it would have gone. The IOC
was not proactive enough on the communications and it let
the agenda get hijacked by one or other local interest,
(18:02):
and I turned around to President buch at the time
and said, if you don't become more proactive, you will
lose every single vote. Now move on to the other issue.
Staging the Olympic Games. It is the biggest, single, most
complex peacetime event you can stage. It's not simple. And
(18:23):
before you suddenly say I want to go out and
do this, you know, the politicians, the business leader really
need to understand what they are letting themselves in for.
If you already have all of the facilities, all of
the sporting facilities, all of the infrastructure of roads and airports,
(18:46):
it's a no brainer. It'll make a lot of money.
Los Angeles Staging twenty twenty eight has everything already in
place and they will end up making a very significant
profit from staging the Games. If you have to build facilities,
that's going to cost money, and there is no way
(19:07):
you can amortize that over two weeks. London rebuilt East London.
Now that wasn't an Olympic project. East London needed to
be rebuilt, but you're not going to pay for it
over two weeks. So the moment the politicians have a
clear strategic vision about how they want to use the
(19:29):
staging of the Olympic Games as a catalyst to develop
the region and to build the infrastructure that the region needs,
then you're having a different discussion and dialogue. And my
last point on this, big cities they need sports infrastructure,
(19:50):
so there needs to be a proper legacy. But if
they don't need that particular sporting infrastructure, if there isn't
a reason to have have it from a legacy standpoint,
then make it temporary. Do not waste the money building
white elephants. And so once you approach this, and you know,
(20:11):
maybe it is a big ask getting politicians to think
strategically and not get seduced on some ego trip white elephants.
If you can achieve that, it's a very clear, simple model.
You go back to Barcelona and how for ninety two
they use the Olympic Games to transform the city. You
(20:36):
go to Beijing in two thousand and eight again of
how they used the games as a catalyst, whether it
was for transportation, whether it was for environment. But you
need to take back and have a bigger picture review.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Michael, just one other thing I wanted to understand from
you in your book. You've written this fascinating piece of
I think the London Olympics way back in the nineteen
eighties where you had this brain way of trying to
get sponsors to you know, market every mile, like put
their banners and things like that. Very fascinating idea. I
don't think a lot of marathons do that even now.
(21:14):
But back then you spoke about, you know, the challenges
of broadcasting something that is a moving sporting spectacle. Every
other sport you look at, you look at the Olympics
or you know, cricket, things like that, they are all
contained within like one sporting stadium or venue. But the
marathon is something that it's held over a forty two
(21:35):
mile thing, and that's where the complication comes in. You
look at a sport like chess right now, right, it's
something that is very contained. It happens in a very
small area, but they also have these challenges. They are
very big on streaming, but television is not forthcoming, no
matter how much it's driven by guys like Magnus Sculson
and things like that. So I'm wondering whether you had
(21:57):
any thoughts about a specific sport like chess, which is
very easy to you know, broadcast but broadcasters don't seem
to be buying into it. I know your book is
about the Olympics, but since you have so much expertise
over so many sports, I was wondering whether you had
any thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Well. I mean the book isn't just the Olympics. I
mean it also gets in a detail to Formula one
because I spent fifteen years as a sort of right
hand number two to Bernie Ecleston. It gets into saving
sports that have been thrown out of the Olympics, like
modern pentathlon and how we switched out the horses and
(22:36):
modern pentathlon and ninja warriors, to looking at the sport
of volleyball that I now chair the commercial arm worldwide.
So it looks at all sports. And there's no question
that one technology and how it has evolved over the
last fifty years, has become a great friend, a great
(22:58):
asset of helping to transform the coverage of all sport.
Your story begins before the Olympics there with the London
Marathon and how do you stage you know, a forty
two kilometer event. It was very, very difficult and complicated.
Now it's a no brainer you look at today. You
(23:21):
know in each country. The opportunity to follow any sport
from anywhere around the world, whether it's on streaming, whether
it's on one or other of hundreds of channels that
are available. You know, the fan has incredible choice. And
(23:42):
let's look at Chess. I mean, Netflix had the series
The Queen's Gambit and it showed how fascinating the presentation
of chess can be. So yes, I mean Chess might
not be a prime time show and yet okay, it
wasn't just chess, it was the whole story behind staging
(24:04):
of Chess, but it became an absolute blockbuster on Netflix.
So I think with the right creative production, every sport
if they tell the story properly, and I would come
back to India that I think was at the forefront
of merging sport and entertainment with what the IPL did
(24:29):
with Bollywood, and increasingly people are no longer interested in
just what is happening on the field of play. They
want a broader story formula. Ones exploding success in part
has been due to this series called Drive to Survive,
which is what's happening in the personalities, the sagas, the
(24:53):
stories immediately next to the action and the field of play.
