What you need to know:

• The AOC is scrambling for banking and telco commercial partners as the countdown to the Paris 2024 Olympics gets closer. Westpac and Optus didn't renew after Tokyo.
• Media owners now going to market to secure their own commercial partnerships.
• Outdoor company QMS publicly its their Paris 2024 packages last week, seeking between $1m and $1.7m from brands to tap its network.
• Nine and News Corp now planning market offensive in increasingly competitive climate as FIFA Women's World Cup siphons off sports marketing dollars, but both keeping cards close to chest.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is on the hunt for partners across four key categories – including banking and telecommunications – as out of home company QMS fired the starter pistol on its market push to find sponsors and advertisers for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The firm is hoping to put distance between itself and media owner rivals in a market under pressure from both marketing budget constraints and competition from the FIFA Women's World Cup, running in Australia and New Zealand in less than a month, a year out from the Paris games.

Last year, 28 AOC commercial partners invested more than $15 million in sponsorship, putting the AOC broadly on track within its four-year $70.9 million target. 

But rising costs due to spiralling inflation is piling pressure onto the AOC to grow its commercial revenue for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games that run from 26 July to 11 August. It now estimates the cost of sending over a team could head well north of $25m.

AOC head of commercial Jess Hurford told Mi3 that there are "big gaping holes” in its commercial programme, with the committee now trying to convince banks, telcos, energy companies and superannuation firms to fill the gaps left by the likes of Westpac and Optus pulling out – and then some.

But she admits the going is exceptionally tough.

“We're in market at the moment doing a big drive to try [and attract partners]. We're having conversations, but some have spent a lot of money on sponsorships in other spaces,” she said.

“It's maybe a harder job for a marketing director in Olympic land because you have got to be really creative and have great agencies that know how to bring it to life.”

One long-standing Olympics sponsor told Mi3 last week there were added complexities for Paris with the switch from Seven to Nine as the broadcast and multi-channel media partner - Seven's well-oiled Olympics machine is new territory for Nine as it builds towards its first Olympics coverage.     

But with a year to go, Hurford remains confident that the AOC will attract more partners. Krystyna Frassetto, Sydney MD of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, said the AOC is already starting to see some momentum, adding the likes of Nine Entertainment and French engineering firm Egis as new partners in the last few months. But she acknowledged the challenge the AOC – and media owners trying to monetise sporting rights – now face.

“We have a number of our clients either attached to the AOC, locally, and our Olympic teams around the world,” she said. “Some have long standing relationships and will renew as a no-brainer, others will be renegotiating and looking at their rights and entitlements and how they can get the best out of it. And then we've actually had a few that have just jumped on within the last couple of months. So I would say that they've got momentum, but there are still pretty big lucrative opportunities on the table.”

Part of the problem attracting sponsors is added pressure on sponsorship and marketing budgets due to inflation, as well of the scale of investment required.

“In a cost down environment, I don't think there's millions sitting there ready to go. A lot of those banks and telcos, those big organisations have their sponsorship dollars tied up in a lot of other sports," Frassetto explained. 

“If you look at Optus, they used to be attached to the Olympics, but they've since pulled out and pivoted their money elsewhere. When you're buying into the Olympics, you're not just doing it for one cycle. It's a really big investment, you're probably looking at the Commonwealth Games, you're looking at Paris 2024 and you're looking at Brisbane 2032. That's a big investment you need to probably pull out of one of your other sports.”

Media sponsorship

Olympics media partners are now also coming to market in a bid to commercialise their rights.

QMS, the official outdoor media partner of the Australian Olympic Teams for Paris 2024 and the 2026 Olympic Winter Games to be held in Milan-Cortina, Italy, launched its sponsorship packages to media buyers and marketers on Thursday at the Sydney Opera House. Five Olympians discussed their careers, experiences and aspirations for Paris, including Steve Solomon (athletics), Melissa Wu (diving), David McKeon (swimming), Cameron Girdlestone (rowing) and Rachael Gunn (breaking, the official term for breakdancing). 

