Michael Payne has been at the forefront of Sports Marketing for over 40 years, most of that time spent leading and advising on deals around the Olympic Games. Payne has brokered over 25 billion dollars worth of deals and sold his first sponsorship package at the age of just sixteen!
He worked alongside all of the great leaders who built the industry – from two decades at the IOC with President Samaranch, and in those early days Horst Dassler of adidas, to over a decade with Bernie Ecclestone at F1 as his right hand person, to now Chairing Volleyball World – a joint venture between FIVB and the private equity group CVC.
Payne already has a Sunday Times – Best Sports Book of the Year (2022) and his latest work – Fast Tracks & Dark Deals, How Sport Became Business and Business Became Sport – is available to pre-order now – www.fasttracksdarkdeals.com
It tells the story of how the industry started in the 1970’s and looks to the future – focussing on what sport and the business of sport holds in store for the next 50 years.
Michael on the future of Sports Marketing:
“Let’s not pretend sport is evolving gently – it is being dismantled and rebuilt in real time. – rules roles, business models and even the reasons we care, they are all up for grabs. Some of it deserves reinvention, some of it we’ll perhaps miss when it has gone.
The old idea of sport – communal, local, appointment based, built on geography, broadcast schedules and tradition is fading, and fading fast. What’s replacing it, is faster, louder, more personalised and infinitely less predictable.”
Michael on fandom:
“We have to ask, what does it mean to be a fan when your algorithm knows you better than you know your hometown team, when loyalty is shaped less by geography and more by what your feed serves you next .
What does it mean when you can watch forty angles of a goal in four seconds but can’t remember the score five minutes later.”
Michael on the challenge to conventional wisdom about sport:
What does it mean to be an athlete when you are no longer judged just by how you perform, but how well you monetise, post and create content in an ecosystem that tracks your every move.
And what does it mean to manage a sport or a league when your competition isn’t just other leagues, but Netflix, Tik Tok and whatever digital distraction is grabbing attention this week.”
Fast Tracks & Dark Deals, How Sport Became Business and Business Became Sport – www.fasttracksdarkdeals.com