Because that's how people are wanting to consume their entertainment
in their storage. They want to learn more, and so
every single sport, if they will go out and tell
the story, has a great opportunity.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Michael, just to conclude today's conversation, a couple of things
that are relevant to the Olympic movement today. One of course,
is AI and how it impacts not just the sporting side,
but also the marketing side of the games, and also
the way we watch the Olympics. For decades now, we
(25:30):
largely consumed it through television and the broadcast rights on
TV with something like say, for example, a Netflix Warner
Brothers deal or Paramount Warner Brothers deal, whatever goes through.
Do you see a profound change in the way the
broadcasting side of the Olympics will change or the marketing
side through different whatever technological advances we are seeing today
(25:54):
through AI.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yes, absolutely. And the final chapter of the book gets
into what is the future? You know, I've taken you
on this journey over fifty years through the history. I
hope you've enjoyed the journey, and then say, right, what
does the future look like? And their technology and AI
(26:15):
plays a critically important role on how sport gets broadcast,
how fans engage with the sport, how sport gets judged,
how the events get operation then delivered. So, you know,
in the same way as technology over the last fifty years,
(26:36):
maybe with not quite the same pace, but you look
at how television transformed from live television, from black and
white to color to the whole experience you can now have.
That's only going to continue, and who the broadcasters will
be is going to change. Will it be the new
(26:59):
technology player? We're seeing the Googles, the Amazons, the Facebook's
looking at sport and you know, Netflix or Amazon and
sort of suddenly making big plays. But will there be
new players that we haven't even heard of, or will
the athlete himself become the biggest single broadcaster. If you're
(27:23):
an athlete who has hundreds of millions of followers on
Instagram and you're the one telling your story, your life,
your dog, what's happening off the field of play that
is becoming as important as what is happening on the
field of play, particularly with the younger generations. So is
(27:44):
it conceivable that the single most important broadcast, you know,
a decade or two from now, is going to be
the individual athlete. It's changing. I think the challenge, particularly
for the leaders of sports organizations is how do you
embrace technology so that it is at the service of
(28:07):
the sport, at the service of the sports fan in
terms of trying to create a greater engagement, a greater insight.
But in the process, how do you make sure that
sport doesn't lose its soul. Yeah, the role of technology
in helping to judge sport. You know in tennis, you
know with hawkeye and market judges, it's become automatic. But
(28:32):
should that happen in cricket? Should you throw away the
umpires and make it all technological and automatic? At what
stage would you lose something special? And this isn't just
a case of being oh in my day, back in
the last century, it was different. What is the right balance?
And here it's really important that one understands what is
(28:55):
it that makes sports special? What should be protected? Yes,
it should be fair, but you need to make sure
that you evolve protecting where you've come from.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I was going to end with the last question, but
just you know something on what you said. It's interesting
how you mentioned the technological advance its ten years down
the line, or more, because speaking from an India point
of view, right now, if the game's being bid for
twenty thirty six, we don't know how the Olympics would
look ten to eleven years down the line, So that
(29:29):
from a host city point of view will be a
very interesting challenge how they project the games even when
they're bidding for it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
That aside, yeah, forgive me, I would beg to differ
on that. The core product of what games are you know,
is going to remain the same, whether it's twenty five
sports or thirty sports, whether there's a new sport or not,
that's not going to change the fundamental well you broadcast. Again,
(30:04):
what you're going to want to have is the best
possible visual images, the best possible audio to take the
fan right into the heart of the action. Now, you
sitting at home may start becoming your own TV producer
because you're going to choose the camera angle that you
want and it's going to be put far more power
(30:26):
in the hands of the consumer. The role of technology
in judging, the role of technology in ensuring the fair sport.
Those will change, but it's not going to change the
fundamental of what you're looking to set out and do,
and I think, if I may, the biggest single challenge
(30:49):
facing India's ambitions to host the Olympic Games is proving,
from an operational standpoint, points that you can deliver. There
is no question that there is a very strong narrative
that a nation of over a billion people, it would
(31:12):
be very interesting to share fully the Olympic spirit and
for the nation to host the Olympic Games. And this
is exactly the same discussion that I went through when
I was back at the IOC over the role of
bringing the Olympic Games to China. I was first sent
to China by Samaranch in nineteen eighty nine to begin
(31:33):
that discussion with the leadership and it was twenty years
before China staged the Games, but it was that journey.
I think with India, it's the same discussion that the Games,
as we've said before, the largest single event that has
to be staged. There is no negotiation about the timeline.
(31:59):
The date is fixed, whether you are ready or not.
And if you look back recently, when the IOC took
the Games to Brazil and Rio de Geneio, it sounded
like a great idea on paper. The only problem was
when we got to the opening ceremony, they weren't ready.
