Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Brooks' Weber: Olympic Sponsorship Ban Hurting Athletes (Audio)

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Brooks' Weber: Olympic Sponsorship Ban Hurting Athletes (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellot, and that's a Bloomberg Business flash. This
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  Speaker 1: is taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Fox on
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio Rule forty. Uh. Just another way if you
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  Speaker 1: read a lot of the information we read a day
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  Speaker 1: ahead of this interview, just one more way in which
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  Speaker 1: the International Olympic Committee gains and many of the athletes
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  Speaker 1: who go to the Olympics, having spent most of their
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  Speaker 1: lives getting ready for them, don't joining us now. As
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  Speaker 1: a man who is very close to this in in
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  Speaker 1: key ways, Jim Webber is the CEO of Brooks Running.
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  Speaker 1: It's a Berkshire Hathaway company founded in nineteen fourteen in Philadelphia,
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  Speaker 1: headquartered in Seattle, now for more than twenty years, running
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  Speaker 1: shoes of all kinds, unique designs. You can buy them
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  Speaker 1: online in stores. But Jim's here to talk about the Olympics,
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  Speaker 1: where his company is sponsoring twelve athletes. Twelve Olympic athletes, Jim,
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. Thanks, it's great to be here.
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  Speaker 1: So how did you get in? I mean obvious, I
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  Speaker 1: guess it's an obvious thing to do to sponsor athletes
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  Speaker 1: if you make running shoes. Well, it's interesting because running
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  Speaker 1: is actually really unique among all sports because the soul
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  Speaker 1: of running is the sport. But but what's interesting is
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  Speaker 1: it becomes more than that. For us. It's a fitness, healthy,
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  Speaker 1: well lifestyle activity. So running transcends the sport. So we
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  Speaker 1: invest in the sport um really to inspire literally high
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  Speaker 1: school kids and younger runners to compete and begin moving
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  Speaker 1: because frankly, we know they'll they'll keep running on into
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  Speaker 1: old age. So the sport, I would say, is the
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  Speaker 1: soul of what we do. It's not the core of
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  Speaker 1: our business, but it's an investment um really in the
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  Speaker 1: sport and future runners. Now, I just want to mention
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  Speaker 1: that it doesn't involve you directly, but it does involve
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  Speaker 1: this issue of rule forty in the Olympics. Right Michael Phelps,
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  Speaker 1: who is I guess he's like the crown jewel of
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  Speaker 1: under armos Olympic athletes. Do you know that in the
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  Speaker 1: cover on the cover of the latest Sports Illustory magazine,
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  Speaker 1: do you know that he's wearing Nike sweatpants. And the
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  Speaker 1: reason that he's wearing Nike sweatpants is because Nike is
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  Speaker 1: the sponsor of the US team Team USA, and as
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  Speaker 1: part of the legal agreement, they are required as an
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  Speaker 1: Olympian to wear Nike for the sponsors. Now, the US
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  Speaker 1: Olympic Committee didn't really have a comment about this, but
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  Speaker 1: can you just explain what is going on here that
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  Speaker 1: athletes are sponsored by one company? The Olympic Committee might say, no,
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  Speaker 1: you've got to wear this because the team is sponsored
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  Speaker 1: by someone else. Explained the details. So there's there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of history here too, right, because the Olympics started
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  Speaker 1: with amateur athletes and only in the last few decades
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  Speaker 1: has professionalism come into it. And that's a whole another topic.
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  Speaker 1: But in essence, there's no question or ambiguity at all
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  Speaker 1: that the Olympic Movement, the IOC and the U s
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  Speaker 1: o C owns the image and name of the athlete
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  Speaker 1: while they're on the team, the national team and competing,
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  Speaker 1: and so, uh, Michael Phelps does not have any rights
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  Speaker 1: to his image or his name during this period of
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  Speaker 1: the Olympics. It's it's managed through the U s o
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  Speaker 1: C and the IOC and UM. That's what Rule forty
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  Speaker 1: is all about. It restricts other commercial usage of the
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  Speaker 1: athletes name and image during this period of time by
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  Speaker 1: any of their sponsors or partners, but most importantly by
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  Speaker 1: the athlete themselves. Why why was this rural mate? Because
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  Speaker 1: I think the major sponsors at the international level and
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  Speaker 1: even at the governing body level for each sport, for
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  Speaker 1: USA track and field, for swim, for cycling, um, they
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  Speaker 1: have sponsors and those sponsors want exclusivity on these athletes
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  Speaker 1: image and name during this period of time, and that
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  Speaker 1: has impacts. And that's why you know, we're creating a
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  Speaker 1: social media campaign around this topic, really on behalf of athletes, because, um,
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  Speaker 1: this isn't basketball. I'm talking about running USA track and field,
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  Speaker 1: and it's not even an n C double a sport
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  Speaker 1: where each athlete is getting a two to three hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollar education. These people aren't getting paid at all.
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  Speaker 1: They have to they have to garner their own support,
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  Speaker 1: and most of them don't have a professional outlet as
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  Speaker 1: they do in the NBA or tennis or golf to
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  Speaker 1: make a living off of this. So for every Hussain
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  Speaker 1: Bolt or Michael Phelps, I think five hundred athletes UM
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  Speaker 1: that no one knows their name. They're not going to
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  Speaker 1: get on the podium. But this is the biggest moment
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  Speaker 1: of their life and UM they're being restricted on UM
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  Speaker 1: the use of their name and and and really you know,
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  Speaker 1: supporting the people that supported them. What you'll see now
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  Speaker 1: in the Olympics is some of the non sponsored athletes
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  Speaker 1: by the by the big brand that's sponsoring all of
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  Speaker 1: these teams and others. UM is you're going to see
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  Speaker 1: them put the shoes around their neck. Because the only
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  Speaker 1: piece of equipment that a track and field athlete has
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  Speaker 1: is their shoes. That's not too in swimming, the cap
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  Speaker 1: is a piece of equipment. It's not too in cycling,
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  Speaker 1: but in running, Uh, they can't say the name of
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  Speaker 1: their shoe sponsor, they can't show the brand in a
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  Speaker 1: commercial sense, but they can put the equipment around their neck.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the only thing they can do. Tell us
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  Speaker 1: about this partnership that you've got with Zappos and UM.
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  Speaker 1: Nick Simmons yep so, Nick is probably one of the
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  Speaker 1: most prolific voices for athletes right certainly in in track
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  Speaker 1: and field, and has been two time Olympian, two time
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  Speaker 1: Olympian eight runner and he was he was in fantastic
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  Speaker 1: shape and got injured, so unfortunately he couldn't compete at
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  Speaker 1: the trials this year and didn't make the team. But
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  Speaker 1: nonetheless he is on a mission to create more balance UM,
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  Speaker 1: both in terms of sharing UH the significant revenues at
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  Speaker 1: the international UH and and USOC committee levels to the
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  Speaker 1: athlete as well giving athletes control over their image UM
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  Speaker 1: and being able to put together sponsorship and support UM
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  Speaker 1: in their dream and in pursuit of this, of this,
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  Speaker 1: of the metal and so he's the biggest voice on that.
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  Speaker 1: So we're supporting him. Essentially, we're supporting him and this
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  Speaker 1: rule forty dot com effort was really about supporting his voice.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for shutting light on all of this.
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  Speaker 1: Jim Webber is the chief executive of Brooks Running Theory
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  Speaker 1: Berkshire Hathaway, a company. They're based in Seattle. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for listening to taking stockhm him Fox My co host
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  Speaker 1: Kathleen Hayes. This is Bloomberg coming up. Bloomberg Law. Brought
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