QMS is touting three packages – gold, silver and bronze, unsurprisingly – and is seeking between $1 million and $1.7 million for each package from advertisers. During the peak period of the games, QMS predicts gold-tier sponsor campaigns will reach at least 50 per cent of its network per week, and upwards of 85 million impressions. Including lead up and post-Olympics flighting, it forecasts a gold package will reach 75 per cent of the QMS network, delivering circa 426 million impressions.

QMS executive general manager Mark Fairhurst, said the digital skew of its network screens – circa 94 per cent of QMS inventory each week is digital – helped land the Olympics deal.

QMS will run an Olympic screen network with news and stories about athletes that AOC partners can sit alongside. The peak viewing period will be during the morning commute (AEST), when Paris 2024 night events take place, such as swimming and athletics.

“The format we've taken is utilising 75 per cent of the available screen space to display with the remaining 25 per cent of screen space allocated to the partner in the form of an AOC branded blocker,” per QMS Strategic Sales Director Adrian Venditti.

“A gold partnership ensures your brand will be attached to every key moment pre, during, and post the games. Beyond the content alignment, gold partners will receive increased share of time when it matters most [plus] choice of content ownership pre-games and 100 per cent spot adjacency to content.”

Nine & News Corp's Olympic plays

With QMS setting out its stall, other media rightsholders and partners are now finalising their own commercial approaches. Nine, which paid the International Olympic Committee $305m for the next five games from Paris 2024 to Brisbane 2032, across TV, streaming, radio and print and digital publishing, has the most urgency to recoup its outlays, but is not rushing to market.

Mi3 understands Nine will begin conversations with Olympic partners and advertisers in the coming months and reveal more of its Paris 2024 plans at its upfronts event later this year.

The final AOC media deal is with News Corp, which has been a long-term publishing partner. There are rumblings of some early tension between News and Nine but News Corp's rights allow it access to AOC IP, Team Australia athletes and storytelling.

The firm said it will focus primarily on deals with existing AOC partners with News Sport Network managing director Michael Wilkins signalling the publisher will be begin formative talks with AOC sponsors over the next three months to formulate plans and campaigns. He said activity is likely to begin in 2024, six months ahead of the opening ceremony.

“Most of our commercial deals will be with AOC partners,” he said. “As a news company we share an interest in driving success with those partners. It’s not just about the dollars, it's about our company supporting the Olympic movement and the teams that are representing us in Paris," added Wilkins.

“We will attend forums with AOC partners to gain insights on what they want to achieve and how we can help them leverage our platforms to bring their sponsorship to life.”

The AOC's Jess Hurford, who attended the QMS Paris 2024 launch, said media partners are critical in driving reach and engagement for the Committee – and outlined some of the significant opportunities for brands.

"We don't receive government funding or have a marketing budget but we do think it's important to tell the story of the athletes to spread the word. So we receive media in kind from our media partners and work with M&C Saatchi to then create what we put on them. For example, our Have a Go Campaign (see below).

"We've got some pretty great programs that are not sponsored, I would say, like our Olympics unleashed, which has touched over a quarter of a million school kids and had Olympians out in schools telling their journey stories, is not sponsored. So that would be something [potentially interesting] for banks and telcos."

M&C Saatchi's Krystyna Frassetto said storytelling possibilities around a broad range of athletes from all corners of Australia makes the Olympic Games a unique sponsorship proposition when compared with other single code sports. And she thinks that the games athletes present sponsorship value in dollar-for-dollar terms.

"These athletes are really special and because they're usually local heroes, they've got regular lives. Most of the Olympians are a little bit more affordable [versus other sports stars], so they actually can offer a lot of value in terms of being incredibly relevant to your everyday Australian – they've got these amazing human interest stories," she said.

Brands could better leverage those stories, she suggested.

"Sports sponsorship continues to be a very competitive, crowded space. There is starting to be a category of brands who are rising above that clutter by doing something distinctly different and delivering on these long term legacy programmes. So I think that's where you start to stand out from the rest. It's not just logos, it's not just LED signage, you're using those sponsorships to create a real conversation in culture."