(32:21):
It was an unmitigated disaster. Operationally, the IOC had ConTroll
of the TV images, so they were able to present
to the world a incredible celebration. But the IOC president
went to bed each night, Thomas BArch, not knowing if
(32:41):
the Games could take place the next day because it
was held together on a prayer. So after that experience,
the IOC said very clearly we have to get out
of the risk business. And so as much as you
want to have the story of of sharing the Olympic
spirit with a billion people, one has also got to
(33:04):
prove unequivocally that the politicians are going to be on board,
that the business community is going to be on board,
and that the operations are not going to drown in
a bureaucracy. And I think you know, your staging of
the Asian Games will be a very important proof point,
but frankly bury the ghosts of the Commonwealth Games, which
(33:31):
will be a poster child of why you cannot afford
the risk of all the nice words, But whereas the
proof concept.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, And on the other hand, you're dealing with Petter,
which has proven legacy of hosting BIC ticket events, not
at least twenty twenty to World Cup proty s. Shashank
I don't know if he'll be able to ask. He's
just texted a question for you. He's asking, after everything
you've seen in your career, what's the truth about sports
business that would genuinely surprise people.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
In the end, it is all about trying to ensure
the success of sport. Sometimes you sort of see the
headlines on you know, the billion dollar TV or sponsorship deals,
and people think, oh, it's all the commercialization has corrupted sport.
Commercialization has changed sport, well, has it? You know, yes,
(34:24):
there's got to be a balance on the role of commercialization.
But at the end of the day, it is about
staging great events, bringing the experience to people around the world,
having the best possible performance from the athletes. And the
balancing actor is to make sure that the commercial agenda
(34:44):
is at the service of sport, not sport being at
the service of the commercial agenda.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
And that's a perfect way to end this week's episode.
Thanks so much Mikey for joining us. Hopefully next time
with the second volume of Fast Track and Dark Deals,
will you please tell if our listeners want to buy
this book, where can they get it from? Visit all
the usual websites.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I think it should be all of the usual sites
from Amazon, probably the simplest in terms of ordering from
around the world. There is a website Fasstracks dark deals
dot com and it's only been out a couple of
weeks but has already been climbing up the Amazon bestseller lists.
So it's as you can see, it's not a short book,
(35:31):
but it's one that I think some people have described
as a spy thriller because it does get into the KGB,
the Mossad, the CIA and their roles in sports, and
some stories that probably will raise a FW eyebrows.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Lovely, thanks lot, Michael. It's a pleasure talking to you
as always. See you on soon.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Thank you great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Thank you, Michael, and thank you all for listening. We
will be back with a new episode of Game Time
next week.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
You were listening to Expressports by the Indian Express. This
week's show was edited and mixed by Sesh Bawar and
produced by Mesha shang Bargev. If you like the show,
then do subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also recommend the show to someone you think
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(36:25):
Indianexpress dot com
Hello, and welcome to Express Sports podcast. You're listening to
Game Time with Mimihi Vasavada. Ami Kama is here with
us as always, and this week we are joined by
a personality who for the last five decades or more,
has had a ringside view of the Olympic Games, watching
it blossom into a billion dollar enterprise from what was
(00:24):
once the modest operation, even struggling for survival. His recently
released autobiography, Fast Tracks and Out Deals, How Sport Became
Business and Business Became Sport, provides a fly on the
wall account on some of the juiciest and remarkable sporting
tales of our times, some of which will be touching
upon today. Michael Pain, it's a pleasure to have you
with us.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And it's great to be with you, and hopefully we
can have some colorful stories to reveal of the history
of the business of sport.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
If even we can go by what four or five
pages of a book, we will be done with an
hours and hours of recording. I guess it's remarkable. I
must compliment you on that had the pleasure of feeding it.
It's your third book, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It is. The first book I wrote twenty years ago
was called Olympic Turnaround, and it was really the business
story of how the Olympic Games evolved from bankruptcy to
billion dollar brand. The second book was very different, called
Tunin and it's a collection of the world's greatest cartoonist
(01:28):
some two thousand cartoons and tells the history of the
Olympics through the political cartoon. And then the third book,
it's semi autobiographical but really tries to document the history
of the business of sport. I joined the industry in
the mid seventies when the sports business was really a
(01:51):
cottage industry. Sponsorship was just beginning, broadcast rights were in
their infancy, and it's the story of how, not just
with the Olympics, but with Formula one more recently, you know,
with the IPL, how sport has exploded into a big business,
(02:12):
and how business has seen sport as a very very
strong driver of their goals.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Before I passed it on to Amit this book is
very different to the earlier two books you have written.
