FEI Secretary General Alex McLin has today addressed the Sport Accord International Federations Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland, speaking on the topic of “Sharing Control: working with event owners within your sport”.
In one of six key addresses at the fourth IF Forum, Alex McLin focused on the specific challenges faced by Federations that regularly work with different event owners within their sport.
“It is imperative to look at the strategic importance of the event in order to determine the level of control that the IF wants to retain, however, a minimum of control in some areas is necessary”, McLin said.
He also highlighted the importance of finding “win-win solutions that bring value to the sport, organising committees and the sponsors”.
He showed his audience three commercial models that are used by the FEI, demonstrating how complex and diverse the rights sharing landscape can be.
“We have approximately 2,200 events on our international calendar every year and the mix of a sponsored class within an event such as the Rolex FEI World Cup makes our sport both rich and complex from a commercial rights stand-point”, he said.
Other speakers at the Forum were Mike Plant, Executive Vice President of Business Operations, Atlanta Braves; Patrick Baumann, Secretary General FIBA; Dr Susan Bridgewater, Director of the Centre for Management in Sport at Warwick University; Karen Webb, Executive Director of Marketing and Communications for the Olympic Park Legacy Company; Svein Romstad, Secretary General of the International Luge Federation (FIL) and Matt Smith, Executive Director, FIFA.
IOC President Jacques Rogge officially opened the Forum on Monday of this week. The three-day Forum, which was attended by over 200 delegates representing international sports governing bodies, was based on the theme “Better business practices for running your IF”.
SportAccord is the umbrella organisation for all Olympic and non-Olympic international sports federations as well as organisers of international games and sport-related international associations. Currently, SportAccord counts 104 Members, grouping 89 International Federations and 15 Associated Members. One of the main objectives is to unite and support international sports federations by encouraging and facilitating knowledge sharing and by providing expertise in relevant areas.
The SportAccord IF Forum is an annual conference open to delegates from all international sports Federations. The IF Forum has been held in Lausanne (SUI), the Olympic Capital, since its first running in 2007.