As previously reported Seven West Media has secured the broadcast rights to the next three Olympics Games (read more here) and to the 2016 Paralympics (read more here). Today Seven has made a further commitment to the Olympic Movement by becoming an Official Partner of the Australian Olympic Team for the first time.
Seven joins brands such as QANTAS, Samsung, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Adidas and Visa as Australian Olympic Team partners.
The multi-year partnership will include Australian Teams competing in Rio 2016, PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020, as well as the 2016, 2018 and 2020 Youth Olympic Games.
Under the agreement with the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), Seven now has team marketing rights across its television, magazines, newspaper and online publishing platforms through until the end of 2020. Expect to see the Australian Olympic Team logo appearing on Seven properties soon!
According to the news release, Seven under the agreement will also:
- provide valued media support to increase promotion of Australian Olympic values to youth and enhance consumer engagement around the Team; and
- support and enhance the AOC’s Olympic Education Program which already reaches 17,000 Australian teachers.
Kerry Stokes, Chairman of Seven West Media, said of the new deal:
“We are extraordinarily proud of our long-term partnership with the Olympic movement. We are looking forward to Rio and beyond and are delighted to commit our company to a partnership with the Australian Olympic Committee.”
The new agreement evidences a push by broadcasters in Australia to become involved in sports beyond purchasing the broadcasting rights.
Last year, we reported on Seven’s deal with the National Football League, where aside from securing broadcast rights, Seven was appointed by the NFL as its digital advertising representative for NFL.com and m.nfl.com in Australia. At the time of the announcement, Kurt Burnette, Chief Revenue Officer for Seven said they:
“…will offer a number of new opportunities across our multiple channel platform for our audiences and our advertising partners.”
Further, Nine Live (Nine Entertainment Co’s event company, which was announced last month as being sold to private equity with the deal likely to complete on July 31 subject to usual conditions – read more about that deal in an article published by The Australian here) is bringing (as the event’s promoter) soccer’s International Champions Cup to Australia. The event will be broadcast nationally on the Nine Network (below is an example of an advertisement for the International Champions Cup on Nine).
In the subscription TV space, Foxtel has established grass-roots relationships with Football Federation Australia and Netball Australia. These are in addition to the broadcast rights which are held by Fox Sports (which is on the Foxtel platform).
The reach of these multi-platform media organisations are now invaluable for sports organisations as they continue to look to attract sponsors in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
For media organisations, by having deep relationships with attractive sports properties, this increases the number of eyes watching, listening, reading and logging-on to a media organisation’s properties which in-turn attracts greater revenue (through advertising and subscription revenue).
Lets wait to see how Seven leverages its new relationship with the AOC.
Reference
Seven expands Olympic partnership to support Australian Team
Nine Entertainment sells Nine Live to private equity for $640m