Tune and I mus say again it was one of
the fascinating reads I heard of the Tokyo Olympics. Was
it that you published that one?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That was my COVID project because I had spoken for
years about wouldn't it be fun to pull together a
collection of cartoons. It's one of these things you talk
about never actually get round to. And the moment, you know,
like everybody they were grounded at home, couldn't go out.
I thought, well, why don't I stop talking and actually
see if I could try and do it. And nine
(02:53):
months later released from COVID, and the book was published.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
And now you have your tobuiography as purely someone who
also writes for a living, very interested to know just
the detailing of some of the things that you've written,
right that some of the incidents took place way back
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. How hard was it
to kind of, you know, recollect the time, the place,
the location, the people in the conversation. Or are you
(03:20):
one of those who've maintained a diary and you just
had to kind of go back and revisited great question.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean I didn't maintain a diary, and I was
surprised in someonechs how the brain works in that if
you would take yourself back to a particular moment in time,
you find yourself suddenly talking about people who you hadn't
thought of for thirty or forty years, and it all
(03:47):
came tumbling back. There was a little bit of research
that I needed to do because I really wanted the
reader to feel as if they were a witness in
the room, you know, and a participant in negotiations. And so,
you know, for example, when I talk about negotiating with
Rupert Murdoch, you don't just say, well, we did a
(04:09):
two billion dollar deal. I wanted to describe what was
it like walking into his room, what does his office
look like? So there I would sort of call up
one or two friends, I mean who worked for Murrock
and said, remind me what is his room look like?
His office and that level of color, you know, of
that detail I think makes a great story for the reader.
(04:31):
It makes it a lot more interesting and makes them
involved in the story.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It right, Michael, thank you so much for doing this.
I wanted to understand, you know, you spoke about all
these levels of details that you've gone into. One of
the first things that struck me was I was reading
this anecdote that you mentioned about, you know, back in
the day, Arnold Palmer most exciting athlete in America. Back
in those days, he signs an endorsement deal with Heinz.
(04:57):
It involves five hundred dollars in cash and all the
catchup that you can eat. That kind of stood out
for me. I wanted to understand from you besides that,
are there really hilarious contracts that you've seen over the
course of your career for high performance athletes that if
athletes today would hear, they would just fall on the
(05:17):
floor laughing maybe or would not believe that. You know,
back in the day, those were the kind of contracts
that we were talking about.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, it's a great example because that was the point
I was trying to make that back in the early seventies,
these were the sort of endorsement contracts that athletes were making.
And along came a gentleman, Colemarck McCormack, who was a
lawyer Dolfer, and he said, these athletes should be treated
(05:44):
like Hollywood stars. If you're in Hollywood, you were being
paid a fortune. And so that was the beginning of
the industry. There's transformation of media companies starting to if
you want, respect the potential and power of the athletes.
But athletes didn't understand what their value or worth was,
(06:06):
and so the Arnold Palmer and you know, the enormous
summer five hundred dollars and all the catch up he
could eat that sort like a good deal at the time. Now,
of course everybody would fall about laughing. And it's that
journey over the fifty years of how sports transformed itself.
I mean, when I joined the IOC, the European television
(06:31):
rights were worth around eight million dollars, which was seen
as an enormous summer money. When I left the IOC,
the deal I negotiated was over eight billion dollars just
for Europe. And I'm sure you would see you know
the same story in your country with cricket. I mean,
what was the earning of cricket in the seventies or
(06:54):
eighties or even nineties until you had the likes first
maybe Kerry Packer come along and transform cricket, and then
later on laalat Modi with the IPL. So I suppose
it's like any industry. You look at an industry when
it begins. You look at how the Internet started out,
or the electronics industry, and if you're able to sort
(07:17):
of document that and you look at where we stand now,
they think, no way, how is it possible? And you said, well,
that's how it used to be, and I think that's
always it's an important history lesson to understand, you know,
where we've come from. It might provide some guidance and
insights to what the future has in hold. But particularly
(07:41):
in sport, which is something that everybody is so passionate about,
whether it's their team, their individual athlete. They're held up
as you know, demigods. And yet you go back and
how it all began, you know, it was a very
different world.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Michael, talking about beginnings, I think it will be impossible
to cover all the things that you've written in the book,
and we wouldn't want to do that. There has to
be an incentive for the reader to purchase your book
after listening to this. But I'd like to focus on
one section, one period that you've spoken about extensively, and
that is getting one of the earliest big sponsors through
(08:21):
the top program for the IOC and the hustle that
went on behind the scenes. I was just staggered that
I think it must be the mid eighties when you,
through isol were trying to get first MX as the
sponsor as the top sponsor, and then the whole visa
deal happened the fact that during that period there weren't
(08:42):
companies who were willing to put their money on the
Olympic Games. How tough was it to a convince them
to buy into the project, make them relevant, the games
relevant for them, and then to part their money with
you guys, how that period to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
With Well, it's a great point. You look at sport
today and you think, well, there must be companies lining
up and queuing for the opportunity to associate themselves with
the Olympics or sport. It wasn't like that. In the
early eighties. Companies understood that there was some benefit in
having their advertising sign on the side of the pitch
(09:22):
or on the athlete. But at the Olympics, we had
no advertising in the stadium, and we didn't want to
introduce advertising in the stadium in order to maintain what
made the Olympic special. And so companies the Los Angeles
Olympic Games did have some sponsorship development, and so we thought, right,
we will build off that and develop a worldwide program.
