By Craille Maguire Gillies

Canadian Olympian, Maelle Ricker.

Never in recent memory has the launch of a product been so prescient. Annie Leibovitz’s somber, muscled photo of Tiger Woods on the cover of Vanity Fair was eerily timed given the golf star’s recent troubles. Just as Woods became the first athlete to make US$1 billion, his “transgressions,” a bizarre car wreck and sudden sabbatical eclipsed the accomplishment. The scandal also hurt the lucrative Woods brand. Management consultancy Accenture quickly dropped Woods as its spokesperson and AT&T hung up on the star. Good publicity for Vanity Fair; not so good for the bottom line of America’s top athlete.

Olympic-sized Markets

It might be coincidental that the Woods scandal hit around the same time that other athletes were gearing up to compete in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. But the two events highlight the complex, layered business of sports marketing, a side that most of us never think about when we’re sitting up in the bleachers: the buying, selling and branding of athletes. For pro athletes, this is part of the game. “It happens the day you sign with the NBA. That’s what older people tell you, is that you’re a business now, whether you like it or not,” Chris Bosh, a forward with the Toronto Raptors who starred in the documentary First Ink, told CBC Radio’s Jian Ghomeshi. He could have been talking about any sport.  (An honours student and philanthropist, Bosh also just signed a deal with Warner Music.)

Marrying sport and business and entertainment is natural for Bosh. He’s less of a basketball player and more of a personality. This is something Olympic athletes experience in a shorter, more intense period as marketing campaigns gear up for 15 days of competition, rather than a whole season. And despite a recession, companies are coming on board. In late 2009, for instance, Proctor & Gamble signed up six athletes for its Olympics campaigns, saying that “The athletes will be fully integrated across numerous marketing channels including advertising, public relations, in-store merchandising, mobile, digital and direct mail.”

John Furlong, CEO of organizing body VANOC,  says, “There has been no better time in the last 50 years to be a Canadian winter athlete. Sponsors are hiring athletes in jobs tailored to them, and corporations are sponsoring them.” The benefit, especially for those who don’t have lucrative contracts to fritter away, is that “Many can finally do what top athletes around the world have been allowed to do – train full time without having to worry about losing a job.”

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