(09:45):
But all the companies the reaction. American Express is a
good example. No, we're not interested in worldwide marketing. We
have interest in a few key markets and we don't
think a worldwide marketing program will fly. And we spent
two three years touring the world talking to all of
the companies and with the exception of Coca Cola and Kodak,
(10:08):
nobody was interested. And it really looked like the top
program was going to fail. And the deal we eventually
made with Visa was a major turning point. And interesting.
Visa had no history in sports sponsorship. They didn't come
with any preconceived ideas. All they understood was here was
(10:32):
a platform, the Olympics that could transform the image of
their business because they were having this credit card war
battle with American Express, and their advertising agency came up
with an idea, what if you could run a campaign
(10:52):
that said, if you're going to the Olympic Games, and
everybody knows the Olympic Games is the biggest event in
the world, the most prestigious event in the world, if
you're going to the Olympic Games, don't forget to take
your visa card because the Olympics doesn't take American Express,
meaning on the venue, the tickets and everything, if you've
(11:14):
got an American Express, you'll shut out in the cold.
Nobody had ever used sports sponsorship like that, and this
became a real wake up call one to the industry
that actually, if you have the right strategy in using sport,
it could be an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And Visa,
(11:38):
with this campaign, which was very aggressive, completely had American
Expresses lunch. They didn't take one or two percent market share,
they took twenty to thirty percent market share off American Express.
And the CEO of American Express, James Robinson, who had
(12:00):
turns me down on the opportunity to sponsor the Olympics,
called me up after this campaign had started and said,
you've won. Okay, how much money do you want? I
give you a blank check in order now for American
Express to take over from Visa. And we say, look, sorry,
you turned us down. Visa is our partner. We're going
(12:21):
to stick with our partner. And forty years on, Visa
is still the partner of the Olympics. And the chairman
of American Express went on to say possibly the worst
professional mistake of his career turning us down, but it
was transformative to the industry way beyond the Olympics in
(12:42):
people beginning to understand, oh, so that is how you
could use sport, and it was a turning point because
I think without that deal, the top program would probably
have collapsed.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Without that deal, or perhaps even the top program of
the IOC, how different would the Games have looked Overould
they even exists? Because there's also this point that the IOC,
when one summer ranch took over as the president, had
what two hundred thousand dollars in liquidity, And you have
this wonderful line where Sammarran wrote, I felt so alone
that I couldn't cope with all these job demanded. It
(13:15):
even crossed my mind, how might d I withdraw? Would
the Games even be what they are today?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think you make the point would they even exist again?
You know, when you're looking at the billions of dollars
that are at stake today, at the competition that is
taking place between countries and cities led by their heads
of state, I mean you look at the focus that
India is now applying to potentially bid and host the
(13:43):
Olympic Games. It is a massive business, political, geo strategic adventure.
But in the late seventies early eighties, the Olympics were bankrupt.
You couldn't give the games away. For nineteen eighty four,
there were only two hosts, one was Tehran and the
other was Los Angeles, and Tehran had a slight change
(14:07):
at the top politically, and it probably no longer felt
a good idea by the Aya tollers to invite the
world to Iran and Los Angeles. The Americans said, we
love the Olympics, but we don't want to pay for them.
We don't want to bankrupt the city, and so they
had a vote. Ninety four percent of the people said no,
(14:28):
so effectively it was game over. There were no hosts,
there was no revenue, and even if you could put
something together, odds on that one of the superpowers caught
up in the middle of the Cold War would say
boycott and half the world wouldn't turn up. So a
lot of the media commentators at the time were writing
(14:50):
the obituary of the Olympics, saying, yeah, it was wonderful
for the twentieth century, but it's become too big, too political.
We move on, and it was came over. Fortunately, Sam Ranch,
you know, didn't hand the presidency back. He rolled up
his sleeves and focused on how to save the Olympics,
(15:12):
which was both a political strategy in order to bury
the concept of Boycott's and a financial strategy of well,
nobody's going to pay for the Olympics. There isn't a
queue of governments or politicians waiting to step in, so
we better get on our own and find a way
(15:35):
with what was the beginnings of the growing industry of
media broadcast rights. What is this funny business of sponsorship
going to look like? And that's when I was hired
at the IOC to help, you know, begin to develop
a strategy that was in the early days very hit
and miss. There was no master plan, Michael.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I wanted to understand, you know, some of the things
that you mentioned that the IOC movement or the Olympics
as a whole were facing back in the eighties, that
there were obituaries being written about it. People are saying
that it is too big. Those are kind of complaints
that we even hear now about the Olympics year stories
about you know, cities trying considering a bid and then
(16:19):
pulling out things like that. How do you see the
IOC kind of marketing itself evolving in a sense to
try and become something that cities will still want to
bid for.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, again, a great question, and it is a evolving place.
There has been there's a lot of debate about this,
and you know, there have been cities coming forward and
saying let's host the Olympic Games and then having a
public referendum and pulling out. These public referendums are strange
(16:55):
beasts that often they have very little to do with
the subject at hand, and often they get completely hijacked
to one or other local political interest. Prior to London
winning the rights of hosting the twenty twelve Olympic Games,
the Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, said we're going to
(17:17):
have a referendum whether this is a good idea or not.
And the president of the bid committee, Lord said Coe
said if you do that, I'll resign. And it wasn't
because Coe was opposed to democracy, not at all. But
the bid would not have ended up being about the Olympics.
It would have been a popularity campaign on the mayor
(17:40):
and all the taxi drivers would have voted against it
because they didn't like or agree with the zoning on taxis,
and on and on it would have gone. The IOC
was not proactive enough on the communications and it let
the agenda get hijacked by one or other local interest,
(18:02):
and I turned around to President buch at the time
and said, if you don't become more proactive, you will
lose every single vote. Now move on to the other issue.
Staging the Olympic Games. It is the biggest, single, most
complex peacetime event you can stage. It's not simple. And
(18:23):
before you suddenly say I want to go out and
do this, you know, the politicians, the business leader really
need to understand what they are letting themselves in for.
If you already have all of the facilities, all of
the sporting facilities, all of the infrastructure of roads and airports,
(18:46):
it's a no brainer. It'll make a lot of money.
Los Angeles Staging twenty twenty eight has everything already in
place and they will end up making a very significant
profit from staging the Games. If you have to build facilities,
that's going to cost money, and there is no way
(19:07):
you can amortize that over two weeks. London rebuilt East London.
Now that wasn't an Olympic project. East London needed to
be rebuilt, but you're not going to pay for it
over two weeks. So the moment the politicians have a
clear strategic vision about how they want to use the
(19:29):
staging of the Olympic Games as a catalyst to develop
the region and to build the infrastructure that the region needs,
then you're having a different discussion and dialogue. And my
last point on this, big cities they need sports infrastructure,
(19:50):
so there needs to be a proper legacy. But if
they don't need that particular sporting infrastructure, if there isn't
a reason to have have it from a legacy standpoint,
then make it temporary. Do not waste the money building
white elephants. And so once you approach this, and you know,
(20:11):
maybe it is a big ask getting politicians to think
strategically and not get seduced on some ego trip white elephants.
If you can achieve that, it's a very clear, simple model.
You go back to Barcelona and how for ninety two
they use the Olympic Games to transform the city. You
(20:36):
go to Beijing in two thousand and eight again of
how they used the games as a catalyst, whether it
was for transportation, whether it was for environment. But you
need to take back and have a bigger picture review.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Michael, just one other thing I wanted to understand from
you in your book. You've written this fascinating piece of
I think the London Olympics way back in the nineteen
eighties where you had this brain way of trying to
get sponsors to you know, market every mile, like put
their banners and things like that. Very fascinating idea. I
don't think a lot of marathons do that even now.
(21:14):
But back then you spoke about, you know, the challenges
of broadcasting something that is a moving sporting spectacle. Every
other sport you look at, you look at the Olympics
or you know, cricket, things like that, they are all
contained within like one sporting stadium or venue. But the
marathon is something that it's held over a forty two
(21:35):
mile thing, and that's where the complication comes in. You
look at a sport like chess right now, right, it's
something that is very contained. It happens in a very
small area, but they also have these challenges. They are
very big on streaming, but television is not forthcoming, no
matter how much it's driven by guys like Magnus Sculson
and things like that. So I'm wondering whether you had
(21:57):
any thoughts about a specific sport like chess, which is
very easy to you know, broadcast but broadcasters don't seem
to be buying into it. I know your book is
about the Olympics, but since you have so much expertise
over so many sports, I was wondering whether you had
any thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Well. I mean the book isn't just the Olympics. I
mean it also gets in a detail to Formula one
because I spent fifteen years as a sort of right
hand number two to Bernie Ecleston. It gets into saving
sports that have been thrown out of the Olympics, like
modern pentathlon and how we switched out the horses and
(22:36):
modern pentathlon and ninja warriors, to looking at the sport
of volleyball that I now chair the commercial arm worldwide.
So it looks at all sports. And there's no question
that one technology and how it has evolved over the
last fifty years, has become a great friend, a great
(22:58):
asset of helping to transform the coverage of all sport.
Your story begins before the Olympics there with the London
Marathon and how do you stage you know, a forty
two kilometer event. It was very, very difficult and complicated.
Now it's a no brainer you look at today. You
(23:21):
know in each country. The opportunity to follow any sport
from anywhere around the world, whether it's on streaming, whether
it's on one or other of hundreds of channels that
are available. You know, the fan has incredible choice. And
(23:42):
let's look at Chess. I mean, Netflix had the series
The Queen's Gambit and it showed how fascinating the presentation
of chess can be. So yes, I mean Chess might
not be a prime time show and yet okay, it
wasn't just chess, it was the whole story behind staging
(24:04):
of Chess, but it became an absolute blockbuster on Netflix.
So I think with the right creative production, every sport
if they tell the story properly, and I would come
back to India that I think was at the forefront
of merging sport and entertainment with what the IPL did
(24:29):
with Bollywood, and increasingly people are no longer interested in
just what is happening on the field of play. They
want a broader story formula. Ones exploding success in part
has been due to this series called Drive to Survive,
which is what's happening in the personalities, the sagas, the
(24:53):
stories immediately next to the action and the field of play.
Because that's how people are wanting to consume their entertainment
in their storage. They want to learn more, and so
every single sport, if they will go out and tell
the story, has a great opportunity.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Michael, just to conclude today's conversation, a couple of things
that are relevant to the Olympic movement today. One of course,
is AI and how it impacts not just the sporting side,
but also the marketing side of the games, and also
the way we watch the Olympics. For decades now, we
(25:30):
largely consumed it through television and the broadcast rights on
TV with something like say, for example, a Netflix Warner
Brothers deal or Paramount Warner Brothers deal, whatever goes through.
Do you see a profound change in the way the
broadcasting side of the Olympics will change or the marketing
side through different whatever technological advances we are seeing today
(25:54):
through AI.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yes, absolutely. And the final chapter of the book gets
into what is the future? You know, I've taken you
on this journey over fifty years through the history. I
hope you've enjoyed the journey, and then say, right, what
does the future look like? And their technology and AI
(26:15):
plays a critically important role on how sport gets broadcast,
how fans engage with the sport, how sport gets judged,
how the events get operation then delivered. So, you know,
in the same way as technology over the last fifty years,
(26:36):
maybe with not quite the same pace, but you look
at how television transformed from live television, from black and
white to color to the whole experience you can now have.
That's only going to continue, and who the broadcasters will
be is going to change. Will it be the new
(26:59):
technology player? We're seeing the Googles, the Amazons, the Facebook's
looking at sport and you know, Netflix or Amazon and
sort of suddenly making big plays. But will there be
new players that we haven't even heard of, or will
the athlete himself become the biggest single broadcaster. If you're
(27:23):
an athlete who has hundreds of millions of followers on
Instagram and you're the one telling your story, your life,
your dog, what's happening off the field of play that
is becoming as important as what is happening on the
field of play, particularly with the younger generations. So is
(27:44):
it conceivable that the single most important broadcast, you know,
a decade or two from now, is going to be
the individual athlete. It's changing. I think the challenge, particularly
for the leaders of sports organizations is how do you
embrace technology so that it is at the service of
(28:07):
the sport, at the service of the sports fan in
terms of trying to create a greater engagement, a greater insight.
But in the process, how do you make sure that
sport doesn't lose its soul. Yeah, the role of technology
in helping to judge sport. You know in tennis, you
know with hawkeye and market judges, it's become automatic. But
(28:32):
should that happen in cricket? Should you throw away the
umpires and make it all technological and automatic? At what
stage would you lose something special? And this isn't just
a case of being oh in my day, back in
the last century, it was different. What is the right balance?
And here it's really important that one understands what is
(28:55):
it that makes sports special? What should be protected? Yes,
it should be fair, but you need to make sure
that you evolve protecting where you've come from.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I was going to end with the last question, but
just you know something on what you said. It's interesting
how you mentioned the technological advance its ten years down
the line, or more, because speaking from an India point
of view, right now, if the game's being bid for
twenty thirty six, we don't know how the Olympics would
look ten to eleven years down the line, So that
(29:29):
from a host city point of view will be a
very interesting challenge how they project the games even when
they're bidding for it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
That aside, yeah, forgive me, I would beg to differ
on that. The core product of what games are you know,
is going to remain the same, whether it's twenty five
sports or thirty sports, whether there's a new sport or not,
that's not going to change the fundamental well you broadcast. Again,
(30:04):
what you're going to want to have is the best
possible visual images, the best possible audio to take the
fan right into the heart of the action. Now, you
sitting at home may start becoming your own TV producer
because you're going to choose the camera angle that you
want and it's going to be put far more power
(30:26):
in the hands of the consumer. The role of technology
in judging, the role of technology in ensuring the fair sport.
Those will change, but it's not going to change the
fundamental of what you're looking to set out and do,
and I think, if I may, the biggest single challenge
(30:49):
facing India's ambitions to host the Olympic Games is proving,
from an operational standpoint, points that you can deliver. There
is no question that there is a very strong narrative
that a nation of over a billion people, it would
(31:12):
be very interesting to share fully the Olympic spirit and
for the nation to host the Olympic Games. And this
is exactly the same discussion that I went through when
I was back at the IOC over the role of
bringing the Olympic Games to China. I was first sent
to China by Samaranch in nineteen eighty nine to begin
(31:33):
that discussion with the leadership and it was twenty years
before China staged the Games, but it was that journey.
I think with India, it's the same discussion that the Games,
as we've said before, the largest single event that has
to be staged. There is no negotiation about the timeline.
(31:59):
The date is fixed, whether you are ready or not.
And if you look back recently, when the IOC took
the Games to Brazil and Rio de Geneio, it sounded
like a great idea on paper. The only problem was
when we got to the opening ceremony, they weren't ready.
(32:21):
It was an unmitigated disaster. Operationally, the IOC had ConTroll
of the TV images, so they were able to present
to the world a incredible celebration. But the IOC president
went to bed each night, Thomas BArch, not knowing if
(32:41):
the Games could take place the next day because it
was held together on a prayer. So after that experience,
the IOC said very clearly we have to get out
of the risk business. And so as much as you
want to have the story of of sharing the Olympic
spirit with a billion people, one has also got to
(33:04):
prove unequivocally that the politicians are going to be on board,
that the business community is going to be on board,
and that the operations are not going to drown in
a bureaucracy. And I think you know, your staging of
the Asian Games will be a very important proof point,
but frankly bury the ghosts of the Commonwealth Games, which
(33:31):
will be a poster child of why you cannot afford
the risk of all the nice words, But whereas the
proof concept.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, And on the other hand, you're dealing with Petter,
which has proven legacy of hosting BIC ticket events, not
at least twenty twenty to World Cup proty s. Shashank
I don't know if he'll be able to ask. He's
just texted a question for you. He's asking, after everything
you've seen in your career, what's the truth about sports
business that would genuinely surprise people.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
In the end, it is all about trying to ensure
the success of sport. Sometimes you sort of see the
headlines on you know, the billion dollar TV or sponsorship deals,
and people think, oh, it's all the commercialization has corrupted sport.
Commercialization has changed sport, well, has it? You know, yes,
(34:24):
there's got to be a balance on the role of commercialization.
But at the end of the day, it is about
staging great events, bringing the experience to people around the world,
having the best possible performance from the athletes. And the
balancing actor is to make sure that the commercial agenda
(34:44):
is at the service of sport, not sport being at
the service of the commercial agenda.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
And that's a perfect way to end this week's episode.
Thanks so much Mikey for joining us. Hopefully next time
with the second volume of Fast Track and Dark Deals,
will you please tell if our listeners want to buy
this book, where can they get it from? Visit all
the usual websites.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I think it should be all of the usual sites
from Amazon, probably the simplest in terms of ordering from
around the world. There is a website Fasstracks dark deals
dot com and it's only been out a couple of
weeks but has already been climbing up the Amazon bestseller lists.
So it's as you can see, it's not a short book,
(35:31):
but it's one that I think some people have described
as a spy thriller because it does get into the KGB,
the Mossad, the CIA and their roles in sports, and
some stories that probably will raise a FW eyebrows.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Lovely, thanks lot, Michael. It's a pleasure talking to you
as always. See you on soon.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Thank you great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Thank you, Michael, and thank you all for listening. We
will be back with a new episode of Game Time
next week.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
You were listening to Expressports by the Indian Express. This
week's show was edited and mixed by Sesh Bawar and
produced by Mesha shang Bargev. If you like the show,
then do subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also recommend the show to someone you think
we'll like it, Share it with a friend or someone
in your family. It's the best way for people to
get to know about us. You can also tweet us
at Express Podcasts and write to us at podcasts at
(36:25):
Indianexpress dot com
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